3 ms·
Demoting Orwell's masterpieces (1984 and Animal Farm) to "juvenile science fiction stuff" while holding up Keep the Aspidistra Flying—a mid-tier social realism
by eaenki 2mo ago
Demoting Orwell's masterpieces (1984 and Animal Farm) to "juvenile science fiction stuff" while holding up Keep the Aspidistra Flying—a mid-tier social realism novel about a middle-class poet struggling with commercialism—is top-tier British condescension (extra points for misspelling Aspidistra while doing so).
- AnonymousPlanet 2mo agoHow else can you keep ahead of the bots and their em-dashes other than by the use of pointless condescension and subtle misspellings? I mean, you've got to find a niche somehow.
- kaseijin 2mo agoTo be fair, while I enjoyed the fun language shenanigans and propaganda and political commentary of 1984, the actual plot was pretty bad imho. Then again one way of reading it is the protagonist is actually paranoid and is exaggerating everything, which isn't entirely a dig against Orwell. He was just aheaf of the curve with self insert fan fiction. I think my favorite part of the book was when it just turned into reading the political thesis on the essence of oligarichal collectivism or whatever it is. It's a great cynical parody of modern society, but I still think everyone misses the point is that it isn't so much about surveillance as it's about power through language. You could just as easily have the book set in 1884 without any of the "future tech" and have basically the same plot going around with busybodies and peeping toms filling the rolls of the telescreens.