A completely different approach to the subject of the ruined contemporary city. Although the cases here rely on the same symbolic vocabulary, they do so for a different effect - avoiding the melancholy of the expected approaches and instead parodying the traditions of archaeological writing.
Some relevant pages are:
One thing that these examples have in common is the emphasis they place on the difficulties in getting back to the original meaning of objects from the past, the elusiveness of the past. This is a common conceit in more serious passages - e.g. in
The White Mountains (see
Twentieth Century Science Fiction for discussion of Christopher's book).
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Posted at Nov 11/2005 02:25AM:
Ray Girvan: Edgar Allan Poe's 1849 short story
Mellonta Tauta, although it doesn't feature a ruined city in detail, has a similar comic tone. A balloonist traveller in the year 2848 expounds his misunderstandings about the ancient Amriccans, on the basis of the few artefacts (particularly the cornerstone of a monument to George Washington) found at the site of Manhattan.
Posted at Sep 13/2009 04:17PM:
David Platt: And here, after far too many years, is a
link to Mellonta Tauta in Google Books. I'll also add a page for "Mellonta Tauta."
