jankp's Full Review: George Orwell, Erich Fromm, Thomas Pynchon, Erich ...
NOTE--This takes place after Dr. Freudine gives her report on her client 29th Candidate and a male psychiatrist says she wasted everyone's time and to forget being a psychiatrist.
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I don’t at first know what to do with myself. That hostile psychiatrist’s ugly puss and bold, horrifying words to me are all I can see and hear as I lock myself in my old, beat up car in the parking lot. But I couldn’t stay here and risk any of them coming out and seeing me, so I drive to my favorite hang-out, the main library downtown. Strangely enough I can enter without any idea what I’m looking for, or maybe rather what I need to read, and I’ll manage to wander right to a book that I immediately or eventually realize is what I want or need to read.
Tonight I find George Orwell’s 1949 classic, 1984, before my seeking, brown eyes and I stare at it a moment before grabbing it. I’ve already read the other two novels about a dystopic future, Zamyatin’s We and Huxley’s Brave New World (loving the first, hating the second), so would this one be worth reading? Would it just be so-so with nothing new to offer?
I decide to check it out, partly because with the black mood I’m in, I should feel right at home, hehe, and partly because I have a nagging feeling I should. In a few minutes I’m home with it and after checking on the butternut squash in the crockpot, I settle down in the black vinyl recliner to read it.
The similarities are glaring. Another thirty-something male lives in a futuristic, totalitarian society where he’s constantly watched and listened to for any signs of rebellion, namely any attempts to be his own person instead of a mindless cog in the machinery of the governing party, be it Big Brother, the One State or World State. They are intelligent men who feel from the beginning or soon afterwards outside of the rest of society and sooner or later think they’re going crazy with terror.
Love is not supposed to occur and while 1984’s Big Brother teaches his female Party members to hate sex and only procreate for children, the other governing parties teach through routine promiscuity that there’s no such thing as love. It is because of falling in love that 1984’s and We’s emotionally-driven men are led to their destinies, but there are more profound differences in Orwell’s book that completely fascinate me, a psychiatrist.
Doublegood? Doubleplusgood?
In Big Brother country, Oceania by name, a new, simplified language has been created called NewSpeak to fit the ideological needs of Ingsoc, or much-modified English Socialism, which eliminates all the words that help people understand dangerous, heretical concepts like freedom, equality, beauty, love, democracy, honor, morality, justice, internationalism and science. Diminishing language diminishes people’s range of thought. To that end all words were to be used as nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs with the use of affixes (prefixes) or suffixes. Their vile purpose: to eliminate conscious thought!
Then there’s the teaching of doublethink, where two contrary ideas must be simultaneously and happily swallowed, such as ‘war is peace,’ ‘ignorance is strength,’ and ‘freedom is slavery.’ The hero of 1984, Winston Smith, seems to be the last Party member (of either Outer or Inner Party) who still recognizes their differences because he still has memories, a big no-no. The central tenet of Ingsoc is that the past can be changed and the Party does it constantly to suit their purposes. Winston’s job at the paradoxically-named Ministry of Truth (minitrue in NewSpeak) is to help change history reported on in newspapers, including wrong predictions made by Big Brother and getting rid of reports about now vaporized or murdered thought criminals caught by the Thought Police. He knows it’s just a matter of time before they get him, too, but he refuses to be less of a man and chases the dream of freedom as long as he and his lover Julia can.
Less of a Man, hmm?
Now this is the most intriguing part of these dystopic novels. They ask what is human nature, what is man, can his spirit be broken and how (through drugs, surgery, fear?). Each hero visits a place outside of their civilized lives, either part of the streets of London as in 1984, the old house near the green dividing wall in We or the Savage Country in Brave New World. They become confused and horrified in the latter books, but Winston embraces his double life there with Julia. He’s only confused and horrified when the Thought Police torture him for believing that four fingers held up are four and not five as they say.
How, Winston wonders, can he see something that’s not there. He’s told that reality is only that which is in your mind. He’s told that if he’s the only one seeing or believing something out of millions of people, he must have a diseased mind. Winston’s body is equally assaulted with pain for almost half of the 279-page book to break him down. The answer to the question of human nature? Perhaps it is, I wince, that we can learn to live in hatred as easily as in love.
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I close the depressing book after skimming the long Appendix explaining the intricacies of NewSpeak and thoughtfully reading Erich Fromm's Afterword. Orwell’s intention in writing the book could only be to warn democratic societies like mine of brainwashing, communist techniques used by those in power to subdue the people. Retain your memories and learn about history, he’s advising, for only they may save you from becoming a helpless pawn of government. See how in Oceania and the other two world powers endless war between them keeps the governing party in power.
While I really like his intentions, his political message, Nazi regime atmosphere and tactics, his spellbinding description of everything Winston saw, heard and felt, and the life-like characters, especially Winston, I have to say 1984 was not as enjoyable to read as We, though many of Zamyatin’s intentions are similar.
Orwell makes sure, very sure, that he gets his despairing point across again and again. He includes many, unnecessary pages from ‘the book’ for those joining the Underground that Winston is reading, then reading out loud to Julia. This made sure you understood what you were reading and Winston says at the end that he didn’t learn anything new. Orwell also overdoes it for me with the graphic torture and it seems to me the Party makes too much work for itself by publishing a paper it needs to continually update and NewSpeak-revised writings by Shakespeare, Dickens and such. It’s idiocy.
In contrast Zamyatin has a light, satirical hand that amused me as often as it thrilled me. 1984 is far better than Huxley’s disjointed, unengaging, depressing tale, though. I could actually feel terrified along with Winston!
Well, I know what I have to do now. I’ve got to encourage thinking, remembering and reading in my clients (29th doesn’t need much help). They can learn how to heal themselves through their active minds, on dealing with the issues instead of repressing them. I’ll go back to the library in the morning for a book I might assign my new, shy client the day after tomorrow.
Finally I’m aware of the sweet/spicy smell of the squash luring me to the kitchen and I respond.
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