| Davey Moore |
02-21-2009 02:19 AM |
I'm rereading A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, on A Game of Thrones.
Also picked up Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace at the library and am getting into it. Pretty crazy. Also picked up The Road by Cormac McCarthy. That should be good.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sleepy jack
(Post 589143)
I just think because 1984 has a larger scope the thought behind it is far more original and frightening. I'm not going to knock Fahrenheit 451 (anymore than I already have) as I think it's a good book, but I feel 1984 is on a different level and doing something of a greater magnitude. Orwell aimed to document a time, Bradbury was writing a fiction story. Because of this I think the aesthetic of 1984 is absolutely necessary; it's a bleak story depicting bleaker times and a minimalistic style as opposed to a more poetic one serves the story more.
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This is absolutely true.
And no, Winston is NOT flat. Nobody gives Orwell enough credit on the tragedy of that love story. For instance, in the end, when he's at that bar and he hears the song from the telescreen 'I sold you/And you sold me', the Chestnut tree song, it was an emotional smack in the face to me. The brutality of the situation, that in the end, they forced him to WILLINGLY betray the last vestige within himself that made him human, that was deep.
And think about the former life he had that was lost. Like he said, he was a monsters as a kid, but there is one window into the past where things are happy, where things aren't bad. At the end, when Winston has a flashback to his mother and him playing a board game, his sister laughing and watching. That scene was ****ing sad.
Also, Catcher in the Rye is not a horrible book. It's either something where you go '**** I HATE THIS' or you go 'HOLY GOD THIS IS ME'
There's no middle for Catcher. I'm on the latter side. |
