johnc@dartvax.UUCP (John Cabell) (12/05/83)
I read 1984 a little while back and thought for the first
half of the book that the two were going to succeed in
revolting! When I got to the end of the book, I was horribly
depressed because they hadn't succeeded. Any way, I liked the
book, eventhough it didn't work out quite the way I thought it
would. Has anyone read 'Animal Farm'? Is it anything like '1984'?
From the Ever-questioning mind of
johnc
:->tomj@dartvax.UUCP (Thomas Johnston) (12/06/83)
In case you hadn't already read it,Yevgeny Zamyatin's novel WE was the source for many of Orwell's ideas. Zamyatin had tolive on a totalitarian state, (Stalinist Russia), Orwell did not. linus!dartvax!tomj
sanders@aecom.UUCP (Jeremy Sanders) (12/06/83)
> Howcome nobody is talking about 1984 (the novel). I am re-reading it >for the first time in years and it is horribly depressing. Anyone interested >in discussing this or other "classical" science fiction feel free to post! You mean you didn't find it horribly depressing the first time??!?
ofut@gatech.UUCP (Jeff Offutt) (12/08/83)
I've got an idea. Let's everybody go home (or wherever) over christmas and read it. Then we can start a rousing argument, er, ah, that is discussion about it on the appropriate time. Jan. 1, 1984.
eich@uiuccsb.UUCP (12/11/83)
#R:aecom:-29100:uiuccsb:15500013:000:1083 uiuccsb!eich Dec 10 04:34:00 1983 1. I don't endorse funny names like Peacekeeper for weapons systems. 2. (predicated upon 1.) In 1984, War is Peace was an example of the particular form of irony Orwell called doublespeak because there WERE wars going on in the world of the novel, but doublespeak, enforced by thought police, made it impossible to think of war as war. Now, the precise purpose of building the MX is so that it will never be used -- PLEASE, no flames; whether the MX will or will not make war less likely can be debated elsewhere. 3. There are no thought police in this country to enforce Reagan's nomenclature. 4. Orwell was writing about totalitarianism, and therefore it behooves his students to study it. Jean-Francois Revel's The Totalitarian Temptation is a good start; Leszek Kolakowski's (sp) Main Currents of Marxism is a hefty followup. Orwell was not writing about Multi- National Corporations or American society (two examples which dishonest exegetics found portents of in 1984). He was writing about a very particular thing. Let's try to avoid obliterating distinctions.
Cellio@CMU-CS-C.ARPA (12/14/83)
From: Dragon <Cellio@CMU-CS-C.ARPA> One nit-pick: It was MiniPax (or MinPax?) that was the ministry of war (Peace). I read this book for the first time this semester because I had to for a class. To think that I almost got through four years of college and all of high school without ever having to read it... -D -------
msc@qubix.UUCP (Mark Callow) (12/14/83)
1984 has more to make you think than just about any other work of
fiction. It is frightening how accurate some of his observations
and predications have turned out to be.
Take for instance MiniLuv, the Ministry of Love (War) and its
slogan "War is Peace" then remember that Reagan calls the MX
missile the "Peacekeeper". Has he read 1984??
1984 is the 4th most frequently censored book in the USA according
to a list compiled by Dr. Lee Buress of the University of Wisconsin
at Stevens Point. This is based on 6 surveys from challenged books
in the nations libraries taken from 1965 to 1982.
People who challenge 1984 must either
a) not have read it, or
b) have completely missed everything that Orwell was trying to alert us
to, or
c) have completely understood it and don't want others to know what they
are doing.
Other books amoung the top 30 most censored include
The Catcher in the Rye -- J.D. Salinger
Forever -- Judy Blume
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn -- Mark Twain
To Kill a Mockingbird -- Harper Lee
Slaughterhouse Five -- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
The Learning Tree -- Gordon Parks
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest -- Ken Kesey
Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl -- Anne Frank
It's quite a list... There are some wonderful books on it.
--
From the Doubleplus Ungood Keyboard of Mark Callow
msc@qubix.UUCP, decwrl!qubix!msc@Berkeley.ARPA
...{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!decwrl!qubix!msc, ...{ittvax,amd70}!qubix!mscucbesvax.turner@ucbcad.UUCP (12/14/83)
#R:dartvax:-47600:ucbesvax:8400003:000:901 ucbesvax!turner Dec 7 03:59:00 1983 In anticipation of a flood of comments along the lines of "Well, here it is, (almost) 1984, and Orwell got it all wrong," I suggest a closer reading. A very subtle, almost hidden assumption is that there was a limited nuclear war in the late 50's, from which the world never quite recovered. We came quite close to that, and who's to say that, had there been such a war, we wouldn't all be living in Oceania, sending our netnews down the memory holes? As it is, he was dead on with his predictions about a tripolar system of superpowers, with periodically shifting alignments and constant low-level war in the global peripheries. I have a younger brother who doesn't remember TV news about how mainland China was one of our "enemies" in Vietnam. Since then, China has come over to "our" side. Now, it looks like they're slowly warming the USSR again. --- Michael Turner (ucbvax!ucbesvax.turner)
Pucc-H:Pucc-I:Pucc-K:ags@CS-Mordred.UUCP (12/14/83)
Mark Callow points out that the list of most-censored books contains some very worthwhile works. This is not surprising. Trashy books seldom get censored, partly because they are not used in schools (and therefore do not attract much attention) and partly because they contain few ideas which the powers-that-be find threatening. I heard of one case in which the school board member who was leading the crusade to ban John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" (on the grounds that it contained "bad language" and was "unsuitable for the classroom") was the president of a local bank. Could it be that he had entirely different reasons for wanting the book banned? Dave Seaman ..!pur-ee!pucc-k:ags
mcewan@uiucdcs.UUCP (12/15/83)
#R:aecom:-29100:uiucdcs:12500058:000:193 uiucdcs!mcewan Dec 14 16:23:00 1983 Am I the only one who does NOT think that 1984 was an attempt to foretell the future??? I'm getting tired of all these comments about Orwell's "predictions". Scott McEwan uiucdcs!mcewan
@RUTGERS.ARPA:LINDSAY@TL-20A.ARPA (02/02/85)
From: LINDSAY@TL-20A.ARPA You know, it's odd how many people think of "1984" as prophecy - failed or otherwise. The working title of the book was "1948" (the year it was written), because Orwell felt that he was writing about what he saw in the world around him. The name was changed by his publishers to make the book sell. Now that we know about the Gulag, there's a certain new edge to the idea of "thoughtcrime". Say - does the Bureau of Network Security read this BBoard ? Don Lindsay Lindsa%Tartan.Arpa -------
jsq@ut-sally.UUCP (John Quarterman) (02/08/85)
Many of the features of Orwell's 1984, such as the deliberate squalor,
absolute control by the state, and the abolition of the past, are
also shown in another recent movie, The Killing Fields. The society
depicted there has a major difference, however: it was real, and recent.
--
John Quarterman, CS Dept., University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712 USA
jsq@ut-sally.ARPA, jsq@ut-sally.UUCP, {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!jsq