Orwell

Newspeak, why?

I liked his nonfiction more. There were dystopias before and after him. He just combined the authoritative governments during his lifetime.

I wouldn't say ruined, but definitely tarnished. He shouldn't be in anybody's top three, but he has some quality. I'd definitely recommend his collected essays and letters and then his fiction if you're really curious. One could read Animal Farm and 1984 in a day.

I agree, I think he's better at igniting the beginning of arguments (or at least his fiction is). It's what makes him one of the more reasonable choices for high-schoolers to be assigned in my estimation.

If he wrote both of his fictional novels in this day, do you think it would've been nearly as successful?

Thank fuck for this post. I’m 30 pages into 1984 and bored to fucking tears.

Orwell championed the common man, and intentionally de-escalated his prose for wide readability (or was perhaps unable of good prose), and it can make it hard to read if you’re used to things a bit more purple.

Animal Farm would definitely not be; the proximity of the novel's release to the events it portrays are part of what makes it bold. 1984 is trickier. Contemporary dystopian works are almost always pure sci-fi or YA love triangle garbage. Odds are it would be largely rejected by the masses for not being close enough to those genres, at least for a time.

I wanted to talk about the latter. Here it is anyway, never mind that it was 2+2=4 not 1+1=2. Sanity is so fragile, it got me thinking as to what a person needs to maintain his sanity. The freedom to say things derives from the freedom to think things. So a man in prison, what luxuries can be afforded so we can say that he has the right to think? We have the basics - food, water, shelter, not being tortured to insanity. That last bit means we need to define torture, which is difficult. How do we know whether we are exploiting a person's fear of rats or spending unnecessarily to treat a host of imaginary and convenient phobias? Has the definition of torture been adequately captured by our legal system?

A lot of people miss out on why Orwell focuses on the themes that he does, such as the distortion of the language framework that enables the discernment of truth. Totalitarian regimes collapse unless they can subvert the action of thinking to make resistance impossible. Orwell's only crime is that he did not consider all of the various ways in which human agency can be destroyed by slavish degeneracy.

But would 1984 be disregarded for its lack of good prose if it were released today, regardless of whether or not it had a shitty love triangle?

Brave New World was initially discarded because of its prose, but a part of me says the consumerist nature of our society prevents it from ever being brought up outside of edgy online webcomics.

So I'm saying that it would most likely be picked up, just by a different audience than the one you were expecting.

That's a good question, one that I can't give a purely sound answer for one way or the other. If you wanted my guess though, I would say it'd eventually be acclaimed but it would take time instead of being initially successful as it was. I think people are attracted to it for the wrong reason in that they can point to it and say "THIS is why the political party I disagree with is bad!", not dissimilar to some of the sloppy interpretations of the work we see on the news today.

So, maybe?

homage to catalonia was such an amazing read
never thought reading about something I didn't care for at all kept me hooked so much

I love his essays. His fiction is great too, but I do get a bit sick of people referencing 1984 or Animal Farm to make a banal political statement. Tuberculosis is a bitch.

1984 is a great romance novel

Ah yes, the prose. The prooooooose. the PROOOOOOOSE. There's a reason why the pseuds on this website are always so willing to talk about "the prose" of a book when discussing its merits or flaws. Why attempt to analyze the merits and effects of the literary devices used to add to the development of characters, why attempt to understand the interplay of the perspectives of different characters and the emphasis this places on different themes, the spectrum of ironies used throughout the novel, the historical significance of the novel and the influence it has spawned in literary tradition or the influences seen throughout the work, the specific structure and literary underpinnings of the novel and the way it influences the tone, the author's relationship to the characters and the theme, the presentation of the novel itself to the audience and thus the relationship between reader and text --- why do any of this, when you could talk about "the prose?" You know that you have such a deep understanding of the book, don't you, when you talk about "the prose," the "musicality of it," the "sparseness." What a great artistic touch you have, don't you! Such a highly refined poetic sense! And you feel like such a true reader of literature when you are able to compare these styles: "I am partial to the lyricism of Joyce's prose, as well as the clean and scientific prose of Borges," you might say. What a deep understanding you show! Because the "prose" of a work is such an accessible topic, something that is felt immediately in the body and senses, a nice little sensation and flutter of the heart. Art obviously has nothing else to it, nothing other than the little sensations that I experience, because why should i attempt to understand it on a deeper level than this, when I have such a "refined" sense of the "prose?" Why even attempt to analyze the prose and the poetic and rhythmical underpinnings of it, when I could use a pretty little metaphor for it? It matters little that virtually every reader of literature has access to the music of the words and so my understanding is not quite so advanced as I would think, that form is something that goes hand in hand with theme, that I missed all the deep relationships between characters and between text and reader that existed in the work and that comprise a large part of the literary merit of the text, for my understanding of "the prose" shows such a mastery of language, a fine-tuned sense of the magical flow of the words! Having understood this work, I may as well move onto the next, the next bundle of pretty sensations to experience, the next bagful of fun linguistic treats!

I'm amazed so many people hate his prose. I think it is magnificent. He writes in such a clear, satisfying way. He also is amazing at describing a character's inner monologue. I actually very much enjoy his prose; I could read his writing all day.

Has anyone else read Burmese Days? Opinions?

I recently received Road to Wigan Pier. Maybe I shall read that next.

He is complete garbage. Pedantic observations and just a nutty conspiracy theorist who hated all forms of government. 1984 is Brave New World's retarded cousin, the rest of his books are even worse. If you read enough Orwell, beyond 1984 and Animal Farm, you will realize he is a complete moron.

treacherous little colonialist rat who spent his life trying to smear any attempt at socialism

>spent his life trying to smear any attempt at socialism
>fought for POUM in the Spanish civil war and got shot in the neck
And what have you been doing lately?

Prose is one of the easiest things to criticise in an author if he's not recognised as being very good at it

Personally I also enjoyed reading the book and although it wasn't incredibly poetic I felt that his writing made it very easy to understand the characters and the world that surrounds them

He's a good writer but he's often people's first taste of literary writing because of 1984 and Animal Farm. I enjoyed those but you're not convincing anyone that you're well-read if you claim one of those is your favourites. I also hate those people who specifically lie about having read 1984. "Yah yah it's about Big Brother is bad and it wasn't meant as a manual for LIFE." It's not a difficult read, just fucking read it.

degenerate commie detected

Why did they shoot the guy in the end?

it's a symbolic execution

Thats the dumbest image i've ever seen.

>bad linguistics
>muh anything that even slightly resembles Sapir-Whorf is wrong even though there are strong arguments for everything but the most radical stance
Go back to your plebbit safe space with the rest of the clumsy pseuds.

Of all the short stories we studied at school, Shooting an Elephant is the only one that stayed with me years later. One of my favorites to this day.