When reading for pleasure, readers can substitute the word "eyes" for "pens" & apply it to their reading choice. This choice, in one fell swoop, removes all dystopian literature from our reading. This move may be criticised as ostrich-like hiding from unpalatable reality. But by reading such books, one cannot make the world a better place. Things have come to such a pass that even the phenomenally popular children's book series of Harry Potter contains more than its share of unpleasant scenes.
Incidentally, Jane Austen herself had her fair share of detractors. Charlotte Bronte, author of the immortal "Jane Eyre" said of Austen "that the Passions are perfectly unknown to her." Kingsley Amis called the same "Mansfield Park" immoral. But the most vicious attack is found in Edmund Crispin's classic detective novel "The Moving Toyshop." The villain is introduced reading "Nightmare Abbey", a parody of the title of Austen's "Northanger Abbey." The detective, an Oxford Professor of Literature, Gervase Fen himself refers to the Bennet sisters in "Pride & Prejudice" as "those vulgar little man-hunting minxes." In the final scene, when the murderer is injured, Fen gleefully remarks that "he will live to be hanged, which will be one Janeite less, anyway", venting his spleen on Jane Austen to the fullest.
This, regarding the most beloved author in English Literature, after Shakespeare & Dickens!
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