''AFTER OMELAS''

 

First of all, let's get one thing out of the way first...

 

Ursula K. Le Guin's short story from 1973 titled "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" used the city name of Omelas. Where's Omelas, you ask? I did, too. It turns out that the author says she saw the letters in her rear-view mirror one day while driving to Salem, Oregon -- see? -- if what she says is true. Whatever, the 1973 story is a good story and it's still with us and has stood the test of time.

 

First of all, let's get one thing out of the way first.

Still, and yet, a good follow up question for the author and all literature classes studying this short story -- and the question was channeled to this blog by a novelist in a far away land -- "So after those who left Omelas left Omelas, where did they go?"

Le Guin has never answered the question. Any guesses? Your point of view?

Now: to this post..... "After Omelas"....

It's going to happen like this, says Cli-Fi Guy, looking into his glass of cold dark beer: Not the End of the World, but the book publication and subsequent movie release of a novel and its  film adaptation....sometime in the NEAR future, and it's going to look a bit like this:

First, remember how powerful Nevil Shute's 1957 novel titled ON THE BEACH -- and its subsequent movie adaptation the following year -- and how the book/movie combo served in a big way to wake up the world -- AND WORLD LEADERS! -- about the dangers of nuclear war and a nuclear winter. Enough said. You know the story.

Now IMAGINE THIS: in the year 20XX, a novelist somewhere in the English-speaking world -- although it might appear first in print in German, or French, or Italain or Norwegian, or Swedish, or Finnish or Japanese or Chinese or Spanish -- and titled "TO BE ANNOUNCED UPON PUBLICATION" ...and it becomes so popular and well-received as both a novel and a movie that it alsos serves to wake up not only the general public worldwide and intellectuals AND WORLD LEAEDERS and the UNITED NATIONS....that it results in a worldwide wake up call abou the dangers of unstoppable climate change and global warming...and results in world leaders actually TAKING ACTION.

Mark my words: such a novel/movie combo is coming. The novelist who is going to write it has been born already and is living among us, right now as we speak. No idea when the novel and movie will be released, but within the next 100 years. For sure.

PREPARE.