It's been a year and halfish since the last time I read your book, 1984. My view on it has not gotten better with the time between readings. If anything, it's gone a bit sour. As would be expected, this is not a book to be enjoyed. Considering the word 'dystopia' is synonymous with this book, it is no surprise that it isn't fun or light or inspiring. So is this an entertaining book? No, no really. But I suppose that's not why you wrote it. More on that later.
Winston Smith is the closest thing I come to finding someone I enjoy in this tale, but as he puts up with the silly and naive Julia, I respect him less and less. Was this something you thought of as you wrote it? Did you mean to make her unlikable? She doesn't much care for the philosophies Winston is chasing after; she is only using her sexuality as a sort of subversive revolution - a riot she takes part in one sexual partner at a time. I find her one dimensional and as such, I feel no pain at her loss. I don't even feel much pain over Winston's loss. This could be because I didn't connect with him, or because he has told the reader from the beginning of the book that he knows his actions will result in him being taken and killed. It is in his thoughts I find I enjoy Winston, not in his actions or words. Perhaps this was also something you employed to mirror the life the Party members had to lead - all actions and spoken words must follow the rules. Their thoughts, however, were theirs.
This brings me to the proles, people who I think Winston comes to envy as the story progresses. Despite the fact that no one is really free, I think he comes to realize they are the closest to. They are also the most powerful, even though they are not aware of their power. They are not a smart or beautiful part of the population, but they seem to be a happy part of the population.
“The birds sang, the proles sang, the Party did not sing. All round the world, in London and New York, in Africa and Brazil, and in the mysterious, forbidden lands beyond the frontiers, in the streets of Paris and Berlin, in the villages of the endless Russian plain, in the bazaars of China and Japan — everywhere stood the same solid unconquerable figure, made monstrous by work and childbearing, toiling from birth to death and still singing.”You spent so much time building up this small kernel of hope in me that Winston would find a way out, a way to bring the proles together and find a way to defeat Big Brother, but in the end we are disappointed. And I think the disappointment that he ends up worse than he began is the saddest thing of all.
The time Winson spends in the Ministry of Love is my least favorite in the book. I think the horrors he faces being tortured is the true cause of my lack of enthusiasm for it. It's repulsive, and his final betrayal of Julia is the worst of all. Horrifying and disgusting, it leaves the sourest of tastes in my mouth.
I understand the warning you were trying to give future generations - to not let the government annex our power bit by bit until they have too much. To not believe everything we read and hear, but to question and look for the deeper truth. I understand all of this, but I am still disappointed in Winston, in O'Brien, in Julia. Maybe because I know that I would not be any stronger than Winston? Or that I had expected him to fail the entire time? What I do know is this book is not a favorite of mine, but is a book written and read out of necessity - a warning for the future. Perhaps you were quoting yourself when you described Winston thusly:
He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear. But so long as he uttered it, in some obscure way the continuity was not broken.As I said, this will never be one of my favorite books, but I do think it is an important book - something worth reading every couple of years to scare/horrify myself into not being a complacent citizen.
With Love,
Jessica
