1984

[Qibing Zero]

You know, some days I just feel like saying 'screw it'. You just can't talk to some people. It's impossible. No matter how much logic you bring to the table, you can't break down certain barriers of thought.

Days like this make me want to just throw copies of 1984 at people.

I'm usually a nonfiction person, but a few works of fiction have hit me as hard as anything, 1984 being one of the strongest. I think it definitely should be required reading before one graduates from high school - it's just that great. I like nearly everything I've read from Orwell, but 1984 has that immense and scary feeling to it, and brings to light some of the most important questions every generation faces. Every day it seems to apply more and more to our current situation, and it's scary how often I end up thinking about it.


So, do you agree/disagree? Am I drawing too large a parallel?

What books do you hold in this kind of high regard?

[Must_B_Free]

1. 1984

Watership Down, All Creatures Great and Small, NeuroLogic, The Jungle

(apparently I havent read much since I was a child...)

[Melodybe]

17. OHH Watership Down, I re-read that last year

unfortunately for me, I made the mistake of re-reading 1984, F/451, A Handmaid's Tale, Brave New World, and Animal Farm, in the early summer of 2001. I have been terrfied of the government since.

But maybe it wasn't such a bad thing, definitely clued me into their game early.

[fighttotheend]

22. BUSH'S BRAIN...dvd

[Chipper Chat]

2. The Ugly American by Eugene Burdick.

Written in 1953 but just as relevant today.
A must read for all Democrats. (Republicans would just use it for kindling).

[bananas]

3. Someone should do a movie using current events.

[Kitsune]

4. Brave New World

Also, The Handmaid's Tale.

I regularly throw both of these at my friends.

[fooj]

5. Animal Farm is another Orwell winner!

[Melodybe]

18. Hey my sweet fooj!

I think that Pixar should made a CGI version of Animal Farm for adults. If I can get a production deal selling my screenplays, I'm going to bother people until I can tell the folks at Pixar that.

Animal Farm is such a masterpiece.

[fooj]

19. Yep. It's on my Sophomore reading list...

The kids really get into it!

Peace.

[Ferret Annica]

6. Books books books

'Earth Abides' by George R. Steward, anything by Ward Churchill though my favorite is 'A Little Matter of Genocide,' Hayduke Lives! by Ed Abbey to give you some idea what I've been reading lately.

[unrepuke]

7. All the above plus One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

and Bambi.

It ain't Disneyland !

[Dogmudgeon]

8. It Can't Happen Here

By Sinclair Lewis.

Unlike 1984 and Brave New World, Lewis' It Can't Happen Here has a very mundane, un-science-fictiony background. It starts before the 1936 election, in which the Democratic Party had been taken over by an American Fascist insurgency led by Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, a corn-pone Mussolini. The story's protagonist is Doremus Jessup, an intellectual who is drawn into the counter-fascist resistance, watches his whole world turn upside-down, and endures confinement and torture in an American concentration camp.

Arch Oboler shot a low-budget film version of it in the late 1930s. It was tremendously abridged, of course, but it was an audacious project from both an artistic and political standpoint. It used to be run as a late-night movie, and I last saw it around 1975.

Of course, all dystopian fiction can do is to sketch out parallels. Reality is usually different. It forms the foundation for the next generation's dystopian fiction. And sometimes utopian fiction is dystopian on its own, as both Robert Heinlein and Paul Verhoeven proved with their disparate, but proweful, visions of []Starship Troopers.

It Can't Happen Here may still be in print, and is not too difficult to find if you cruise the used book stores. But it is available on the Internet, and it's been in the public domain for a couple years now. It's worth looking for, even if you have to find it online, reformat it, and print it out.

--p!

[Pachamama]

13. Just finished reading it....scary stuff...& to think it was written in '35

I actually got my copy believe it or not off Overstock.com! Paperback for about $5....

Excellent read...describes how a fascist regime could take over and destroy our constitution very quickly...but also shows how people can fight back....including the lead character "Doremus"...

[azndndude]

9. Have you seen "Orwell rolls in his Grave" on Free Speech TV?

pretty much explains how current events are much like the book 1984
see www.orwellrollsinhisgrave.com for more info

[Qibing Zero]

11. Yes I have

It was pretty telling on the thought-control issue, though not as in depth overall as I may have done, which is understandable given the time constraints.

[neweurope]

10. As to 1984 - in Germany it IS required reading. Which has the effect

that the youngsters don't even want to hear about it anymore. They refuse to see the danger for themselves, refuse to see the parallels. In my opinion our schools shouldn't require it but forbid it - that way we would make sure that everybody with a little brains would certainly read it and discuss it fervently...

To the books mentioned here I'd count "Silent Spring".


--------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[Qibing Zero]

12. Hah, that's interesting

I suppose it's akin to a usual response to all of the requirements put on you as a school-age kid. You do tend to take more seriously the studies and readings you embark upon on your own, after all.

[Dogmudgeon]

15. Like me and Gatsby

For some reason, The Great Gatsby was required reading when I was in high school (called 5th-6th form, "gymnasium", or secondary school in Europe). I read it, I "understood" it, and I hated it.

About eight years ago I picked it up again and read it, and it blew me away. In the intervening 25 years, enough life had happened to me to make The Great Gatsby not just understandable, but capable of producing an upheaval.

1984 could be that way for Germans. Read it at 17, and learn that "Fascism is Bad". Read it at 40, and let it shake you to your core.

--p!

[Pachamama]

14. A Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

A must read and if you don't have the time, rent the movie on Netflix.com (Movie has Robert Duvall, Faye Dunaway, Natasha Richardson, Aidan Quinn, Elizabeth Mcgovern, Victoria Tennant - amazing cast)

We are living in the Republic of Gilead folks....

[Dogmudgeon]

16. That's an excellent one!

The movie was excellent. The book was that much better, and it really knocked the hell out of me.

The movie is often available at a discount of $5-$10 per copy. Wal-Mart won't stock it, but it's not too hard to find otherwise.

--p!

[ComerPerro]

20. "1984" won't be fiction much longer.

And, I hold "God Bless You Mr Rosewater" and "Animal Farm" in the same esteem

[fighttotheend]

21. Short story [b]"THE LOTTERY"[/b] by shirley jackson...

bottom line.. If you go along with the crowd knowing what their doing is wrong that makes you just as bad.