For the Love of Big Brother

[Dave Monroe]

BOOKS
By Jim Knipfel

For the Love of Big Brother
Orwell turns 100.

In the wake of WWII, George Orwell is said to have handed over the
names of several potential communist sympathizers to the British
government. This dirty little secret, first revealed several years
ago, raised a bit of a shitstorm in certain intellectual circles. How
could a man whose work condemned such behavior in no uncertain terms
have become such a willing tool?

In his introduction to John Reed's anti-Orwell Animal Farm satire,
Snowball's Chance, Alexander Cockburn argued that Orwell had been not
only a rat, but a fascist at heart. In Why Orwell Matters, Christopher
Hitchens rejected such claims, saying that Orwell was an adamant
anti-Stalinist and hated totalitarianism in any form. (The controversy
was covered in some detail by John Strausbaugh in these pages last
year.)

Be all that as it may, there's not going to be any getting rid of
Orwell, rat or not, anytime soon, nor should there be. No matter how
many dozens of articles argue this way or that in the political
magazines, nothing is going to change the fact that George Orwell (who
would have turned 100 this year) has become a solid and unshakeable
part of the culture, primarily on the virtues of two little books: his
cautionary fable, Animal Farm, and his grim masterpiece of quiet
personal rebellion, 1984. The latter especially, the strength and
significance of which has been driven home all too well these past 20
months, as the march toward "homeland security" has left headline
writers scrambling for references that aren't in some fashion
Orwellian.

I'm assuming that we're all familiar enough with at least the gist of
the book. That in itself creates an interesting problem for publishers
who are trying to sell yet another edition of Orwell's dusty dystopian
classic. Apart from junior high kids who are going to be forced to
read it, how do you get regular folks to pick it up? How to make a
book that has become so cliche seem fresh and interesting again? And
how do you sell a new edition when there are already a dozen editions
of the book on the shelves (and online)?

Well, first thing the folks at Plume did was repackage a beautiful
"new" edition, which reproduces the original 1949 cover art and flap
copy ("Though the story of Nineteen Eighty-Four takes place
thirty-five years hence...").

Another way to catch people's attention, the editors figured, is to
commission a new foreword by someone who might have some special,
unique insight into what Orwell envisioned. For the centennial edition
of Animal Farm, for instance (which received a similar repackaging),
they hired Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto and The Magician's
Assistant. But who would be right for 1984?

Someone, maybe, who might feel a special bond with Winston Smith. Or
O'Brien or Goldstein or Big Brother himself. Even Tillotson (you never
hear enough about him). If it turns out to be an author who writes
like no one ever has before—or ever will—then you've got a double
bonus. People will pick up the dusty old novel not for the dusty old
novel, but for the secret prize hidden inside, like the toy balloon
gondolas and plastic cavemen that used to lie buried at the bottom of
boxes of Fruity Pebbles. I never liked Fruity Pebbles much, but those
gondolas were the best.

Plume couldn't have done better than to snag Thomas Pynchon. While we
all, in some way, have a stake in the implications of Orwell's novel,
I have to believe that Mr. Pynchon's stake is a bit bigger.

Much as Orwell "foresaw" a world of electronic surveillance, falsified
history and sham wars, Pynchon's own writings (intentionally or not)
have had a prescient quality of their own, envisioning everything from
the internet to the convergence of computer technology, artificial
intelligence and genetic research, which he presaged in his 1984
essay, "Is It O.K. to be a Luddite?". Pynchon is also, it goes without
saying, well-versed in the mechanics of paranoia and conspiracy.

Here, in his first extended bit of published writing since his
introduction to Jim Dodge's 1997 novel Stone Junction (an essay which
also had quite a bit to say on matters Orwellian), Pynchon employs a
language that's simple and straightforward, yet plays with ideas that
are (unsurprisingly) subtle. In the end, he's produced the most
insightful—and playful—analysis of the novel I've ever read. Pynchon
weaves elements of Orwell's biography together with various political
and historical events of his day (and our own) to explain not only
what's going on in 1984, but why, and where it came from.

At the same time, he deals with the above-mentioned "snitch"
controversy (without saying as much), dismisses other controversies
(like recent claims that Orwell was an anti-Semite) and demolishes
several overly simplistic readings of the novel.

1984, he explains, is much more than a point-by-point critique of
Stalinism. Sure, Big Brother is clearly Stalin and Goldstein clearly
Trotsky, but beyond and beneath that it's a reflection of Orwell's own
unease concerning the political moves being made by the Allied nations
in the aftermath of WWII.

He also derides (but with good humor) those who would read 1984 as a
collection of "predictions" about the world in which we're living.
There's a difference, Pynchon writes, between prediction and prophecy,
and Orwell wasn't making predictions so much as he was looking deeper
into the human soul and projecting where the behavior he was
witnessing in the seats of power would lead us, should it continue
unchecked.

He does pause briefly at a couple of points to draw parallels between
1984 and 2003—the use of doublethink by modern-day politicians and
media outlets, for instance. He even brings up parallels which aren't
usually brought up: the similarity between Oceania's Ministries and
our own Department of Defense (which wages war) and Department of
Justice (which regularly stomps on human and constitutional rights).
Early in the essay, he even hints (again without saying as much) at
the events of September 2001 and the effect such events usually have
on the political outlook of a nation. An attack on one's own homeland
can suddenly transform peace activists into dangerous subversives in
the minds of most citizens. It was something Orwell witnessed during
the Blitz, and something we've witnessed over the past year and a
half.

As with most everything he writes, Mr. Pynchon's essay flows easily
through a remarkable range of topics—technology, historical precedent,
Orwell's situation and our own, the cuts the Book of the Month Club
wanted to make before releasing the novel, various characters and the
roles they play—and how fictional characters can develop the nasty
habit of doing things the novelist himself never expected. He even
hints in the closing paragraphs that 1984 ends on a note perhaps a bit
brighter than most of us realize.

As always, it's a delightful little ride and, all told, it's less an
introduction to the novel than it is a commentary written for readers
already well familiar with it. That's an important thing. Because the
real reason to pick up 1984 and read it (or reread it) now has nothing
to do with any parallels to our own time, or any big smarty-pants
controversy. The real reason to read the novel is because it's such a
fucking great novel. I hadn't read it in over two decades (it was one
of my favorites as a kid). Going back to it now (admittedly via
audiotape), I was astonished at the savage clarity of Orwell's prose,
his brilliant language-play, his eye for necessary detail, the depth
and complexity of his characters and, above all, his skills as a
storyteller.

When most people think of 1984 nowadays, they're thinking less of the
novel itself than what the novel has come to signify. Forget political
allegory and historical parallels for a moment (though those are
certainly unavoidable, like trying to watch the 1964 version of The
Killers without thinking of Reagan as president). Instead, try reading
it as a great, exciting and profoundly sad story—and one of the most
compelling novels of the modern era.

1984 (Centennial Edition)
By George Orwell
Foreword by Thomas Pynchon, Afterword by Erich Fromm
Plume, 368 pages, $14

http://www.nypress.com/16/19/books/books.cfm

How to get a blurb from Thomas Pynchon

http://www.salon.com/books/log/1999/10/15/pynchon_blurb/

Endorsements

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_blurbs.html