1984 Foreword--All Writing Is Fiction?
davemarc
davemarc at panix.com
Fri Jun 6 15:37:33 CDT 2003
Perhaps at times the concept that "all writing is fiction" might hold some
water, but in many other respects it doesn't. Orwell himself toys with the
ramifications of the concept in 1984, satirically writing "the Ministry of
Truth, which concerned itself with news, entertainment, education, and the
fine arts" and then depicting the way that the Inner Party utilizes its
contempt
for facts to keep the general population disoriented and open to
manipulation. Orwell presents a similar scenario in Animal Farm.
Pynchon observes that "It has become a commonplace circa 2003 for government
employees to be paid more than most of the rest of us to debase history,
trivialize truth, and annihilate the past on a daily basis." It strikes me
that people who proclaim that "all writing is fiction" without bothering
to offer reasonable qualifications might also be trivializing truth. I'm not
stating this to attack anyone--I'm merely trying to point out that there are
good and perhaps crucial reasons for respecting the distinctions.
d.
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