Just read 1984 for the first time. Random thoughts/questions

Cafe Society
1

I know I’m about 70 years late to the party but, at 45 years old, I just read George Orwell 1984. This thread will probably sink to the bottom of the sea but I wanted to share some quick thoughts/questions in no particular order

  1. I read the book knowing the basic story beats but had never seen the movie or a trailer and therefore I had no preconceptions of what the characters looked like and generated them in my imagination. Here is what I pictured

Winston Smith - Cillian Murphy
Julia - The actress that is in every season of American Horror Story. Can’t think of her name.
Parsons - Mark Horton in Pee Wees Big Adventure
O’Brien - Wario
Big Brother - Borat

  1. Book was really enthralling and I can see why it’s a literary classic.

  2. The chapters from the collectivism guidebook that O’Brien gives Winston were insanely well written. By far the most fascinating parts of the book. How do/did intellectuals feel about those sections? The War is Peace section was pretty compelling and feels eerily realistic.

  3. Because I hadn’t had my mind spoiled by any visual representations of the settings in the book The Ministry looked like the movie Equilibrium in my mind, which was certainly inspired by 1984. The Ministry in the 1984 movie didn’t look sleek or futuristic at all even considering the age of the movie. What was your mental image of the ministry? High techy or hospital clinical etc?

  4. The entire 3rd chapter dealing with Obriens interrogation/torture of Winston read like Orwell was having an extended fever dream or was whacked out on some serious hallucinogenics. Felt like the weakest part of the story and I don’t think it really sold Obriens motivation. Just kind of turned him into a cartoon villain.

  5. Was Oceania actually at war with anyone or was it just a story concocted by The Party to control the population? By the end I wasn’t sure that anything outside of London was real.

  6. Was Winston shot at the very end? For some reason it felt somewhat ambiguous to me.

  7. What was the reception of the movie when it came out? Was it popular? Was it faithful to the book?

  8. I read Animal Farm right before this. Orwell was not a fan of happy endings was he.

Anyway I don’t really have anyone at home to ruminate with on these so wanted to write them down somewhere. Curious to hear any thoughts on this book if anyone wants to share.

2

The way I see it, O’Brien — he’s not Superman, y’know? I figure that he figures that if he acts the way Winston Smith does, he’ll wind up like Winston Smith does; and that, if he instead does pretty much what he’s been doing, he’ll continue, uh, living it up the way he’s been living.

Momentarily grant, for the sake of argument, that he figures there’s no third option: that he thinks he lacks any real ability to change the system, only to (a) be a play-by-the-rules opportunist within the system or to (b) resist it and then get crushed by it. If so, then it seems to me there are plenty of things to say about opting for the former, but I’m not sure Cartoon Villainy is the point; I think the point of Winston breaking is to drive home what O’Brien has seen play out before: yep, that’s what happens when someone opts for the latter.

3

No, no happy endings for Orwell. I heard (on NPR?) that he was diagnosed with TB while writing 1984 and instead of resting, he pressed on, doing his best to meet deadlines. He might have lived longer if he’d taken a break from writing the book.

As for Winston being shot at the end, the way I’ve always read it is that he’s “in a blissful dream” imagining being executed, but that passes with his final epiphany–“He loved Big Brother”. His imagining that “The long-hoped-for bullet was entering his brain” is a resolution of his internal conflict and his giving up his struggle against Big Brother.

The last 2 paragraphs of the book, below, are cut and pasted from the fadedpage.com online copy, and what I’ve italicized (it’s not in italics in the book) is Winston “in a blissful dream” as he sits in the Chestnut Tree Cafe.

"The voice from the telescreen was still pouring forth its tale of prisoners and booty and slaughter, but the shouting outside had died down a little. The waiters were turning back to their work. One of them approached with the gin bottle. Winston, sitting in a blissful dream, paid no attention as his glass was filled up. He was not running or cheering any longer. He was back in the Ministry of Love, with everything forgiven, his soul white as snow. He was in the public dock, confessing everything, implicating everybody. He was walking down the white-tiled corridor, with the feeling of walking in sunlight, and an armed guard at his back. The long-hoped-for bullet was entering his brain.

He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark mustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."

I vaguely remember seeing the film when it appeared in the early 80s and didn’t find it particularly memorable. It’s fairly faithful to the book; I think that it was respected but not very popular.

4

I recently finished the novel Julia, by Sandra Newman, a retelling of 1984 from Julia’s point of view. It was decent, but if I were you I’d let the first book settle a good while first.

5

It’s been a few years, but my recollection is that this was vital to the narrative. Winston and Julia knew that if discovered they would tell everything, but they’d never truly betray each other. In the end, the state couldn’t take that away.

Well, yes, they could. And this was how. Nothing cartoonish in that section to me.

6

‘You asked me once,’ said O’Brien, ‘what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.’ …

… ‘The worst thing in the world,’ said O’Brien, ‘varies from individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by impalement, or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing, not even fatal.’ …

… ‘In your case,’ said O’Brien, ‘the worst thing in the world happens to be rats.’

7

Maybe motivation wasn’t the right word. Lemme think.

While I’m at it how was O’Brien reading Winstons thoughts? Like the exact words he was thinking? Was that explained? I’m still absorbing the thing since I just finished and need to read a few recaps.

8

From Winston’s perspective, it is a happy ending. That’s what makes it impactful.

9

There may or may not be a war. The gains of land go back and forth eternally to keep the war going. I’m not sure if it was real.

Well, color me clueless. I thought the ending indicated he had been successfully brainwashed like the rest of the population. I’m wrong, I take it?

10

O’Brien quotes:

“There is no way in which the Party can be overthrown. The rule of the Party is for ever. Make that the starting-point of your thoughts.”

“Winston, you reduced yourself to it. This is what you accepted when you set yourself up against the Party. It was all contained in that first act. Nothing has happened that you did not foresee.”

“You would not make the act of submission which is the price of sanity. You preferred to be a lunatic, a minority of one.”

“Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind except that you happen to be insane.”

“No one whom we bring to this place ever stands out against us. Everyone is washed clean. Even those three miserable traitors in whose innocence you once believed – Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford – in the end we broke them down. I took part in their interrogation myself. I saw them gradually worn down, whimpering, grovelling, weeping – and in the end it was not with pain or fear, only with penitence. By the time we had finished with them they were only the shells of men. There was nothing left in them except sorrow for what they had done, and love of Big Brother. It was touching to see how they loved him. They begged to be shot quickly, so that they could die while their minds were still clean.”

(That last bit prompts Winston’s conclusion: “He is not pretending, thought Winston, he is not a hypocrite, he believes every word he says.”)

If we take what he says seriously, O’Brien simply believes that opting to go against the Party — which, he believes, cannot be overthrown — means getting brought to a place where, as he’s seen first-hand and is about to see again, one invariably gets broken: that’s what he figures Winston foresaw, and accepted; that, he figures, is the choice.

(And if we for some reason don’t take what he says seriously, then, what, we’re kinda left with figuring he’s just saying whatever he thinks will get Winston to break? And, since Winston then does break, O’Brien would be a cartoon villain only in the sense that he’s, uh, playing a part…)

11

II believe it was. In one of the excerpts from Goldstein’s book, the point is made that in order to keep the economy going, you need to produce goods; and ideally, goods that can be used up quickly, so more of the same goods are needed. The more these things cost to produce, the better.

Hmmm … expensive to produce, but can be used up quickly. How about war materiel? Ammunition, certainly; but also tanks, artillery, aircraft, Floating Fortresses—all it takes is a well-placed shell, and they’re all used up. Better build more.

Besides, it explains to the ordinary people why they can’t have nicer things. Remember, Winston’s Victory gin tastes oily, and his Victory cigarettes fall apart before he can even light one. But it’s all for the war effort; those brave soldiers, sailors, and airmen deserve the best we can offer.

This economic justification is not a big part of Goldstein’s book, but it is a part of Goldstein’s book. There had to have been a real war going on among the three powers for this economic theory to work.

12

I don’t think I ever imagined 1984 to be a high-techy “iPod” future. I read the book and later saw the film in the 80s so I suppose I always pictured it as sort of anachronistic 1950s retro-futuristic British dystopia (Britstopia?) bureaucracy that defined the look of films like Brazil, Max Headroom, Equilibrium, and V for Vendetta. Brutalist architecture, fascist uniforms, endless rows of paper-pushing office workers, old tech with lots of exposed wires and pipes. That sort of thing.

What always struck me about 1984 was the description of how their society was structured ( Goldstein’s essay IIRC).

On top you have Big Brother (who may or may not actually exist)
The Inner Party represents a small percent (1%?) of the population who actually wields all the power.
The larger Outer Party enjoys a bit higher standard of living to basically run things.
Then 85% of the people are “Proles” who don’t really care about anything besides their day to day.

Which seems to fit how most societies run, regardless of what we call them.

13

That was my take as well: he surrendered his will to think independently from what Big Brother wanted him to think. I never considered that he would be able to escape a miserable life by dying a quick death.

As we were about to open Christmas presents this year, I handed back to my daughter her copy of 1984 that she loaned me earlier in the year. She eventually opened the copy of Julia that I bought for her, which made her realize why I gave her her 1984 book back. She says she would let me read it when she’s done with it. I had a lot of questions about Julia’s motivations when reading 1984; I hope the new book helps answer those questions.

14

Part of the rationale for continuous war was, as Goldstein* wrote, to consume the “products of the machine” which might otherwise be used to raise the general standard of living (particularly among the proles, who could potentially become aware that they were being screwed over). Another part — IMHO, just was important — was to keep the society on a war footing psychologically, making privation and loss of what little freedom it might have had acceptable.

* As O’Brien pointed out, The Book was actually written by a committee of which he was a member. There’s no concrete evidence that “Goldstein” ever really existed: he may be as much of a construct as Comrade Ogilvy.

15

Maybe I’m missing something: what changes if people just get told that there’s a real war going on among the three powers?

16

I seem to have mislaid the link, but I stumbled upon a novelette titled 1985. ISTR it consists of essays by Winston, Julia, O’Brien and some of the other characters, trying to rationalize their actions. It occurs shortly after the death of Big Brother and the conquest of Oceania by one of the other superstates.

17
18

Not really related to any of your specific questions, but:

I first read 1984 in the late 1960’s or '70’s. In the actual year 1984, there were a whole batch of essays in newsmagazines and such; many of them sort of congratulating ourselves for not having produced precisely that dystopia.

The one that stuck in my head – I’m afraid I have no idea who wrote it – was by someone who pointed out that Orwell had postulated a future in which everyone had a television set that watched them and told them what to do; and that what we actually had produced, in the actual 1984, was a world in which most people had a television set that they watched, and which told them what to do (via advertising, and news, and subtext of programs.) And that there might not be as much difference there as all the congratulatory people seemed to think.

19

Here you go: 1985 (Dalos novel) - Wikipedia

20

I think Oceania probably looks a lot like North Korea. Big flashy buildings in the heart of London to impress the proles that are mostly empty on the inside, while parts of the city are still bombed-out husks dating back to WWII.