Anarchist Literature

[Dark Muse]

I have a fascination with anarchy and find that many anarchist ideas appeal to me. There is something about the whole idea of anarchy that I find very liberating and I find I quite enjoy literature that revolves around ideas of anarchy.

Not too long ago I had read Fight Club which I very much enjoyed and now I have just started reading The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by G. K. Chesterton and thus far I am finding the story to be thoroughly engaging and is keeping me on the edge of my seat.

I would love for recommendations on other literary works which focus around anarchy or features a main character who is an anarchist.

I would also be curious if anyone knows of any anarchist authors.

[Gregory Samsa]

Noam Chomsky, Oscar Wilde, Emile Armand, Han Ryner, Henri Zisly, Renzo Novatore, Miguel Gimenez Igualada, Adolf Brand and Lev Chernyi.

[Scheherazade]

...now I have just started reading The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by G. K. Chesterton and thus far I am finding the story to be thoroughly engaging and is keeping me on the edge of my seat. Read this one not too long ago and I had a similar reaction to yours. It started so excitingly but later on my opinion has changed dramatically. I don't wish to spoil it for you so will wait until you finish to discuss further.

Under Western Eyes by Conrad deals with anarchy heavily. I read it while at university and remember not being able to put it down.

American Pastoral by Roth also deals with anarchy and terrorism but I cannot say I enjoyed that book very much.

In a less obvious way, American Gods by Gaiman also touches upon the subject.

[Dark Muse]

Read this one not too long ago and I had a similar reaction to yours. It started so excitingly but later on my opinion has changed dramatically. I don't wish to spoil it for you so will wait until you finish to discuss further.

Under Western Eyes by Conrad deals with anarchy heavily. I read it while at university and remember not being able to put it down.

American Pastoral by Roth also deals with anarchy and terrorism but I cannot say I enjoyed that book very much.

In a less obvious way, American Gods by Gaiman also touches upon the subject.

The first two books I actually own but haven't gotten around to reading yet, but maybe I will bump them up hire on my to read list now.

I loved American Gods, at the time of reading it I was not thinking of it in terms or anarchy, but yes I can see where it does have such ideas within it.

[Paulclem]

Some of China Mieville's books have an anarchist - or perhaps a counter cultural - take on society. I'm thinking of Perdido Street Station and The Iron Council which are both brilliant dystopian fantasy/ steampunk books set in a world with a totalitarian government. Kraken by him is set in London and also features a wide array of political/magical/fantasy elements and charaters that dovetail with the real London. He himself is a leftwing writer, and he has some strong views concerning leftwing politics.

[PeterL]

I don't which aspects of anarchy appeal to you, but I am an anarchist, and one of the books that I like in part for its anarchist theme is The Aluminum Man by G. C. Edmondson. Some of his other books are similar. I'll think about the question and see if I can think of any more good anarchist books.

[Dark Muse]

I don't which aspects of anarchy appeal to you, but I am an anarchist, and one of the books that I like in part for its anarchist theme is The Aluminum Man by G. C. Edmondson. Some of his other books are similar. I'll think about the question and see if I can think of any more good anarchist books.


In part the freedom of it. I think the government acts too much like a parent at times. I do have a libertine mind set, and think consenting adults should have the right to do whatever they want to themselves and each other. There are too many laws that I think simply serve to protect people from themselves or that I don't things that I do not think the government should have the right to interfere with, or that should not be any of their business.

I am also drawn to the chaos aspect of it. There is a part of me that kind of likes chaos and rebellion. When I watch disaster movies, there is a part of me that kind of wishes the world really would be thrown into a post-apocalyptic state.

[mal4mac]

Under Western Eyes by Conrad deals with anarchy heavily. I read it while at university and remember not being able to put it down.



Conrad seems to be entranced by the subject - "the Secret Agent" is another of his novels centred on anarchy.

Out of left field we have "Empire City" by Paul Goodman.

[PeterL]

In part the freedom of it. I think the government acts too much like a parent at times. I do have a libertine mind set, and think consenting adults should have the right to do whatever they want to themselves and each other. There are too many laws that I think simply serve to protect people from themselves or that I don't things that I do not think the government should have the right to interfere with, or that should not be any of their business.

Then you might really like Edmondson. He was very cynical about government, even though he was in the U.S. Navy for a very long time. Most utopian literature has the idea that government would be better, if people were better, so that they would need less government.


I am also drawn to the chaos aspect of it. There is a part of me that kind of likes chaos and rebellion. When I watch disaster movies, there is a part of me that kind of wishes the world really would be thrown into a post-apocalyptic state.

There's a lot of chaos in most post-apocalyptic literature, but I think they overdo that. My novel about the Really Great Plague ends with peace and ease, because: People cause the problems, so if we get rid of the people, then we will get rid of the problems. Even though the world be a better place, the main character feels guilt for having spread the Plague.

But, if you like the chaos part, then read all of the post-apocalyptic books that you can find.

[Dark Muse]

My novel about the Really Great Plague ends with peace and ease, because: People cause the problems, so if we get rid of the people, then we will get rid of the problems. Even though the world be a better place, the main character feels guilt for having spread the Plague.

Now that sounds like someting I would want to read. I am very much in favor of simply eliminating people from the world.

[PeterL]

Now that sounds like someting I would want to read. I am very much in favor of simply eliminating people from the world.

I have to finish the rewrite. The plot is good, the theme is good, the characters are good, and the pieces of it are generally good, but I told it the wrong way around, so that it was a largely linear plot, but I was concentrating of the feelings of guilt that the main character had even though he diid something that was beneficial to the world in general. I amy change the POV to his daughter, who was conceived toward the end of the Plague. I also tried writing it as a short story in which they travel back in time to determine whether he really was the one who spread the Y. Pestis bacteria.

He expected to get rid of about 50% of the population, but the way it played out roughly 75 % were killed. That is how deadly and contagious Y. Pestis can be, especially if it has been mad immune to most anti-biotics.

[Des Essientes]

You really should read Ursula Leguin's Hugo Award winning novel "The Dispossessed". It is about a planet settled by anarcho-syndicalists who'd left their homeworld 150 earlier, and a daring anarchist that travels back to the that homeworld. It is a really well written attempt to envision what an enlightened anarchist society would look like. Maybe someday this book will be used a model for a better way to organize society here on Earth.

[Des Essientes]

You really should read Ursula Leguin's Hugo Award winning novel "The Dispossessed". It is about a planet settled by anarcho-syndicalists who'd left their homeworld 150 earlier, and a daring anarchist that travels back to the that homeworld. It is a really well written attempt to envision what an enlightened anarchist society would look like. Maybe someday this book will be used a model for a better way to organize society here on Earth.

[VERONIQUE]

American Pastoral is about the lurking Gothic flip^side of the cornsflake box americana; Nice middle class jewish football hero turned business man run headlong into the sixties! starts when he buys frontier style home and piece of "wilderness estate" in other words an arcady of pastoral americana! THEN chance and fate intervene and his teenage daughter becomes weathergirl

[Shevek]

You really should read Ursula Leguin's Hugo Award winning novel "The Dispossessed". It is about a planet settled by anarcho-syndicalists who'd left their homeworld 150 earlier, and a daring anarchist that travels back to the that homeworld. It is a really well written attempt to envision what an enlightened anarchist society would look like. Maybe someday this book will be used a model for a better way to organize society here on Earth.

Actually, the book does not portray what an enlightened anarchist society would look like. That isn't the point of _The Dispossessed_, and it's clear from the very first page that there is factional and ideological tension on Anarres. LeGuin critiques both anarchist and capitalist ideals, although she does portray some positive elements of anarchism that are left out in conventional discussions. That said, I would definitely recommend it as an example of an anarchist main character in fiction.

Anarchism is quite broad, and its roots span millennia in both Western and Eastern history. Its influence on literature is more pervasive than you might think, although most works that intentionally espouse anarchism are written in essay form. _Caleb Williams_ by William Godwin intentionally places eighteenth-century anarchist ideology into the central focus of the plot, showing the destructive power of the state. Godwin was an anarchist, but he doesn't deal with the modern paternalist (or today, maternalist "nanny") state, which is something Heinlein does very well in _The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress_.

[Babelfish]

Ed Abbey's, The Monkey Wrench Gang

[Dark Muse]

Ed Abbey's, The Monkey Wrench Gang

I am very intrigued by this one sounds like the sort of thing I would be apt to enjoy.

[PeterL]

I am very intrigued by this one sounds like the sort of thing I would be apt to enjoy.

That's a rather humorous novel about some inept, radical environmentalists unsuccessfully trying to destroy a dam. They aren't anarchists, but it is funny.

[Des Essientes]

Shevek, Leguin does portray Anarres as somewhat troubled due to food shortages and a reluctance to be honest with its youth about what life is really like on their former homeworld, but she makes no bones about her belief that its system of governance is indeed enlightened. Enlightened does not mean perfect. Leguin is an anarchist in the Taoist tradition and Annares is an example of how a society would be organized along the lines of an enlightened anarchism.

[Shevek]

Shevek, Leguin does portray Anarres as somewhat troubled due to food shortages and a reluctance to be honest with its youth about what life is really like on their former homeworld, but she makes no bones about her belief that its system of governance is indeed enlightened. Enlightened does not mean perfect. Leguin is an anarchist in the Taoist tradition and Annares is an example of how a society would be organized along the lines of an enlightened anarchism.

But she clearly critiques the system itself, not just the unfortunate events that happen to it such as food shortages. The corruption Shevek (the protagonist, not me) encounters on Annares is part of why he wants to bridge the two worlds of Annares and Urras. Hence why he is an exile in a society that has exiled itself from the rest of the solar system. My quibble is not with your claim that LeGuin is sympathetic to anarchism -- obviously, she is -- but that the book is a model for an anarchist society, which is totally not the point of any of her writing. It is speculative fiction, not propaganda.

[Des Essientes]

Shevek, here is what Leguin says in the brief forward to her short story "The Day Before the Revolution" which is about a day in the life of Odo the anarchist for whom the settlers of Annares named their movement:

"Odonianism is anarchism. Not the bomb-in-the-pocket stuff, which is terrorism, whatever name it tries to dignify itself with; not the social-Darwinist economic "libritarianism" of the far right; but anarchism, as prefigured in early Taoist thought, and expounded by Shelley and Kropotkin, Goldman and Goodman. Anarchism's principle target is the authoritarian state (capitalist or socialist); its principal moral-practical theme is coopertion (solidarity, mutual aid). It is the most idealistic, and to me the most interesting, of all political theories."

Shevek, if you still want to claim that The Dispossessed is merely speculative fiction then be my guest, but in truth she clearly meant the society on Annares to be an example of a society run along the tenets of her favorite political system.

[Shevek]

That quotation doesn't disprove what I am saying about what her intentions were in writing _The Dispossessed_. Yes, she fashioned Annares on anarchist theories, and she is obviously sympathetic to anarchism even outside the context of her fiction -- but you can't interpret Annares as a *model* for what an anarchist society ought to look like. And when I call it speculative fiction, I'm not undermining LeGuin's sophisticated approach to anarchist theory, but stating that what LeGuin is doing in _The Dispossessed_ is quite different than say what Alexander Berkman is doing in _What Is Anarcho-Communism?_ She's engaging with ideas critically through the plot and through the protagonist's struggle with his anarchist system, not simply presenting her own personal version of what she wants the world to look like. Plus, her fiction looks a lot different than the fiction of other anarchist writers, who generally presume anarchism to be true and just without challenging its core tenets as LeGuin does.

Read the foreword to _The Left Hand of Darkness_, because that is what immediately came to my mind when I read your first post. She disdains the imagined role of the fiction writer as prophet or truth-teller, and she embraces her role of writing speculative fiction very openly. This is perfectly compatible with her interest in anarchism without dogmatically embracing it.

[Des Essientes]

That quotation doesn't disprove what I am saying about what her intentions were in writing _The Dispossessed_. Yes, she fashioned Annares on anarchist theories, and she is obviously sympathetic to anarchism even outside the context of her fiction -- but you can't interpret Annares as a *model* for what an anarchist society ought to look like.
Shevek since you admit that Leguin is sympathetic to anarchism and that Annares is fashioned upon anarchist theories, you cannot also claim that Annares may not be interpreted as an example of what an anarchist society should look like. The reader may very well infer that she is giving him an example of anarcho-syndicalism in practice. Just because other anarchist writers present their ideas in a different manner is beside the point.

I would read the forward to "The Left Hand of Darkness" but I have a 1969 hardcover edition that is lacking it, but you may rest assured that I do not believe that Leguin has set herself up as a prophetess of anarchism by writing "The Dispossessed". She resides in a grey area between absolutely detached speculative fictioneering and dogmatic manifesto making. Beware of false dichotomies.

[Shevek]

Just to clarify -- I have been arguing this whole time against the simplistic idea that LeGuin wanted people to look at Annares as an ideal future society. That is what you suggested in your first post.

You may believe what you like, and so can any reader of her fiction, but I will quote a few sentences from the foreword to give you an idea about how clear she is about her intentions as an author:

"The weather bureau will tell you what next Tuesday will be like, and the Rand Corporation will yell you what the twenty first century will be like. I don't recommend that you turn to the writers of fiction for such information. It's none of their business. All they're trying to do is tell you what they're like, and what you're like."

"Predictions are uttered by prophets (free of charge), by clairvoyants (who usually charge a fee, and are therefore more honored in their day than prophets), and by futurologists (salaried). Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying."

And most relevant to our discussion: "Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive." Later on, "Yes, indeed the people in it [TLHOD] are androgynous, but that doesn't mean I'm predicting that in a millennium or so we will all be androgynous, or announcing that I think we damned well ought to be androgynous."

I think it would be accurate, in the context of _The Dispossessed_, to replace "androgyny" with "anarchism." There's little substance to the claim that she resides in a grey area between fiction writer and propagandist, since she views her work as a fiction writer entirely differently from those who claim to be espousing some sort of prescriptive truth. So it's not beside the point that she is presenting her ideas differently from other writers influenced by anarchism. To LeGuin, it is the presentation -- fiction itself -- that matters to how a story is told: "I am not predicting, or prescribing. I am describing. I am describing certain aspects of psychological reality in the novelist's way, which is by inventing elaborately circumstantial lies."

So yes, I can claim that her use of anarchism in a descriptive way, for the purposes of her fiction, does not imply that her intention was for readers to look at Annares as what the world should look like as you claim in your first post.