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

[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...