George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four: Pt.1-Pt.2 Ch.IV (Dystopian Double Bill) (Patreon)

'The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.'

Welcome to the totalitarian superstate Oceania, comrades, where the eyes of Big Brother are always watching. Together we will meet Ministry of Truth worker Winston Smith and navigate the bleak dystopian wasteland of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

We're discussing Orwell's world-building, postwar Britain, the nightmare of history, the principles of Newspeak, English socialism, totalitarian destruction of language, thoughtcrime, prophecies of the present, hope, and much more.

Please do feel free to enjoy the discussion even if you haven't read these parts of Nineteen Eighty-Four yet. I'm staying away from significant plot details that are revealed later in the story. Like Aldous Huxley, Orwell gives us a novel of ideas, so you can enjoy our talk before, during, or after your reading in the way that best suits you.

Timestamps:

0:00 ‘the clocks were striking thirteen’

2:00 the world building of Orwell’s dystopia

3:00 Big Brother is Watching You

5:00 the Ministries of Airstrip One

6:00 George Orwell’s deathbed novel

7:00 Winston Smith writes in his journal

8:00 noting the hopeful frame narrative 

10:00 awaking from the nightmare of history

11:00 why Eric Blair became George Orwell

12:00 on the importance of the appendix

14:00 Oceania, Ingsoc & English Socialism

15:00 what were Orwell’s political beliefs?

16:00 authoritarianism vs utopianism

18:00 satire of contemporary England

19:00 importance of defining your terms

20:00 Orwell on middle-class socialism

21:00 discussing the principles of Newspeak

22:00 invented languages in the 20th century 

24:00 Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange

25:00 language & in-groups vs out-groups

27:00 the idea of linguistic relativity 

28:00 personality changes with language

30:00 how words create your reality

31:00 how reading broadens the mind

32:00 controlling thoughts via language

34:00 ‘destruction of words is a beautiful thing’

35:00 removing nuance removes literature

36:00 linguistic equivalent of brutalism

37:00 Orwell on the idea of doublethink

38:00 that’s doubleplusgood, comrade…

39:00 a world without Shakespeare 

40:00 why writing is a way of thinking

42:00 how I put literary lectures together

44:00 reading as human connection 

46:00 how to communicate with the future?

47:00 did George Orwell alter our timeline?

49:00 Aldous Huxley vs George Orwell

51:00 getting the courage to write truthfully

52:00 on Emmanuel Goldstein’s book

53:00 why is Oceania always at war?

55:00 when Winston Smith first sees Julia

57:00 what Winston writes in the diary

59:00 ‘thoughtcrime IS death…’

1:01:00 consequences included in the act

1:03:00 tragic memories of mother

1:05:00 on the Great Purge of Stalin

1:07:00 was there ever a time of peace?

1:08:00 maternal absence & sacrifice

1:09:00 dreaming of the Golden Country

1:11:00 coming alive to great literature

1:13:00 having to hide your inner life

1:14:00 rewriting history at MiniTrue

1:15:00 why should we keep a diary?

1:17:00 history rewritten by the victors

1:19:00 ‘all history was a palimpsest’

1:21:00 truth is what one would die for

1:22:00 history & myth as bedfellows 

1:24:00 writing people in & out of history

1:26:00 artificial intelligence & media

1:28:00 seeing lies being told in real time

1:29:00 censorship in postwar Britain

1:30:00 government work of Orwell’s wife

1:31:00 disinformation as threat to liberty

1:32:00 depiction of the working class

1:34:00 ‘if there is hope, it lies in the proles’

1:36:00 before the Glorious Revolution 

1:38:00 retaining faith in humanity

1:39:00 isolation in collectivist regimes

1:40:00 on blind adherence to authority 

1:42:00 feeling most alone in a group

1:44:00 when the state enters the bedroom

1:46:00 meeting the character O’Brien

1:48:00 ‘party told you to reject your eyes’

1:49:00 Julia writes ‘I love you’ to Winston

1:51:00 Winston & Julia’s love affair begins

1:54:00 the lovers marvelling at birdsong 

1:56:00 chastity & political orthodoxy

1:58:00 ‘a rebel from the waist down’ 

2:00:00 the symbolism of the paperweight

2:02:00 living inside a piece of great art

2:04:00 reading assignment for next lecture

2:06:00 what do you make of Orwell’s novel?

Resources to Explore:

• Film Appreciation: Give yourself a screening of the Michael Radford film adaptation of George Orwell's novel, starring John Hurt, Richard Burton, and Suzanna Hamilton, which came out in the same year that Orwell was writing about. Do you feel like Orwell's vision was translated powerfully to the big screen? If you've already seen this one, then you may like to give the first feature-length film adaptation, directed by Michael Anderson in 1956 in black-and-white, a watch instead. Or, if you want to see a truly special piece of broadcasting history, check out the TV film adaptation from the BBC, which caused nationwide uproar when it hit television sets just two years prior. If you'd like some options of other dystopian films, I'd highly recommend A Clockwork Orange, directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on the Anthony Burgess novel. Beethoven will never sound the same after you watch this film It's also been great to see readers recommending two works of dystopian literature for young adults, both of which have excellent film adaptations: The Hunger Games and The Giver. Give the trailers a watch and go for the one that piques your curiosity the most. Then hold it up against Orwell's dystopia.

• Radio Dramatisation: Return to the good old days of radio with some excellent audio productions of Orwell's dystopian work. Here is a great adaptation from the BBC starring Christopher Eccleston (who discusses the novel's central message here). Or you might like to hear the very first radio adaptation here, produced the same year the novel was published and starring David Niven. For another really special option, you can find a six-part reading of the novel put together by the BBC here with narrators like Martin Freeman, Juliet Stevenson, and Tom Hollander.

• Biography: There are so many splendid biographies when it comes to George Orwell. My personal favourite is Bernard's Crick's biography, which is both authoritative and makes a thumping good read. For a history/biography of Nineteen Eighty-Four itself, check out Dorian Lynskey's The Ministry of Truth, which delves powerfully into the influences upon the work, how the novel developed, and the impact this dystopian tour-de-force would exert upon the world. If you're in the mood of a series of essays on Orwell, then you might like Christopher Hitchens' Why Orwell Matters. These are just a few choice selections from a huge body of writings on Orwell. For another option, there are few things that beat reading the great writer's own Diaries and Essays.

• Documentaries: To get a sense of the conflict the world had lived through just prior to Orwell's novel (and the inspiration for the endless wars of the three superstates), then three great documentaries on the topic are the recent Netflix-produced WWII: From the Frontlines, the classic narrated by Laurence Olivier The World at War, and the series narrated by Robert Powell WWII In Colour. For a docudrama on the writer himself, check out the BBC's George Orwell: A Life in Pictures.

• George Orwell: Over the course of your reading of Nineteen Eighty-Four, you are likely getting a sense of whether you'd like to pursue more of Orwell's works. Of course, we have mentioned Animal Farm, which is a very short but powerful and iconic work of political allegory, and also his Essays, which are always great to dip into. But you might like to check out the range of his other writings with works like Down and Out in Paris and London (my personal introduction to Orwell), The Road to Wigan Pier, Homage to Catalonia, and Burmese Days.

• Action Exercise: Have you ever kept a diary before? Or any kind of consistent record of your inner and outer life? If not, you might find inspiration in how Winston Smith's rebelliously and defiantly marks his page with truthful thoughts. Give it a trial run for a few months and see if consistently noting your thoughts results in any insights or personal revelations. I find journalling to be most powerful when run alongside a deep reading programme. You could use our questions here as prompts and see where they take you. If you'd like to know how I personally journal and do marginalia, I have a video on that subject here. And my favourite journals are the Leuchturrm1917 journals with dotted graph paper.

Reading Assignment:

Our next discussion will cover the rest of the novel, taking us from part two, chapter five, up to and including the powerful close in part three, chapter six. And we will be discussing this part this coming weekend.

Now we're going to find out what fate is in store for Winston and Julia in the world of Big Brother. So continue bringing yourself to Orwell's dystopia, making notes on any themes or ideas that capture your attention and imagination, and comparing it with the world that Huxley presented to us.

Questions to Consider:

1) What is the most horrific aspect of Orwell's dystopia for you?

2) Do you believe that the pen truly is mightier than the sword?

3) Whose dystopia would be worse: Huxley's or Orwell's?

4) Why do you think Nineteen Eighty-Four became such an iconic work?

And please do share with us your impressions, favourite passages, and striking ideas from the first half of Nineteen Eighty-Four. If this is your first reading, does the novel meet your expectations? If this is a reread, is the experience any different this time around?

Happy reading, everybody!