The Ones Who Take the Train to Omelas

by John Holbo on November 20, 2021

A couple years back I made a post about Le Guin’s “Omelas”. I teach it, and it’s been rattling around up there in the attic. I had this idea for a visual gag. And that led to a story, which led back to rethinking my story thoughts. I wrote a little essay. You can read the story and the essay here. And see the rest of the little pictures.

{ 14 comments }

1

Chetan Murthy 11.20.21 at 2:18 am

Grim humor for a grim day. Thanks, John. Seriously.

2

oldster 11.20.21 at 6:03 am

Very nice, John, and the posters are lovely.
Slight continuity glitch in the notes?

“This feels right but is a bit hard to apply, straight, to the story—Le Guin’s “Omelas”. Let’s consider

As I said, the story is a TE.”

The lack of punctuation after “consider”, as well as the resumption after it, lead me to think that something is missing, or some transitions need smoothing.

I don’t see that very much turns on whether we can amalgamate Omelas into a unity in order then to make it a formally Nozickian Utility Monster. The stakes seem the same either way. And if something hangs on treating it as a unity, then it maybe harder to integrate day trippers.
Years ago I saw parts of Monsters Inc on a plane (the only place I see popular films). I found it morally loathsome and genuinely upsetting. It shocked me that this was marketed to children. I am not surprised that it has now been incorporated into the QAnon muthos as evidence of systemic child abuse — they are crazy people, but that’s at least the right valence of reaction.

3

John Holbo 11.20.21 at 6:40 am

Thanks. I will consider the clarity of that, Oldster. Right now, I’m taking an Omelas freeday, after overdosing for a day!

4

Glen Tomkins 11.20.21 at 3:35 pm

Well, I can’t see that The Republic is a TE either.

5

craig fritch 11.20.21 at 8:03 pm

Renee Girard covered this in his mimetic double bind analysis of sacrifice and scapegoats,

6

dilbert dogbert 11.21.21 at 12:05 am

Must be a spelling error. Olema is the place. Or, the mysterious place called Bolinas.

7

Kaleberg 11.21.21 at 2:27 am

Totally brilliant. Well done.

It reminds me of that old Vincent Price movie, “Escape From Plato’s Cave”.

8

SusanC 11.21.21 at 1:16 pm

An additional complication:

It’s a common SF trope for a dystopia story to have an unreliable narrator.

So our typical reaction is, sure the narrator is saying that it’s a utopia, but are they lying to us?

(I am trying to think of good examples of this trope, but my memory fails me for the moment)

9

SusanC 11.21.21 at 1:38 pm

Iphigenia in Aulis is a play, so doesn’t have a single narrator to be unreliable … but I’d offer it as an early example of a dystopia where what the characters say is not to be taken at face value.

So, part of our problem reading The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas: how do we know this isn’t some kind of Iphigenia in Aulis setup? (Iphigenia in the role of the child, of course).

10

oldster 11.21.21 at 9:03 pm

Susan C —

“It’s a common SF trope for a dystopia story to have an unreliable narrator. So our typical reaction is, sure the narrator is saying that it’s a utopia, but are they lying to us?”

JH does discuss the issue of the narrator’s reliability, fairly extensively, in his notes, linked at the end of his story. Sample:

“So Le Guin’s narrator does a brilliant thing: she lets the reader tell the story, filling in about how great Omelas is. Surely the reader doesn’t need to worry that she herself, the reader, is unreliable!”

You may not find his discussion convincing, but he did at least discuss it.

11

Dave Heasman 11.21.21 at 11:35 pm

The Cold Equations, eh?
Very nearly the first adult SF I ever read, in a Faber anthology about 1958.
There’s a recent story with the same pretext, but the ship is saved by everybody cutting off a leg.

12

J-D 11.22.21 at 2:59 am

<

blockquote>It’s a common SF trope for a dystopia story to have an unreliable narrator.
…
(I am trying to think of good examples of this trope, but my memory fails me for the moment)

<

blockquote>Here’s a tropers’ list of stories described as dystopias:
https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Dystopia#Literature
Here’s a tropers’ (spoilerriffic) list of stories described as having unreliable narrators:
https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Unreliable_Narrator/Literature

I’m not finding the overlap, though.

Iphigenia in Aulis is a play, so doesn’t have a single narrator to be unreliable … but I’d offer it as an early example of a dystopia where what the characters say is not to be taken at face value.

I’m not clear how it qualifies as a dystopia–unless you’re broadening the definition of dystopia to the point where nearly any tragedy qualifies.

13

Theophylact 11.23.21 at 6:23 pm

“Omelas” is just a reversal of “Salem, O.” According to Wikipedia,

Le Guin hit upon the name of the town on seeing a road sign for Salem, Oregon, in a car mirror. “[… People ask me] ‘Where do you get your ideas from, Ms. Le Guin?’ From forgetting Dostoyevsky and reading road signs backwards, naturally. Where else?”

She may have been a California native, but she moved to Portland, Oregon, in 1959, and lived there the rest of her life.

14

MFB 11.24.21 at 10:23 am

Rather fine stuff, this.

Comments on this entry are closed.