Orwell, George: Nineteen Eighty-Four

[ray gower]

Nineteen Eighty-Four

The ultimate totalitarian state. Where lives are recorded and people are impersonalised.
We watch as one person, Winston Smith, tries to break free of the constraint and realises the futility.

A main stay of schools English literature for years. And a dire warning for all.

Hated the book, loved the TV series!
Port Meirion however is not worth the visit.

 

[rde]

There was a tv series?

You're not thinking of The Prisoner, by any chance? It's the only series that was shot in Portmerion, but is absolutely unrelated to the 1984 in every regard.

 

[ray gower]

There was indeed a TV series- In 1954.

Parts were filmed in Port Meirion, though it was not a central set like The Prisoner.

From IMDB, (which has a better memory than me)

There is very little which can touch this programme. Made with extremely limited resources, given the extra strain of being performed mostly live with just a few filmed inserts, Nineteen Eighty-Four had a profound effect on television at the time. Questions were asked in parliament about it, and the BBC came in for considerable criticism at the time for broadcasting it. However, the production found its way into the minds of the public, giving the world such expressions as "Big Brother is watching you". Nowadays Big Brother is little more than the title of a cheap, spineless TV series. Back then it was a terrifying possibility. I've been fortunate enough to see Nineteen Eighty-Four, and I have to say that if TV was still prepared to take risks like this, it wouldn't be seen as cinema's poor cousin any more.

There is also the 1956 film, which I do remember being as good.

 

[rde]

Wow. You live and learn.

Of course, if you want a current adaptation of 1984, just watch CNN.

 

[ray gower]

LOL!

BTW Welcome to Books!

 

[Dave]

I never knew there was a 1950's TV series either!!!

It was closer to what the 1940's could have been than the 1980's anyway. I believe that originally the title of the book was going to be 1948. Just as Animal Farm is allegorical of a Communist state, 1984 could have been any fascist or communist state at that time. Doublethink and Newspeak are not far removed from German war propaganda and the political structure of the Soviet Union.

 

[Kanazaka]

I, for one, enjoyed reading 1984 on a couple of occasions. Orwell's handling of language is great, as are his ideas and storytelling skills. I liked the overall messages of the book rather than any particular moment. All of the characters stood out--especially Winston. However, I do feel that the themes of totalitarianism, espionage, and classism related much more to the Soviet experience than any other culture, since such themes most strongly applied to the U.S. during the Cold War, which we fought against the Soviets.

 

[BAYLOR]

Nineteen Eighty-Four

The ultimate totalitarian state. Where lives are recorded and people are impersonalised.
We watch as one person, Winston Smith, tries to break free of the constraint and realises the futility.

A main stay of schools English literature for years. And a dire warning for all.

Hated the book, loved the TV series!
Port Meirion however is not worth the visit.

I rather liked to book, You knew from the beginning that Smith was doomed , even he knew it deep down.

The Film with John Hurt was a supers adaptation.

 

[galanx]

One of the greatest downers ever, though we find out the system doesn't last in the end. I think "Idiocracy" is more of an accurate extrapolation of our current trends, though.

Richard Burton was also great in this, a reminder of what he could have done.

 

[BAYLOR]

Winston Smith knew he was doomed from the start, even before he put his so called Thought Crime and into his diary. He put a piece of tape ion the book as means of seeing any the thought police might decide to stop into his house while he was at the ministry of Truth and read his diary and know his true thoughts on Big Brother. Actually , it really did much matter, He was probably a target by both O'brien and the party from the very beginning.

 

[BAYLOR]

It's interesting that O'Brien's tv set unlike Winston Smith and the others, it had a off switch?

Smith was taken in so readily by O'Brien, he put into Smith's head the notion that revolution againts the Oceana regime of Big Brother was possible. Im thinking that that should have put Smith on his guard, but it obviously didn't. I suspect that if Smith had been a little more wary and hadn't taken the bait , it's possible O'Brien would have not sent him to the Ministry of Love to be redeemed( I use that term with a certain level of Irony). But then again maybe not.

 

[galanx]

I think what you said in your post about Smith being doomed from the start was correct- the idea was that anyone with any trace of originality or deviance was doomed; somebody like Smith really had no chance. The whole point (for Orwell) was to draw him out to the point where he agreed to do anything to help the Revolution, to show that there was no difference between what he was willing to do and what the Party was actually doing. This draws from Orwell's experience with the Communist Party in Spain and what he saw as the cowardly kowtowing to Stalin by most of the Left.

O'Brien asks Smith

If, for example, it would somehow serve our interests to throw sulphuric acid in a child’s face — are you prepared to do that?’

‘Yes.’

Wrong answer.

Compared to Dosteovsky's dialogue between Alyosha and Ivan Karamazov

Tell me yourself, I challenge your answer. Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature- that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance- and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth."
"No, I wouldn't consent," said Alyosha softly."
And can you admit the idea that men for whom you are building it would agree to accept their happiness on the foundation of the unexpiated blood of a little victim? And accepting it would remain happy for ever?"
"No, I can't admit it."

Which is the source of Ursula K. Leguin's "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas"

 

[BAYLOR]

In Oceana no one is safe from the state . I wonder if would ever occur to someone like an O'Brien that the state would eventually do the same thing to him that he's done to people like Winston Smith.

 

[BAYLOR]

I never knew there was a 1950's TV series either!!!

It was closer to what the 1940's could have been than the 1980's anyway. I believe that originally the title of the book was going to be 1948. Just as Animal Farm is allegorical of a Communist state, 1984 could have been any fascist or communist state at that time. Doublethink and Newspeak are not far removed from German war propaganda and the political structure of the Soviet Union.

Wasn't it also supposed to be titled The Last Man In Europe?

 

[galanx]

Speaking of Orwell and Big Brother, an inriguing if airy web of speculation on Orwell and the Cambridge Five, the group of spies recruited by the Soviet Union during their university days.

George Orwell’s master – and spymaster? | TLS

 

[Toby Frost]

There's a tremendous alternate history book waiting to be written, where Orwell survives and goes up against Philby, rather like Tim Powers' Declare.