What are you reading right now?

Terrible Lizard · 02-01-2009, 12:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sleepy jack

Winston was portrayed as slightly flat to make it easy to jump into the character's shoe; which is a brilliant way to create a character. In addition to that 1984 isn't a novel where the characters are more important than the setting they're in, what happens to them, and the system that surrounds them.

Here you go again with another sweeping (and wrong) generalization about Orwell. He didn't write just for a message. If you read some of his essays (like the aptly titled "Why I Write") you'd see he wasn't just some anti-totalitarianism activist who had to write to get his message across. He actually enjoyed writing even though he was far more pointed than your average author.

For one, Orwell's book came several years before Bradbury's so your snake metaphor would reverse the roles. In addition to that 1984 wasn't some pleasant YEAH stick it to the Ruskies! kind of book. There's a reason its geographically based off the Western world as opposed to Russia world. At the time when it was written much of Britain was in poverty and the novel served as Orwell's prediction that Democracy wouldn't survive that war. That wasn't exactly a well-liked opinion you know. A big brother government is something that's far more scary (and more realistic) than Bradbury's extremist story. I can understanding using hyperbole to illustrate a point and I'm not trying to trash Fahrenheit 451 but 1984 is on a different level altogether.

Good point, but considering Fahrenheit was banned in some towns because the book had scenes where the bible was burned. I don't think Ray's image was that extreme.

What I was getting at, and what Frank Zappa was getting at 20 or so years ago, is that censorship no matter how little can lead to the horrors of big brother, you only need half of a worm to grow into a full twisting catastrophe.

I should get my hands on "Why I Write." but perhaps the quotes I read by him were taken from that, I'm not sure.

Also back to character development, Orwell made Winston an everyman so the reader could relate, but that always seems to distance the reader to me.
I mean, Prometheus from Anthem seems to have more character traits than Smith I rooted for Equality, but Winston's eventual failing only left me with depression regarding the cold effeciency of the Orwellian future, not necessarily of Winston's situation.

On a lighter note I recently picked up "THe ass saw the Angel" by Nick Cave and I've been really enjoying it, it's like a more intimate Cormac McCarthy.