5 ms·

Orwell’s Escape

68 points by lermontov 3y ago

RyanShook 3y ago
https://archive.is/4K04p https://archive.is/4K04p
- neonate 3y ago
  https://web.archive.org/web/20240410042102/https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/05/george-orwell-1984-isle-of-jura/677843/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240410042102/https://www.theat...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
FrankWilhoit 3y ago
[flagged]
- surfingdino 3y ago
  We may have enough evidence to prove there is a change, but not how the change manifests itself?
- 0xNotMyAccount 3y ago
  [flagged]
- mjklin 3y ago
  I’ve heard a similar explanation for why Goya’s imagery shifted so dramatically toward the end of his life: lead poisoning from his paints
- philwelch 3y ago
  Then it truly says something about the rest of humanity that even with tuberculosis, Orwell was a brilliant and insightful commentator on the state of the world who grasped many basic truths that elude many people even today.
- CatWChainsaw 3y ago
  "It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society". I doubt tuberculosis is the holy grail you want it to be.
sublimefire 3y ago
I did not like the article, it was like the author was trying to connect the environment Orwell experienced to the book. IMO this is just guesswork, speculation and worst of all denying the author the intellectual prowess. Think about it, if you were to write a book you would not want the circumstances to affect the work and you’d be conscious about it. Saying that author somehow slipped in text because of the condition he was in paints him as a moron. These sort of biography inspired essays are just BS, dragging us with a promise of a bit of mystery and mysticism. The truth is that nobody knows and we try to satisfy our curiosity with the best sounding/fitting story. Animal farm and 1984 and others have something that resonates well with us. And we get the gist and we are a bit more careful and vigilant in our lives thanks to it.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  If you read much Orwell, you'll see most of the elements that went into 1984 are present in his earlier writing as well. "Such, Such Were the Joys" is obvious; other influences I recall are bits of "You and the Atomic Bomb", Down and Out.., Homage..., "Notes on Nationalism", "The Spike" and probably a few I'm forgetting. What surprises me is how many people think Smith is meant as a sympathetic character; recall what crimes he's willing to commit!
- hnbad 3y ago
  It's really not subtle. Both 1984 and Animal Farm are critiques of the Soviet Union from the left. Orwell fought on the side of the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War and the betrayal by the Soviet Union soured him on the prospect of its interpretation of communism. This doesn't even require reading his biography, he explicitly wrote about his experiences in Homage to Catalonia. Where it falls apart is when people try to analyze his works as critiques of communism from the right because while he hated the Soviet Union, that didn't make him anti-communist, quite the opposite. Maybe this explains why his works still resonate with people (at least by pop cultural reference, as most people citing 1984 don't seem to have actually read it): because they're critiques from the left, they also lend themselves to critiquing capitalism (surveillance capitalism and tepid liberalism in particular).
zvmaz 3y ago
I have fond memories of reading his essays, notably Shooting an Elephant [1]. They left a vivid impression on me when I was younger. [1] https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/shooting-an-elephant/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...
- sertsa 3y ago
  Thanks! Also read this story decades ago as a young man and it left a strong impression. More then once brought it up as a metaphor in a conversation. For some reason my memory attributed it to Kipling and a few times tried to find it and never could, now I know why, it was Orwell!
- lostlogin 3y ago
  Stuck in my mind are that one and his account of trench warfare in the Spanish civil war (Homage to Catalonia). The account of hand to hand trench warfare is horrifying. Down and Out in Paris and London is good too - that he lives the life he described is just bizarre. A driven man.
  - 082349872349872 3y ago
    > A driven man. I've had beers with the homeless and with billionaires, and I've slept rough and lived in five stars. But compared to Blair, I've only ever been a tourist; whether posh or tramp, he committed. At least he didn't go as far as cup-less Diogenes, in his tub.
panarky 3y ago
The article argues that Orwell’s greatest fear wasn’t torture or totalitarianism, but the loss of solitude, and he fled to Jura Island to preserve his inner life. If he thought solitude was hard to obtain then, one can only imagine his reaction to today's constant connectivity. I'm sure many people do their best thinking collectively, but I'm with Orwell, and value long periods of solitude and nurturing my inner life. It seems to be a theme lately. One of the big ideas in Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu is that the only defense against the all-seeing-all-knowing superior being who intends to crush humanity like bugs is the inner thoughts of the Wallfacers. Individuals must preserve their inner lives against constant assault by not only the state, but by bosses, coworkers, advertisers, friends and family. Maybe most modern psychological, social and even political problems can be traced to the collapse of individual interiority into the collective hivemind of social media and political parties. The enemy isn’t Big Brother, the enemy is everyone.
- jjtheblunt 3y ago
  Your comment resonates with me, and is better worded than I would have.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  Sure but you need to be careful not to reflexively reach for modern-style revanchist individualism as the solution. All of our notable achievements have been the result of people acting together, and maintaining a collaborative, even collectivist approach is reconcilable with deeply private individual inner lives. Not that, reading your comment, I think you're approaching it that way. But I could easily imagine someone reading this and being like "yes exactly that's why libertarianism" or whatever.
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    What popped into my head at your mention of the libertarian outlook is I was watching an anthropology/history show about all historical cultures/tribes having something similar to Aboriginal "going walkabout". In Nordic tribes and native Americans too, its okay to just go "tread the earth". The point being to feel joy and gratitude returning to the group. In fact I'm sure it's a biological hard-wired need. I often have to just pack a bugout bag and go wild with no phone etc. It's always lovely to come home to family and friends. But isolated urban living of the technological libertarian seems like an attempt to do that all the time, alone within the group. I think that's a mistake because one is stuck in limbo, neither alone nor in company, getting the joys of neither.
lcuff 3y ago
>>> In place of anything like a novel proper, we get a would-be bildungsroman breaking through to the surface in disparate fragments. These scraps are Winston’s yearnings, memories, sensual instincts, which have, as yet, somehow gone unmurdered by the regime. The entire state-sponsored enterprise of Pavlovian sadism in Oceania is devoted to snuffing out this remnant interiority. The details of Orwell's life were interesting, but the above-quoted paragraph lands as highbrow prose that doesn't say much. I had to look up bildungsroman "A novel whose principal subject is the moral, psychological, and intellectual development of a usually youthful main character". Oh my. It was/is a proper novel. I disagree that it should be characterized as bildungsroman, with all the caveats and flourishes. In fact, it's more about the protagonist's discovery of the truly moral depravity of the culture he lives in. The creative element of the ugliness of the culture is made even more compelling for me by the fact that the storyline avoids the conventional "Shape of Stories" patterns described by Kurt Vonnegut. It ends with the protagonist having all creative life and individuality crushed out of him. Not an easy end to encompass. No happy ending here.
- joe_the_user 3y ago
  I think the tortured prose comes from an effort to acknowledge 1984 isn't a conventional "good novel" but still avoid saying that Orwell's popularity comes because his writing has a lot of relevance because the modern world can certainly seem "Orwellian". This quote gives an idea how much the author discounts the validity Orwell's political insight: The meeting had been ominous to Orwell: It placed in his head the idea of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin divvying up the postwar world, leading to a global triopoly of super-states. The man can be forgiven for pouring every ounce of his grief, self-pity, paranoia (literary lore had it that he thought Stalin might have an ice pick with his name on it), and embittered egoism into the predicament of his latest protagonist, Winston Smith.

Orwell’s Escape

68 points by lermontov 3y ago

RyanShook 3y ago

https://archive.is/4K04p https://archive.is/4K04p

neonate 3y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20240410042102/https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/05/george-orwell-1984-isle-of-jura/677843/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240410042102/https://www.theat...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

FrankWilhoit 3y ago

[flagged]

surfingdino 3y ago
We may have enough evidence to prove there is a change, but not how the change manifests itself?
0xNotMyAccount 3y ago
[flagged]
mjklin 3y ago
I’ve heard a similar explanation for why Goya’s imagery shifted so dramatically toward the end of his life: lead poisoning from his paints
philwelch 3y ago
Then it truly says something about the rest of humanity that even with tuberculosis, Orwell was a brilliant and insightful commentator on the state of the world who grasped many basic truths that elude many people even today.
CatWChainsaw 3y ago
"It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society". I doubt tuberculosis is the holy grail you want it to be.

sublimefire 3y ago

I did not like the article, it was like the author was trying to connect the environment Orwell experienced to the book. IMO this is just guesswork, speculation and worst of all denying the author the intellectual prowess. Think about it, if you were to write a book you would not want the circumstances to affect the work and you’d be conscious about it. Saying that author somehow slipped in text because of the condition he was in paints him as a moron. These sort of biography inspired essays are just BS, dragging us with a promise of a bit of mystery and mysticism. The truth is that nobody knows and we try to satisfy our curiosity with the best sounding/fitting story. Animal farm and 1984 and others have something that resonates well with us. And we get the gist and we are a bit more careful and vigilant in our lives thanks to it.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
082349872349872 3y ago
If you read much Orwell, you'll see most of the elements that went into 1984 are present in his earlier writing as well. "Such, Such Were the Joys" is obvious; other influences I recall are bits of "You and the Atomic Bomb", Down and Out.., Homage..., "Notes on Nationalism", "The Spike" and probably a few I'm forgetting. What surprises me is how many people think Smith is meant as a sympathetic character; recall what crimes he's willing to commit!
hnbad 3y ago
It's really not subtle. Both 1984 and Animal Farm are critiques of the Soviet Union from the left. Orwell fought on the side of the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War and the betrayal by the Soviet Union soured him on the prospect of its interpretation of communism. This doesn't even require reading his biography, he explicitly wrote about his experiences in Homage to Catalonia. Where it falls apart is when people try to analyze his works as critiques of communism from the right because while he hated the Soviet Union, that didn't make him anti-communist, quite the opposite. Maybe this explains why his works still resonate with people (at least by pop cultural reference, as most people citing 1984 don't seem to have actually read it): because they're critiques from the left, they also lend themselves to critiquing capitalism (surveillance capitalism and tepid liberalism in particular).

zvmaz 3y ago

I have fond memories of reading his essays, notably Shooting an Elephant [1]. They left a vivid impression on me when I was younger. [1] https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/shooting-an-elephant/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...

sertsa 3y ago
Thanks! Also read this story decades ago as a young man and it left a strong impression. More then once brought it up as a metaphor in a conversation. For some reason my memory attributed it to Kipling and a few times tried to find it and never could, now I know why, it was Orwell!
lostlogin 3y ago
Stuck in my mind are that one and his account of trench warfare in the Spanish civil war (Homage to Catalonia). The account of hand to hand trench warfare is horrifying. Down and Out in Paris and London is good too - that he lives the life he described is just bizarre. A driven man.
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  > A driven man. I've had beers with the homeless and with billionaires, and I've slept rough and lived in five stars. But compared to Blair, I've only ever been a tourist; whether posh or tramp, he committed. At least he didn't go as far as cup-less Diogenes, in his tub.

panarky 3y ago

The article argues that Orwell’s greatest fear wasn’t torture or totalitarianism, but the loss of solitude, and he fled to Jura Island to preserve his inner life. If he thought solitude was hard to obtain then, one can only imagine his reaction to today's constant connectivity. I'm sure many people do their best thinking collectively, but I'm with Orwell, and value long periods of solitude and nurturing my inner life. It seems to be a theme lately. One of the big ideas in Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu is that the only defense against the all-seeing-all-knowing superior being who intends to crush humanity like bugs is the inner thoughts of the Wallfacers. Individuals must preserve their inner lives against constant assault by not only the state, but by bosses, coworkers, advertisers, friends and family. Maybe most modern psychological, social and even political problems can be traced to the collapse of individual interiority into the collective hivemind of social media and political parties. The enemy isn’t Big Brother, the enemy is everyone.

jjtheblunt 3y ago
Your comment resonates with me, and is better worded than I would have.
giraffe_lady 3y ago
Sure but you need to be careful not to reflexively reach for modern-style revanchist individualism as the solution. All of our notable achievements have been the result of people acting together, and maintaining a collaborative, even collectivist approach is reconcilable with deeply private individual inner lives. Not that, reading your comment, I think you're approaching it that way. But I could easily imagine someone reading this and being like "yes exactly that's why libertarianism" or whatever.
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  What popped into my head at your mention of the libertarian outlook is I was watching an anthropology/history show about all historical cultures/tribes having something similar to Aboriginal "going walkabout". In Nordic tribes and native Americans too, its okay to just go "tread the earth". The point being to feel joy and gratitude returning to the group. In fact I'm sure it's a biological hard-wired need. I often have to just pack a bugout bag and go wild with no phone etc. It's always lovely to come home to family and friends. But isolated urban living of the technological libertarian seems like an attempt to do that all the time, alone within the group. I think that's a mistake because one is stuck in limbo, neither alone nor in company, getting the joys of neither.

lcuff 3y ago

>>> In place of anything like a novel proper, we get a would-be bildungsroman breaking through to the surface in disparate fragments. These scraps are Winston’s yearnings, memories, sensual instincts, which have, as yet, somehow gone unmurdered by the regime. The entire state-sponsored enterprise of Pavlovian sadism in Oceania is devoted to snuffing out this remnant interiority. The details of Orwell's life were interesting, but the above-quoted paragraph lands as highbrow prose that doesn't say much. I had to look up bildungsroman "A novel whose principal subject is the moral, psychological, and intellectual development of a usually youthful main character". Oh my. It was/is a proper novel. I disagree that it should be characterized as bildungsroman, with all the caveats and flourishes. In fact, it's more about the protagonist's discovery of the truly moral depravity of the culture he lives in. The creative element of the ugliness of the culture is made even more compelling for me by the fact that the storyline avoids the conventional "Shape of Stories" patterns described by Kurt Vonnegut. It ends with the protagonist having all creative life and individuality crushed out of him. Not an easy end to encompass. No happy ending here.

joe_the_user 3y ago
I think the tortured prose comes from an effort to acknowledge 1984 isn't a conventional "good novel" but still avoid saying that Orwell's popularity comes because his writing has a lot of relevance because the modern world can certainly seem "Orwellian". This quote gives an idea how much the author discounts the validity Orwell's political insight: The meeting had been ominous to Orwell: It placed in his head the idea of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin divvying up the postwar world, leading to a global triopoly of super-states. The man can be forgiven for pouring every ounce of his grief, self-pity, paranoia (literary lore had it that he thought Stalin might have an ice pick with his name on it), and embittered egoism into the predicament of his latest protagonist, Winston Smith.