Remember, Remember the Fifth of November

[eldritchhobbit]

Happy Guy Fawkes/Bonfire Night. Today's a great day for reading a good book or watching a good film. :)

Happy birthday to madkestrel. May your day be fantastic and your next year the very best yet!

Reminder: if you'd like a holiday card from me this December, please go here. Thanks!


Remember, remember the fifth of November,
The gunpowder, treason and plot,
I see of no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

Comments

[alitalf.livejournal.com]

The only man to enter parliament with honest intentions - unless, perhaps, you include David Blunkett's guide dog.

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

LOL! Indeed.

[jadepilot.livejournal.com]

Ooooh I wish they were playing V for Vendetta on TV tonight!

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

You'd think they'd've thought of that, wouldn't you?

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

I've never seen it with "of" in the third line. Is that an older version?

The ironic of Guy Fawkes Day is that apparently Fawkes was not one of the core conspirators; he seems to have been a technical consultant they brought in to make sure things worked. So I suppose in a way Guy Fawkes Day is a celebration of the ineptness of terrorists. Or maybe of "no plan of battle survives contact with us."

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

I do believe it is, yes. I'm pretty sure I first read it that way in a history text.

Ouch, that is ironic. And rather sad for poor Fawkes!

[brighteyed-jill.livejournal.com]

V for Vendetta is a damn good movie (and a pretty good graphic novel, too). I once watched it with a bunch of Russians on Guy Fawkes Day. After their initial skepticism ("I speak English fine, but this speech with all the V's is too much; British people do not speak this way.") they really loved it. Yay for cautionary tales of fascist governments! I always found it strange that the Russians didn't seem to be into dystopia as much as, say, the British or Americans. You'd think that would be right up their alley.

[sittingduck1313.livejournal.com]

I imagine actually living the nightmare is considerably less fun than conjuring up "what if?" speculations regarding dystopias.

[brighteyed-jill.livejournal.com]

All the more reason why such fiction would be relevant and potentially eye-opening. I just find it strange that despite their super-strong literary tradition (and in fact, their culture of literature) that dystopian fiction isn't a genre that's popular.

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

Good point! And the nightmare would sort of squash the chance to respond via fiction...

Then again, there's Zamyatin's We, which influenced all the greats that followed.

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

Yay for cautionary tales of fascist governments!

Yay indeed!

You'd think that. Then again, one of the greatest of the classic dystopias was written by a Russian (We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, and it influenced other early greats like Brave New World, 1984, and Anthem, which was also written by a Russian, albeit an expatriate), and it got banned in his homeland for more than 60 years, while the rest of the world gobbled it up. So maybe that sent a message to other Russian novelists to turn their attentions elsewhere!

I second your love for V for Vendetta in both of its forms.

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

PS. Of course, that was the Soviet era, not now... Did the Strugatsky brothers write any dystopias? Ugly Swans, maybe?

[brighteyed-jill.livejournal.com]

I really need to read We. And the Soviet government for sure sent strong messages about how fiction (and poetry, and theater, and other art) had better toe the line. I wonder if there's lost fiction on these themes somewhere, either destroyed or hidden away by censors or by the writers themselves, fearing persecution. The world may never know.

[muuranker.livejournal.com]

As a sometime resident of York, I am in two minds. But it _is_ the time of year for lights! Happy Diwali!

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes! And to you, too!

[ankh-hpl.livejournal.com]

Thanks for saving me from having to post on this topic today! (-: I've both read the book & seen the movie -- but the book made it very hard to sleep afterwards. Nobody does dystopia like the British.

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

Nobody does dystopia like the British.

So true!