Archives: Sacred Cows

This new novel from the English writer, George Orwell, sees him going in a new direction . . . backwards. 1984 is ostensibly set in the future, so, unless I've completely misread the book, it is set in an alternate past. Or it might be an alternate future's past... or it could be just an alternate reality with a bodgy calendar. For quite some time I was worried that the whole thing may have been the victim of a prodigious typographical error and it was supposed to be 2084, or 2184.

It is 1984 . . . we'll just take that as read for the moment, and the world is dominated by three powers — which is a novel twist because usually it's just two powers and a rag-tag collection of victims. Anyway, the action takes place in Oceania, which is like England but not quite as grim. The country is ruled by The Party, and that is about as far as accurate nomenclature goes in this novel. The Ministry of Love is into fear and hate, the Ministry of Peace presides over a never-ending war, and the Ministry of Truth deals with propaganda. I don't know, you just can't get good proofreaders these days . . . I'm beginning to think the title is a typo.

Our hero is Winston Smith, and an Arnold Schwarzenegger he ain't. A pity, really, because I can just see Arnie kicking arse if they ever do a movie of this. Okay, they'd have to change a few things, like the plot, and the sub-plot, and the theme, and the artistic integrity — but that hasn't stopped them in the past. Anyway, our hero lives in a dilapidated apartment and he works away as a public servant in a thankless job. He participates in Hate Week and he lusts after the girls in their Anti Sex League sashes. Bear in mind that this is described as a satire if you don't mind. I couldn't find any jokes and it is all fairly harrowing stuff.

It transpires that our hero has a bit of a conscience and is a tad concerned about the fact that the country that Oceania is at war with keeps on changing. As a matter of fact a lot of the past keeps changing too. Now don't start thinking that we are off into time travelling areas here because it is really about how the dominant ideology is able to control everything, even history, and a major theme of the novel is ethical behaviour. Our hero then decides to fight this all-pervading evil by renting a room and having it off with his girlfriend. This might be the ethical bit. Anyway, the evil government, headed up by Big Brother (talk about cliches!) are onto Winston's cunning plan and spy on the room with a large videoscreen hidden behind a picture! Now that is what I call cunning. Winston, realising the type of people he is up against, dobs in his girlfriend. Then they let him go.

It's a complex plot, I know, but there are a few other things going on in the novel. Orwell actually invents a new language, for instance. "Newspeak". This is how it works: if something is "good", it is called "good". If it is not "good", then, no, it's not called "bad" — it's an easy mistake to make but bear with me — if a thing is not good, it is "ungood". If this thing was really, really bad it would be called "doubleplusungood". I think maybe Mr Orwell might have invented Newspeak in the hope that all of the proofreading errors might somehow be covered up. Newspeak also contains the word "doublethink" which means "the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them". So it's all about politics as well.

I can't help thinking that Mr Orwell would have a real winner on his hands if only he did something a little more imaginative with the names of his characters. Perhaps Winston Smith could be something like, well, James Luger, or Hunter McRae. He needs a more heroic name. And Big Brother could be Zgemmkar. There is another evil figure in the book: O'Brien. Yeah I know — yawn! He should be something like Skarrick. No first name — at least Orwell got that right. Just Skarrick. It has to be something like that because at first you don't know that O'Brien is evil. I hope I'm not giving too much of the plot away here.

Anyway, 1984 is a good read, although a little dated, and it gets a doubleplusgood rating from me.