[HN Gopher] The lesser-known Orwell: are his novels deserving of...
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The lesser-known Orwell: are his novels deserving of reappraisal?
Author : samclemens
Score : 42 points
Date : 2021-01-09 04:22 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thecritic.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (thecritic.co.uk)
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I haven't read everything of his, but the bits that I've had have
| both enlightened and empowered me.
|
| I think Orwell's books are more than social commentary, and more
| than far-sighted predictions.
|
| If you look carefully, they can help navigate, survive, and
| thrive in an "Orwellian" environment.
|
| I think that's why 1984 is standard reading material in Orwellian
| schools.
|
| It makes the smart kids think about things, and come to the
| conclusion that they can try to start a rebellion, get found out,
| and find a rat cage on their head, or they can be happy getting
| better rations than the dumber kids.
| n4r9 wrote:
| It made you arrive at that conclusion, I suppose.
| scandox wrote:
| I enjoyed Coming Up For Air. I didn't find the description in the
| article matched the book. The nostalgia in the book is that of
| the character not of the author. There is a reasonable ironic
| distance between the two. The narrator is an unloveable middle
| aged prick really. What works well in the book is how threadbare
| and futile the social contract is shown to be. The character and
| their life illustrate it brilliantly without it seeming preachy.
| mesofile wrote:
| _Down and Out in Paris and London_ is an all-time favorite of
| mine, delving as it does into eternal truths about both
| restaurant work and homelessness. It 's also a fantastic slice of
| life for that particular time period. The experience of sharing a
| malnourished existence and tiny flea-ridden Parisian tenement
| room with a voluble White Russian emigre was conveyed so well it
| nearly feels like one of my own memories.
| m-i-l wrote:
| I was surprised at how modern many of the themes in both Keep The
| Aspidistra Flying and Coming Up For Air are, from (in Keep The
| Aspidistra Flying) the negative effects of commercialisation and
| mass advertising, obsession with (because of a dependence on)
| money, difficulties making ends meet when trying to follow your
| dreams, the alternative of meaningless but well paying jobs, to
| (in Coming Up For Air) a reaction against property development
| and what you might even call environmentalism.
|
| The book shop that Orwell worked in and lived above when he wrote
| Keep The Aspidistra Flying is now split between a fancy bakery
| and a hairdresser. I get my hair cut at the hairdresser.
| leoh wrote:
| Not mentioned, but "Keep the Aspidistra Flying" is on my reading
| list. "The main theme is... romantic ambition to defy worship of
| ... money-god and status" -- Wikipedia
| juddlyon wrote:
| It's in the article and the author chooses it as the best of
| the lesser know Orwell novels.
| bra-ket wrote:
| Orwell stock will explode this year, I wish I could bet my money
| on it.
| Animats wrote:
| _" Keep the Aspidistra Flying"_ is very funny. It's been made
| into a movie twice. The 1965 one is closer to the original.
|
| It used to be available on line, but with the copyright
| crackdown, films only of historical interest, with near zero
| revenue potential, are no longer available.
|
| _" Orwell, the Lost Writings"_ is quite useful. It makes it
| clear where Orwell got many of the ideas for "1984". During WWII,
| he worked for the British Ministry of Information. Part of his
| job was translating news reports into the Basic English 1000 word
| vocabulary, for transmission on the BBC to the colonies. Mostly
| India. He discovered that translation to Basic English is a
| political act. Basic English cannot express much ambiguity. So
| ambiguous political statements had to be hammered down into
| simple unambiguous statements.
|
| Hence Newspeak and the Ministry of Truth.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| his non-fiction needs more reading. I honestly don't think his
| fiction is that good in comparison. One of my favourite pieces of
| criticism is still Asimov's fairly snarky review of 1984.
|
| http://www.newworker.org/ncptrory/1984.htm
| watwut wrote:
| Honestly, after attempting to read it, I read much better
| criticisms of books then that one. He takes forever till he
| even get toward book criticism part.
|
| Plus, Asimov complaining about Orwells female characters is
| kind of rich.
| mrob wrote:
| "One person cannot watch more than one person in full
| concentration, and can only do so for a comparatively short
| time before attention begins to wander. ... Consequently, the
| system of oppression by two-way television simply will not
| work."
|
| I find it strange that a widely read author with a known
| interest in history had apparently never heard of the
| panopticon. Orwell outright states that the telescreens work on
| the same principle: "There was of course no way of knowing
| whether you were being watched at any given moment. ... You had
| to live--did live, from habit that became instinct--in the
| assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except
| in darkness, every movement scrutinized."
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Sounds like Twitter. Except that Orwellian tech did not have
| the ability to search your actions back ten years ago.
|
| At least the Orwellian invisible guards were paid employees.
| On contemporary Internet, there is no shortage of unpaid
| volunteers digging in other people's activity just for the
| thrill of getting someone punished.
|
| The difference is that the state apparatus may run out of
| money; the USSR did. You never run of enthusiastic
| volunteers, as long as you reward their actions with what
| they want, in this case, a public spectacle of a virtual
| guillotine.
| samatman wrote:
| It's a good essay, in the narrow sense that it unequivocally
| identifies Asimov as a Communist and apologist for Stalin.
|
| This aspect of the Futurians is often memory-holed, I thank you
| for bringing it to everyone's attention.
|
| His critique of the science fiction, that screens which watch
| you back is a poor prediction (because how on Earth could
| Google watch people at scale?!) is particularly hilarious, if a
| bit sad.
| gtsop wrote:
| > it unequivocally identifies Asimov as a Communist and
| apologist for Stalin.
|
| Scroll to the bottom of the article.
|
| > His critique of the science fiction, that screens which
| watch you back is a poor prediction (because how on Earth
| could Google watch people at scale?!) is particularly
| hilarious, if a bit sad.
|
| > Orwell was unable to conceive of computers or robots, or he
| would have placed everyone under non-human surveillance.
|
| I guess this answers it
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > it unequivocally identifies Asimov as a Communist and
| apologist for Stalin
|
| It critiques 1984 for it's narrow focus on the Stalinist form
| of totalitarianism, but I see no actual apologia for
| Stalinism. (The closest is the acknowledgement of the role
| the USSR under Stalin played as an ally against the Nazis.)
|
| It does argue that 1984 misses the internal instability of
| totalitarianisms like Stalinism, which besame evident after
| 1984 was written.
|
| > His critique of the science fiction, that screens which
| watch you back is a poor prediction (because how on Earth
| could Google watch people at scale?!) is particularly
| hilarious, if a bit sad.
|
| The critique isn't of screens that watch you back, but of the
| failure of imagination of Orwell envisioning only screens _by
| which a human watches you in real time_ rather than one that
| does so by some automated, scalable means.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| You can see 1984's themes in play today in democratic
| governance: Say one thing and do another. Label groups as
| "the enemy" to have a target for hatred. Denigrate critical
| thinking and much more. It covers more than just Stalinist
| totalitarianism.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > You can see 1984's themes in play today in democratic
| governance
|
| Sure, but that's not really germane to the review, which
| isn't that 1984 doesn't highlight some things that are
| real concerns that might affect even non-Stalinist
| governments (as Stalinism itself includes some elements
| that can be found outside of it, as well), but that 1984
| is basically an unimaginative, literal overlay of
| Stalinism on top of contemporary (at the time of writing)
| English society through the biases of the authors social
| class where the technical elements were relatively
| unimaginative and poorly thought through in their
| pragmatics.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "It does argue that 1984 misses the internal instability of
| totalitarianisms like Stalinism, which besame evident after
| 1984 was written."
|
| Instability compared to what? Stalin's USSR survived major
| natural disasters and wars, expanded its territory and the
| leader died in office. Multiple democracies in contemporary
| Europe were destroyed from the same influences. Only UK,
| Sweden and Switzerland could be said to be at least as
| stable as Stalinist USSR.
|
| I despise and hate Stalin, but his regime was fairly stable
| compared to contemporaries.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Instability compared to what?
|
| Instability compared to what Asimov sees as Orwell's
| perspective that Stalinism is impervious to internal
| erosion (including death of the leader.)
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I grew up behind the Iron Curtain. The entire Orwell canon was
| banned, of course, but you could still hear it on BBC broadcast
| from abroad (the authorities tried to jam the signal, with
| various levels of success).
|
| We liked 1984. Forbidden fruit tastes the best, but it also
| spoke to us. Those empty slogans and lingering fear of the
| Secret Police did translate fairly well into real life behind
| the Curtain.
| poxwole wrote:
| _Keep The Aspidistra Flying_ is my favorite Orwell book atleast
| his among his fiction. I have read it atleast thrice. Among the
| Non Fictions I loved _Down and Out in Paris and London_ and
| _Homage to Catalonia_ which is perhaps my favorite.
| gumby wrote:
| > But once-popular works such as The Road to Wigan Pier are now
| in danger of falling into obsolescence, as the social
| circumstances that Orwell describes seem less and less relevant
| to a 21st-century readership...
|
| Not surprising that this sentence was written by someone in the
| UK; to the US reader it's still quite relevant: for a significant
| proportion of the population life is just as desparate and his
| trenchant commentary on the Fabians (closest to contemporary US
| socialists) as earnest, sandal-wearing vegetarians is apposite
| here, not just metaphorically but just as often literally as in
| his time.
| DC-3 wrote:
| I adore Orwell. The second chapter of The Road to Wigan Pier
| (separately published in the excellent essay collection 'Inside
| The Whale'), which describes the working conditions of coal
| miners in the North of England, is one of the greatest pieces of
| journalistic writing in history [1]. In fact the whole book is
| very good, and contrary to this article I think only a fool would
| not find it relevant to the modern day - especially in its
| discussion of utopianism and the post-work society.
|
| In general, the fact that Orwell is remembered in the public
| consciousness as the 1984 guy is a shame (and is particularly
| jarring when right wing populists invoke his name to decry people
| who try and get them to stop lying).
|
| Orwell's essay 'England Your England' (the first part of 'The
| Lion and the Unicorn') is perhaps his piece which is dearest to
| my heart, as a patriotic but anti-reactionary Englishman.
| However, of broader appeal are 'Shooting an Elephant' and 'A
| Hanging' - essays which expose the brutal workings of colonialism
| better than any jargon-laden journal of post-colonial theory ever
| could.
|
| But that's just the start when it comes to Orwell. I don't think
| the man wrote anything not worth reading and at his best he was
| near-untouchable in his ability to capture in the written word a
| society and its injustices.
|
| [1] https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/mine/english/e_dtm
| wombatmobile wrote:
| Your comment shines an insightful light on Orwell's
| observations and commentary on the human condition, but it's
| getting some downvotes, presumably for the 2nd half of the 2nd
| para, which is worth considering in more detail.
|
| > In general, the fact that Orwell is remembered in the public
| consciousness as the 1984 guy is a shame (and is particularly
| jarring when right wing populists invoke his name to decry
| people who try and get them to stop lying).
|
| What do "right wing populists" mean when they call critics
| "Orwellian"?
| [deleted]
| hprotagonist wrote:
| i've regularly found his essays among the best of his writing.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| My favorite essay of his is "What is Fascism?"
|
| It shows that, even before actual self-proclaimed fascist
| nations were defeated in WW2, the word had effectively lost all
| meaning and was just a pejorative:
|
| https://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/e...
| mhh__ wrote:
| Absolutely true, although I feel almost vindicated that I
| have been calling Trump out for what he is now since 2015 -
| he is the closest you'll ever get to a fascist as president.
| The signs were there from the start, but the overeager way
| some people characterize others as fascist really helped him.
| The only real defence I can think of the man is that he isn't
| intelligent enough to really formulate an ideology beyond
| tribal urges.
|
| The short-lived "Orange man bad" meme has not aged well.
|
| Ian Hislop has a very good introduction to Orwell's "As I
| please" lectures.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Notes on Nationalism
| https://orwell.ru/library/essays/nationalism/english/e_nat
| thisrod wrote:
| Apparently Orwell entered the public domain in Australia 20 years
| ago. I've been meaning to read some of this.
|
| http://gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty-n-z.html#orwell
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