Orwellian dude...was Religious Fundamentalism in ...

[jbor]

    "Wow, the Government has turned into Big Brother, *just like
    Orwell predicted!* Something, huh?" "Orwellian, dude!" (xvi)

on 22/5/03 3:25 PM, Barbara Bell at barbara100 at jps.net wrote:

> Is Pynchon really parodying the Owellian dudes there?

Yes. He's parodying a conversation between two shallow-minded fools who are
equating contemporary Western government with Orwell's depiction in the
novel. 

> "Well yes and no" like he says next. Sure he's poking fun at folks for
> making too much of the details of what Orwell "gets right," reverting back
> to "Prophecy and prediction are not quite the same" at the beginning of the
> paragraph. But "yes and no" is hardly calling it 'lunatic'.

The parody makes fun of those who say that "the Government" has turned,
holus bolus, into Big Brother. I think it's safe to say that life in the USA
"circa 2003" is pretty cruisy all things considered, and nothing like that
depicted in Orwell's novel. I think it's safe to say that Pynchon realises
this too.

The "yes and no" relates to the broader distinction between prediction and
prophecy which Pynchon makes. The guy or gal in the parody says "*just like
Orwell predicted*", and Pynchon dismisses the way some critics and readers
list down what Orwell "'got right'" and then wave it around as proof
positive that, say, the USA is a fascist hellhole and Bush is an evil
blood-sucking dictator and whatnot. Pynchon discounts the making up of a
balance sheet of "specific predictions" in favour of a broader conception of
Orwell's significance as a "working prophet".

> And why does he
> bring it up at all, why draw attention to it if he didn't kinda like it when
> people said it? 

I imagine he thinks these people are at the opposite end of the spectrum
from "those among us who are all too ready to justify any government action,
whether right or wrong". I imagine his own position is somewhere between
these two extremes. Of course, and as usual, he never actually says what his
own position is.

> I imagine him laughing, "Heh, heh, heh--well yes and no.
> Come here and let me tell you about it, little girl."
> Oh, sorry, slipped into a fantasy there for a minute.
> But he's not ridiculing those who think Big Brother is watching. *He* thinks
> Big Brother is watching!
> I think he likes the Orwellian dudes, myself.

I think he thinks they're simpletons. But I agree, it is a gentle and
humorous dig. On the other hand, there's an element of empathy with the
"those among us" from earlier too.

> I just noticed another very 9/11-ish reference:
> 
> News is whatever the government says it is, surveillance of ordinary
> citizens has entered the mainstream of police activity, reasonable search
> and seizure is a joke. And so forth. "Wow, the Government has turned into
> Big Brother, just like Orwell predicted! Something, huh?" "Orwellian dude!"
> 
> "surveillance of ordinary citizens has entered the mainstream of police
> activity"
> 
> Sounds very present-day, no?

It's almost exactly the same thing he was writing about in the _Stone
Junction_ introduction. Back in 1990.

best