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1984 George Orwell
So I read it.. all of it.. Including the appendix…
I really don’t know how some books like Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, and now 1984 get the fame and literary status they have.
But with 1984 in particular… did Orwell not have an editor?
There is a human story here, with characters, that pass through multidirectional arcs. These stories merge and split apart. The book looks at the macro interactions between characters and the world and micro interactions between the characters and themselves. This was a good read in that sense.
And yes there is the big scary government which is the books foil and I believe wrongly gets grafted as the books centerpiece.
But Orwell beats the least intelligent concept of this world to absolute death and it turns this book into a slog.
Half of the book is dedicated to describing in excruciating detail how “new speak” works and how the government uses it. Orwell proceeds to bash this concept into your skull at every possible moment.
First, the main character uses “new speak” at his job every day and how and why he uses it is common knowledge to the reader by the end of the second chapter.
Second, a coworker he has lunch with is in charge with creating… new “new speak” and we get to hear a diatribe about how this process works.
Third, home boy get a book that has chapters that are longer than most short plays. The main character reads two chapters of this book to the readers
So at this point… I’m reading a book… about a dude reading a book… about how words and phrases are used to write books in 1984. The payoff is that when the main character puts the book down he literally says to himself “I already knew all that”.
So no reason to have this in the story except to inform the reader of this. Orwell is smashing a horse carcass to bits right in front of me.
OK “NEW SPEAK” IS HYPER IMPORTANT FOR THE STORY RIGHT!!??
Nope. It isn’t. In fact no one speaks in that way in the entire story, including the coworker whose job it was to invent more “new speak”. The sorry ends with the government forcing the delusion of a jingoistic reality inside the mind of the main character and the story comes to a slow stop.
But wait… did you say you wanted to hear more about the atomic level view of “new speak” and the interworking of an oppressive government? No problem Orwell has filled an entire appendix with it.
It reads like Alexander Hamilton writing his federalist papers about the devolution of the Webster’s dictionary and bureaucratic workings of the DMV.
The Appendix is just pure insanity. It’s the whole concept of Big Brother you already know written as a Supreme Court legal filing.
Orwell is literally beating the dead horses DNA 🧬 into pieces as my attention desperately tries to focus on something more appealing.
Ok rant over.
The human story is good.
It’s 50% fat that can be removed.
Has no reason being an idolized as it is.
Hate me I don’t care.
I double minus minus don’t care.
#entertainment
source
So I read it.. all of it.. Including the appendix…
I really don’t know how some books like Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, and now 1984 get the fame and literary status they have.
But with 1984 in particular… did Orwell not have an editor?
There is a human story here, with characters, that pass through multidirectional arcs. These stories merge and split apart. The book looks at the macro interactions between characters and the world and micro interactions between the characters and themselves. This was a good read in that sense.
And yes there is the big scary government which is the books foil and I believe wrongly gets grafted as the books centerpiece.
But Orwell beats the least intelligent concept of this world to absolute death and it turns this book into a slog.
Half of the book is dedicated to describing in excruciating detail how “new speak” works and how the government uses it. Orwell proceeds to bash this concept into your skull at every possible moment.
First, the main character uses “new speak” at his job every day and how and why he uses it is common knowledge to the reader by the end of the second chapter.
Second, a coworker he has lunch with is in charge with creating… new “new speak” and we get to hear a diatribe about how this process works.
Third, home boy get a book that has chapters that are longer than most short plays. The main character reads two chapters of this book to the readers
So at this point… I’m reading a book… about a dude reading a book… about how words and phrases are used to write books in 1984. The payoff is that when the main character puts the book down he literally says to himself “I already knew all that”.
So no reason to have this in the story except to inform the reader of this. Orwell is smashing a horse carcass to bits right in front of me.
OK “NEW SPEAK” IS HYPER IMPORTANT FOR THE STORY RIGHT!!??
Nope. It isn’t. In fact no one speaks in that way in the entire story, including the coworker whose job it was to invent more “new speak”. The sorry ends with the government forcing the delusion of a jingoistic reality inside the mind of the main character and the story comes to a slow stop.
But wait… did you say you wanted to hear more about the atomic level view of “new speak” and the interworking of an oppressive government? No problem Orwell has filled an entire appendix with it.
It reads like Alexander Hamilton writing his federalist papers about the devolution of the Webster’s dictionary and bureaucratic workings of the DMV.
The Appendix is just pure insanity. It’s the whole concept of Big Brother you already know written as a Supreme Court legal filing.
Orwell is literally beating the dead horses DNA 🧬 into pieces as my attention desperately tries to focus on something more appealing.
Ok rant over.
The human story is good.
It’s 50% fat that can be removed.
Has no reason being an idolized as it is.
Hate me I don’t care.
I double minus minus don’t care.
#entertainment
source
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