Comments on: 2004

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

As Orwell makes clear, both in this essay and in 1984, the degradation of language is all too frequently deliberate. Unfortunately since he wrote, this practice has become all but universal. Don Watson should know – he was a spin doctor once.

By: Phil

Phil — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

Yep, just like the white Australia policy.

By: Scott Wickstein

Scott Wickstein — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Defending the indefensible has been part of political life since at least Greek times.

My guess is that the increasing blurring of the language is a reaction against participatory democracy. Consider, for example, Sir Humphry Appleby’s long winded answers to Jim Hacker. Is this not the case of part of a ruling caste using language as a defence against democratic ursupers?

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Bullseye, Scott.

By: Stephen Hill

Stephen Hill — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

I must admit I don’t think “1984″ is a great work of art. I know in certain journalistic circles if I said this I’d have to adopt the “duck and cover” position. Orwell may have been an excellent essayist but I just don’t think his work with the exception of “Homage to Catalunya” has the execution of great art (I also lived the Ken Loach film was it ‘Hope and Freedom’).

Umberto Eco has an essay in “Apocalypse Postponed” which I think nails it. He suggests that Orwell had a certain perspecacity in examining how people could be moulded drawing upon his war-time experiences. And that while Orwell’s work was particularly prophetic it had too many gaps in its construction to be considered a work of great art.

By: Stephen Hill

Stephen Hill — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

That should be “loved” not “lived”, but the film was some experience. One day I’ll actually use the preview function when I’m not as time-poor.

By: TimT

TimT — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Bullseye, Stephen. Maybe the admiration for the work amongst journalistic circles is partially owing to the fact that Orwell’s craft in many ways was closer to journalism than literature?

Reading 1984 was one of the most depressing experiences of my life. I generally don’t think books can ‘change’ a person, but if any book changed me, it was this one.

By: Mark Bahnisch

Mark Bahnisch — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

How did it change you, TimT, if I may ask?

By: TimT

TimT — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Oh … I guess that it alerted me to the tactics of Totalitarianism, made me more interested/passionate about politics than I would otherwise have been. I still occasionally have 1984-style nightmares (that’s how much the book depressed me). And I remember being ribbed at school for ages after waving a book in the face of another student, demanding that they ‘Read this! Read this!’

But I think that at that time I was becoming more interested in politics and current affairs anyway, and the book only helped to bring these interests to the surface.

By: Mark Bahnisch

Mark Bahnisch — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks, TimT. I think I got a copy of 1984 as the Senior English prize, appropriate since I finished school in 1984! I wasn’t entranced by it – I much preferred Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’.

Film was very good though – I watched it again on video recently.

By: James Farrell

James Farrell — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Orwell’s novels are not as great as his literary and political writings, but three of them – Coming Up for Air, Animal Farm and 1984 – are nonetheless among the great English novels. I finished 1984 on New Year’s Eve 1983, and my experience was the opposite of Stephen’s and Mark’s. I found it deadly accurate, devastating, depressing, brilliantly crafted like the nonfiction works, and overwhelmingly powerful in its simple language. And that’s just in its own right, i.e. not to mention the transformation it brought about in our understanding of the connections bewteen language and political oppression, or the swathe of chilling and indispensible terms he brought to the language: newspeak, dounblethink, Big Brother, Room 101. Where would we be, for that matter, without the word Orwellian? There’s more than one kind of great literary art.

Brave New World is a fabulous book as well, but its themes are so different that a comparison does injustice to both.

By: Mark Bahnisch

Mark Bahnisch — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t disagree, James, about the political and cultural influence of 1984. And my literary perceptions now may not be the same as they were when I was 16! I guess my point of comparison at the time was that both 1984 and ‘Brave New World’ were dystopias.