Notes On 1984

[poliphilo]

I hadn't read it before. I thought I knew it by repute. And I did.

It's an important book but not a particularly good one.

As a novel I'd give it B-.

Winston is dull, Julia a fantasy figure, O'Brien a copy of Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor.

But of course it's the ideas that count.

Which are mostly wrong.

Orwell prophesies North Korea. The rest of the world has gone down a very different path.

He assumes the inner party will be made up of monkish fanatics- like O'Brien. But such people are terribly rare. Stamping on the human face forever is a minority pastime.  So that's one mistake.

Another is to dismiss the proletariat as a lumpish lumpen mass. No class is as homogenous as Orwell needs it to be for his society to work.

Finally, societies as crummy as Oceania collapse under the weight of their own crumminess. People- at every level- want more. North Korea only survives because China props it up.

You can crush individuals- but a whole society? a whole world?

Let's just say it hasn't been done yet.

The human spirit is resilient, tenacious. Like a weed.

Comments

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

I think there's a good reason that Orwell's allegories are mostly read in school, as set mass-market texts for adolescents.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thereby teaching them that literature is dreary,
didactic, joyless stuff.

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

*shudders* We were made to read it at school. It left me with a lasting phobia of being stuck in a room with a television which I have no power to switch off...

Newspeak - Orwell got that one right maybe.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He got a lot of the details right. It's the bigger picture he got wrong.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

As dystopias go, 'Animal Farm' works far better.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That may be because Animal Farm is an analysis of what had already happened, rather than a speculation about a possible future.

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

I have yet to read it and have been put off by other comments that despite its reputation it is generally a poor book in comparison with Animal Farm which I have read. In general I would rather read his journalism.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Me too. I don't think fiction was his forte.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I didn't read it as prophecy (though 1984 was still well into the future when I first read it) but as a way of commenting on the present.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I think it was a bit of both, really - but yes, there's a strong element of satire on post-War Britain. (Didn't he initially want to call it 1948?) After all, Orwell had worked in the Ministry of Truth himself.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Well yes, The Britain of 1984 looks a lot like the Britain of 1948- bad food, rationing, an ageing housing stock, bomb sites...

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I was told that 1984 was supposed to be a comment on post-War Britain and a warning about following the path taken by the Soveit Union. The clue was in the title. Like a lot of SF that is ostensibly about the future, 1984 was actually about the present.

I had never previously heard it suggested that it was going to be called 1948. Having said that, a quick search names Anthony Burgess as the originator of that idea, but the original title Orwell gave it was The Last Man in Europe, but the publishers wanted something more catchy and hence it became 1984.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The Last Man in Europe is a rubbish title.

[sovay]

Winston is dull, Julia a fantasy figure, O'Brien a copy of Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor.

They're good templates—when played by actors, they become real people, live and distinguishable. Peter Cushing's Winston Smith is nothing like John Hurt's.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen any of the film versions. I like the idea of Richard Burton as O'Brien.

[tamnonlinear.livejournal.com]

You might find this interesting: Huxley versus Orwell.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Huxley seems to be ahead at the moment, but I think it's too early to declare a winner.