Orwell is a man of strong convictions. He believes so passionately in the fight against fascism that in 1936 he travels to Barcelona to fight in the revolution. Homage to Catalonia is a detailed account of the politics surrounding the revolution, a fervent defense of the working class and a witness of war from the trenches. “All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.” I will be honest and say that the politics interested me […]
Don’t let this happen. Go out and vote!
Holy crap this is depressing. And terrifying. We have our main character, Winston, who’s 39. He starts off by doing a forbidden thing: writing in a diary. He is terrified that the Thought Police will find him and kill him, or if not that then send him to 25 years of hard labor. The Thought Police can find you anywhere. There are screens that are constantly on playing propaganda news and military music and whatever else they want the people to see, and the Thought […]
A Dual Biography that works
I read Churchill and Orwell because I am a fan of the author, Thomas E. Ricks. Ricks is best known as a military historian who wrote Fiasco and The Generals, both of which I highly recommend. This book is a bit of a departure for Ricks but the topic seemed interesting. Churchill and Orwell is a dual biography of two British men who had similarly parallel lives during WWII-era Great Britain. I was surprised to find how much the two men had in common, especially […]
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. Winston Smith does not know what year it is when he sits down to write his diary. He thinks it’s 1984, but he can’t be sure. The past has been edited and rewritten so many times that the current date and year of Oceania can be hard to trace. In fact it’s Winston’s job to help rewrite the past, by updating newspapers and media everytime the Party demands it. “Who controls the past controls the future. […]