new posts in all blogs
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: 1984, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 21 of 21
How to use this Page
You are viewing the most recent posts tagged with the words: 1984 in the JacketFlap blog reader. What is a tag? Think of a tag as a keyword or category label. Tags can both help you find posts on JacketFlap.com as well as provide an easy way for you to "remember" and classify posts for later recall. Try adding a tag yourself by clicking "Add a tag" below a post's header. Scroll down through the list of Recent Posts in the left column and click on a post title that sounds interesting. You can view all posts from a specific blog by clicking the Blog name in the right column, or you can click a 'More Posts from this Blog' link in any individual post.
By: Robyn Hewett,
on 8/22/2016
Blog:
OUPblog
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
rule of law,
Billy Budd,
Njal's Saga,
Order and Dispute,
studying law,
Books,
Law,
1984,
reading list,
resurrection,
justice,
Bleak House,
The Trial,
*Featured,
law students,
martin partington,
Introduction to the English Legal System,
Add a tag
Legal knowledge doesn’t just come from textbooks and lectures. Last year, we asked Martin Partington, author of Introduction to the English Legal System, for his top ten film recommendations for law students and aspiring lawyers. This year he turns his attention to inspiring books that will get you thinking about our legal system, our society, and the role of lawyers – what would you add to his list?
The post Top ten essential books for aspiring lawyers appeared first on OUPblog.
By:
Heidi MacDonald,
on 6/21/2016
Blog:
PW -The Beat
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
Interviews,
Music,
Graphic Novels,
Uncategorized,
1984,
George Orwell,
Culture,
Fandom,
90s Comics,
harlan ellison,
Alan Moore,
John Higgs,
Kilgore Trout,
Larry Wallis,
Max Wall,
Metal Urbain,
Mink De Ville,
Patrik Fitzgerald,
Penetration,
Phillip José Farmer,
Public Image Ltd,
Robert Sheckley,
Stiff Records,
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks,
The Adverts,
The Blockheads,
The Slits,
TRVSAMSG,
Wreckless Eric,
X-Ray Spex,
brave new world,
Elvis Costello,
Blondie,
Gang of Four,
Ian Dury,
Top News,
Television,
New Scientist,
Punk Rock,
Billy Bragg,
Biros,
Black Dossier,
DEVO,
Eric Frank Russell,
Fortean Times,
Handsome Dick Manitoba and The Dictators,
Jarvis Cocker,
John Cooper Clarke,
Private Eye,
watchmen,
Kurt Vonnegut,
Pulp,
Talking Heads,
Michael Moorcock,
Patti Smith,
Providence,
Wire,
The Ramones,
Nineteen Eighty-Four,
Sex Pistols,
The Residents,
The Only Ones,
The Clash,
Kieron Gillen,
Richard Brautigan,
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,
The Wicked + The Divine,
Add a tag
Deep in the grubby sump of one of those so-called ‘Social Media’ sites, there is a clump of aging comics fanboys called The Really Very Serious Alan Moore Scholars’ Group, known to its sad and lonely adherents as TRVSAMSG. When they’re not annotating everything in sight, or calling down ancient evils on the heads of […]
By:
Becky Laney,
on 11/14/2015
Blog:
Becky's Book Reviews
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
war,
1984,
picture books,
Dr. Seuss,
picture books for older readers,
children's classic,
library book,
books reviewed in 2015,
books reread in 2015,
Add a tag
The Butter Battle Book. Dr. Seuss. 1984. Random House. 42 pages. [Source: Library]
First sentence:
On the last day of summer, ten hours before fall...my grandfather took me out to the Wall. Premise: Readers learn about Yooks, the "good" guys who eat their toast butter side up, and the Zooks, the "bad" guys who eat their toast butter side down. The book is a dialogue between a grandfather and grandson. The grandfather is essentially explaining the war--and the wall--to his young grandson. It ends on uncertain terms.
My thoughts: The Butter Battle book is a great example of a picture book for older readers. It is one of the books my seventh grade English teacher read aloud. I also remember her reading What Was I Scared Of? aloud to us! The Butter Battle Book is NOT anything like The Cat in the Hat or Green Eggs and Ham. This isn't a happy-cozy story to read to preschoolers. There's nothing funny or amusing about war about escalating hostilities between two countries. The subject is serious, and, it's well-treated, in my opinion.
Have you read The Butter Battle Book? Did you like it? love it? hate it? I'd love to know what you thought of it!
If you'd like to join me in reading or rereading Dr. Seuss (chronologically) I'd love to have you join me! The next book I'll be reviewing is You're Only Old Once.
© 2015 Becky Laney of
Becky's Book Reviews
By:
Becky Laney,
on 4/18/2015
Blog:
Becky's Book Reviews
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
1984,
series books,
J Fiction,
Beverly Cleary,
J Realistic Fiction,
MG Fiction,
library book,
MG Realistic Fiction,
books reviewed in 2015,
books reread in 2015,
Add a tag
Ramona Forever. Beverly Cleary. 1984. HarperCollins. 208 pages. [Source: Library]
Ramona is growing up quickly--depending on your point of view. If you consider that she was four in 1955, and nine in 1984, then, her childhood is taking forever. But when you're happily rushing through the series, it feels like she's growing up so quickly. Ramona Forever is the seventh book in the series. Ramona is still in third grade, I believe.
"The Rich Uncle" Howie and Willa Jean have a rich uncle coming to stay with them. Will Ramona like Howie's uncle? He doesn't make the best first impression. He teases her about his name. He gives Howie and Willa Jean presents. Not that Ramona wanted a present. But. Since Mrs. Kemp BLAMES Ramona when Willa Jean breaks her present, she wishes that the Uncle had not come at all. Why is it HER FAULT?
"Ramona's Problem" Ramona tells her mother that she doesn't want to go to the Kemps anymore. She HATES going there after school, can't her and Beezus come home instead. They'll be really, really good and responsible...
"Being Good" How well are Ramona and Beezus getting along after school on their own?!
"Picky-Picky" Ramona and Beezus find Picky-Picky dead in the basement. Beezus suspects that their mom might be pregnant, and doesn't want to worry or upset her. They decide to bury the cat in their yard on their own.
"It" Beezus was right. Ramona is going to be a big sister. Their mom is going to have a baby in the summer. Is Ramona excited or not?!
"A Surprise, Sort Of" Aunt Beatrice has a big announcement. And why is she bringing Howie's Uncle to dinner?!
"The Chain of Command" Shopping for wedding clothes. Ramona is a thousand times more excited than Howie. Howie does not want to be a ring bearer.
"The Families Get Together" Wedding planning.
"Ramona Saves the Day" The wedding itself. Ramona, you guessed it, saves the day. This one has a very sitcom feel to it.
"Another Big Event" Is Ramona ready to be a big sister?!
© 2015 Becky Laney of
Becky's Book Reviews
I’d better give an appropriate name to this new situation in which I find myself. There’s a need, too, for a special name in order to distinguish between this present world and the former world in which the police carried old-fashioned revolvers. Even cats and dogs need names. A newly changed world must need one, too. 1Q84—that’s what I’ll call this new world, Aomame decided. Q is for “question mark.” A world that bears a question. Aomame nodded to herself as she walked along. Like it or not, I’m here now, in the year 1Q84. The 1984 that I knew no longer exists. It’s 1Q84 now.
One afternoon during lunch at work when I was reading 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami someone asked me what the book was about. “Uh,” I said and thought a moment. “Uh,” I said again, and then lamely, “it’s kinda hard to say what it’s about, but it’s really good.” My articulateness is astounding, is it not?
Now that I am done with the book and can see it as a whole, I can say that it is about a lot of things. Things like the nature of reality and love and time and fate and free will and and memory and stories. It is so very much about stories.
About three-quarters of the book is in alternating chapters between Tengo, a 30-year-old math teacher at a cram school who also wants to be a writer, and Aomame (her name means green pea in Japanese), a 30-year-old fitness instructor who also turns out to be an assassin of sorts. The last quarter of the book includes one additional narrator, Ushikawa, a private investigator. The structure is marvelous because it moves along two (and eventually three) separate but connected story lines. This also keeps up a certain tension and suspense nearly to the end of the book – not until the middle of the last chapter did I have any idea how it was all going to turn out.
So Tengo. Cram school teacher of math and wanna be novelist. He is a reader on a “new writers” prize and comes across a story called “Air Chrysalis” that has a certain something special even though it isn’t written all that well. He talks with Komatsu, an editor at the publishing house sponsoring the prize, who has also read the story. Komatsu comes up with the idea that Tengo should rewrite the story and Komatsu will sneak the rewritten manuscript into the selection for the judges. Komatsu, Tengo, and Fuka-Eri, the seventeen-year-old girl who wrote “Air Chrysalis,” will all be rich when the story wins and is published as a book.
Aomame. Fitness instructor and very good at her job. She secretly works as an assassin for the Dowager, one of her wealthy fitness clients. The Dowager runs a safe house for battered women. She started the safe house after her daughter committed suicide to escape the abuses of her husband. Aomame learned of a single spot on the back of the neck that, when stabbed with a very fine needle, will cause instant death that looks like a heart attack. She learned about this special and very hard to locate spot in order to avenge the death of her best friend who committed suicide in order to escape the abuse of her husband. The Dowager and Aomame make a great team. The Dowager uses her resources to set up situations in which Aomame can use her special skill on certain men whose abuses have been particularly egregious.
The publication of “Air Chrysalis” creates a problem for the religious cult, Sakigake, because the events in the novella are more or less true. It is a fantastic story about the Little People that no one is really going to believe, however, that is beside the point. Aomame is enlisted by the Dowager to kill “Leader,” the head of the cult because it turns out he has sex with prepubescent girls. Ushikawa, that third narrative voice, is hired by Sakigake to find Aomame.
This is the broadest and most pared down sense of the story I can give you and it leaves out l
By: Brimful Curiosities,
on 12/8/2011
Blog:
Brimful Curiosities
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
Holidays,
1984,
Book Review,
Picture Books,
Christmas,
Historical fiction,
Sleeping Bear Press,
Midwest,
Dial Books for Young Readers,
Gale,
Add a tag
If I were to write up a list of my very favorite Christmas picture books, Trinka Hakes Noble's Apple Tree Christmas would appear near the top. I found her picture book quite by accident at the library last week while searching for books with a "holiday" sticker, though I'm beginning to think that it was rather not by circumstance but by providence.
As each year passes I desire more and more for my family to escape the commercialism surrounding Christmas and focus on family, traditions and meaningful gifts including the true gift of Christmas, Jesus. While Apple Tree Christmas is not a religious book, it is a work of historical fiction that harkens back to simpler times, modest gifts from the heart and family togetherness.
Apple Tree Christmas by Trinka Hakes Noble. Dial Books for Young Readers (October 1984); ISBN 0803701020; 32 pages
Book Source: Copy from our public library
Noble's story is set in the late 1800's. The Ansterburgs, a close-knit family, reside in one side of an old barn and live a simple, rural life. They cherish their beloved apple tree -- the tree provides a bountiful crop of apples every fall, and the family uses the apples to make applesauce, cider, apple butter and Christmas tree decorations. The tree also serves a special play space for the two Ansterburg kids, Katrina and Josie.
"Now that all the apples were picked, Katrina and Josie could climb the tree as much as they wanted. The snowy weather didn't stop them. Every day after school they would play in its branches.
On one side Papa had pulled a thick vine down low enough to make a swing for Josie.
The other side of the tree belonged to Katrina. One limb made the perfect drawing board."
Unfortunately, a blizzard comes in with a vengeance and a terrible ice storm knocks down the apple tree. The whole family feels awful about losing the tree. Katrina especially morns the loss of her favorite tree and her drawing perch. Christmas day arrives, but to Katrina "it just didn't feel like Christmas." However, her parents have a surprise in store. The apple tree, though in different form, continues to spread warmth and joy in a new way.
The lovely watercolor paintings in Noble's book provide children with a glimpse into a rural 1880s life, and this emotion-filled family story is similar to those found in Laura Ingalls Wilder's much-loved books. The story also provides a great example of how to craft thoughtful, handmade gifts with determined resourcefulness and shows how to make
By: Lauren,
on 6/13/2011
Blog:
OUPblog
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
Media,
beijing,
Asia,
shanghai,
scifi,
Aldous Huxley,
Thought Leaders,
North Korea,
brave new world,
Editor's Picks,
*Featured,
world's fair,
science fiction,
1984,
george orwell,
china,
Add a tag
Who, we sometimes ask, at the dinners and debates of the intelligentsia, was the 20th century’s more insightful prophet — Aldous Huxley or George Orwell? Each is best known for his dystopian fantasy — Huxley’s Brave New World, Orwell’s 1984 — and both feared where modern technology might lead, for authorities and individuals alike. But while Huxley anticipated a world of empty pleasures and excessive convenience, Orwell predicted ubiquitous surveillance and the eradication of freedom. Who was right? —William Davies, New Statesman, August 1, 2005
Image: Lisa Jane Persky
By Jeffrey Wasserstrom
The long-standing Huxley vs. Orwell debate got a 21st century New Media makeover in 2009, courtesy of cartoonist Stuart McMillen. In May of that year, he published an online comic entitled “Amusing Ourselves to Death” that quickly went viral. At the top of this strip, which has been tweeted and re-tweeted many times and can now be found posted on scores of websites, we see caricatures of the two authors above their names and the respective titles of their best-known novels. Below that comes a series of couplet-like contrastive statements, accompanied by illustrations. The top couplet reads: “What Orwell feared were those who would ban books; What Huxley feared was that there would be no need to ban a book, for there would be no one who would want to read one.” The first statement is paired with a picture of a censorship committee behind a desk, with a one-man “Internet Filter Department” off to one side, a wastebasket for banned books off to the other. The illustration for the second statement shows a family of couch potatoes waiting for The Biggest Loser to return after a word from its sponsors.
McMillen’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death” might best be called an homage, or perhaps a reboot, for the lines in it all come straight from media theorist Neil Postman’s influential 1985 book of the same title, which made the case for Huxley’s famous 1932 novel being a superior guide to the era of television than Orwell’s from 1949. But Postman himself was far from the first to play the Huxley vs. Orwell game. The tradition of comparing and contrasting Huxley and Orwell goes back to, well, Huxley and Orwell, two writers who — though this is not mentioned as often as one might expect — knew one another from Eton, where Orwell was Huxley’s pupil in the 1910s.
Orwell had not yet written 1984 when he first questioned his former teacher’s prescience. In the early 1940s, a reader of his newspaper column solicited Orwell’s opinion of the danger that consumerism and the pursuit of pleasure posed to society. Orwell replied that, in his view, the time to worry about Brave New World scenarios had passed, for hedonism and “vulgar materialism” were no longer the great threat they once had been.
In October 1949, just a few months after Orwell published 1984 (a work that presumably spelled out the more pressing threats he had in mind), Huxley wrote to his former pupil to make the opposite point. Orwell’s book impressed him, he said, but he did not find it completely convincing, because he continued to think, as he had when crafting Brave New Word, that the elites of the future would find “less arduous” strategies for satisfying their “lust for power” than the “boot-on-the-face” technique described in 1984.
Huxley wrote that letter in Britain during a month that began with a momentous event taking place a
By: Becky,
on 7/19/2010
Blog:
Young Readers
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
1984,
picture books,
animals,
humor,
sleep,
board books,
2010,
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,
review copy,
Add a tag
The Napping House. Audrey Wood. Illustrated by Don Wood. 1984/2010. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 32 pages.
There is a house,
a napping house,
where everyone is sleeping.
And in that house
there is a bed,
a cozy bed
in a napping house,
where everyone is sleeping.
And on that bed
there is a granny,
a snoring granny
on a cozy bed
in a napping house,
where everyone is sleeping.
Do you know about The Napping House? I didn't discover this gem of a book until I was an adult. But it sure is a fun title! I'm glad to see it being reprinted this year. It is available both as a picture book (with CD) and a padded board book.
If you're not familiar with this one, you should definitely seek it out. It stars a snoring granny, a dreaming child, a dozing dog, a snoozing cat, a slumbering mouse, and one more not-so-special 'special' guest that makes this one so much fun! I loved the predictability and repetition.
The Napping House is a great choice for reading aloud!
© Becky Laney of
Young Readers
By: Aspiring Editor,
on 7/5/2010
Blog:
Aspiring Editor and Geek to the Core
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
1984,
George Orwell,
technology,
sci-fi,
Big Brother,
future,
corruption,
mind control,
review,
books,
Add a tag
Wow! This book scared the shit out of me. And not just because of the torture and the idea of Big Brother always watching you and being able to read your thoughts, but because I can see this eventually happening and that terrifies me. George Orwell may not have guessed the correct year in which this would take place, but I'm pretty sure he hit the nail right on the head with what will happen someday.
I can't even imagine living in a world where everyone just accepts everything they see, hear, and read as fact when those "facts" are constantly changing. How can anyone believe that they were always at war with one country and always allied with another when a week ago you knew the opposite to be true? This type of mind control and seduction will, I hope, never be possible en masse, the way this book portrays, but it does make me wonder about the power of mind control. Who wouldn't be able to rule the world if they have the ability to control the thoughts and emotions of those living in it?
One thing I love and hate about books like this is that it shows how bad things can get if power is put in the wrong hands and technology is poorly utilized, but it also shows those who want this kind of power what they need to do in order to gain it and use it wisely. It blatantly shows the weaknesses of the human race and how easily our minds can become corrupt.
A good read for those who want a glimpse of the future and don't mind seeing something truly horrifying. Sci-fi always shines a light in the darkest of places. I hope we know what to do when the time comes that these things are possible and possibly happening. I want to wish the world luck.
A site dedicated to all things Orwellian has all the information anyone might need for projects or out of curiosity. The site also contains George Orwell's books in pdf format.
There is still lots of time to enter the Banned Book Challenge. Choose a goal for the number of challenged or banned books you can read between now and June. Let us know about your goal on our form, so we can keep track. Not sure what to read? Check out our suggested reading and the many links on the right side bar.
By: Anastasia Goodstein,
on 8/3/2009
Blog:
Ypulse
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
fan fiction,
1984,
MTV,
Kindle,
Orwell,
Jonas Brothers,
blyk,
Teen Choice Awards,
ESPN,
Ypulse Essentials,
fanfiction,
The amanda project,
Warped Tour,
Vans Warped Tour,
Lands End,
wrigleys,
Add a tag
The Amanda Project (goes live. The interactive mystery series invites creative teens to get involved online before the first book's release this fall. Plus the ins and outs of fanfiction on SLJ. Also a Facebook group rallies for a library-themed... Read the rest of this post
I was waiting to write about the Kindle story until I knew what the heck actually happeend. As you know, when journalists [or bloggers] write about technology, especially hot button stories, they tend to leave out important information. This is often because they don’t totally understand the mechanisms they’re describing, but also because certain people have vested interests in the story being told a certain way. No one says “A Microsoft virus” they say “A computer virus.” Anyhow… Copyfight, one of my favorite blogs has created a heavily hyperlinked timeline of what was going on with the situation in which Amazon pulled some titles (including Orwell’s 1984), titles users had paid for, off of Kindles. Granted, the blog post uses some heavy-handed language, it’s certainly far from objective, but let’s be not just fair but accurate when we try to explain the ways in which a book is not at all the same as an e-book. The differences matter.
By: Cassie,
on 7/21/2009
Blog:
OUPblog
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
Law,
1984,
Technology,
Blogs,
Current Events,
amazon,
copyright,
Big Brother,
A-Featured,
Orwell,
#amazonfail,
Add a tag
Dennis Baron is Professor of English and Linguistics at the University of Illinois. He’s the author of the forthcoming OUP book A Better Pencil: Readers, Writers, and the Digital Revolution, look for it in September. On his website The Web of Language, Baron looks at Amazon’s actions over the weekend, pulling copies of George Orwell novels from Kindles. That post is reprinted here for our readers.
In a move worthy of George Orwell’s Big Brother, Amazon.com sent its thought police into Kindles everywhere to erase copies of “1984″ and “Animal Farm.”
A few months ago, Amazon got into trouble with its customers for silently placing books about homosexuality in the “adult materials” category and removing their sales rankings. After a Twitter campaign under the rubric #amazonfail generated massive amounts of negative publicity, the bookseller reversed course, claiming that the problem resulted from a cataloging error, not a change in policy towards gays and lesbians.
Now, in a move that would seem to constitute not digital discrimination but electronic breaking and entering, they’ve done it again. After erasing the Orwells from Amazon’s popular and pricey Kindle e-book reader, the nation’s largest bookseller informed customers in a brief email that it was refunding their purchase price ($0.99 for each book) because the publisher had recalled the e-books. It later announced that the texts were actually pirated versions of the novels and had been made available by Amazon in error (legal versions of both e-books, copyrighted by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, are still available from Amazon).
Amazingly enough, some Kindle users felt that Amazon’s actions were justified – after all, they confessed, they had received stolen property, and once Amazon had refunded their money, the company was surely within its rights to take back its property.
But others were outraged by Amazon’s arrogant big-brotherism (apparently the company has silently deleted bootleg Harry Potters and Ayn Rand novels from Kindles as well). One Kindler unhappy over Amazon’s invasion of privacy posed this hypothetical: What if Barnes & Noble sold you a book, but later, discovering that they sold it without the copyright owner’s permission, they broke into your house and took it back, leaving a refund on your kitchen table? Maybe not a plot worthy of Law and Order, but in most states, B&E’s still a felony.
Web 2.0 is a wonderful thing, permitting 2-way interaction between surfers and the websites they visit. Since it replaced the earlier, one-way internet, we’ve been living our online lives by downloading material from websites and uploading our own content in turn. The newest two-way superhighway is why Facebook, YouTube, and Wikipedia are so popular, and why a Minnesota woman was recently fined $1.92 million for illegal file sharing.
In the file sharing case, the RIAA took action against a woman that it considered a “copyright scofflaw” by hauling her into court, where she was defended by lawyers who are now appealing her fine. Amazon chose a more direct, less legalistic, route. Taking advantage of Web 2.0’s interactivity, it silently grabbed content from customers’ e-readers, despite the fact that they had purchased the texts in good faith and that the Kindle’s terms-of-service agreement “grants customers the right to keep a ‘permanent copy of the applicable digital content.’”
The Kindle story just broke, and with details still a little vague, we’ll have to wait for further developments to clarify the seriousness and legality of Amazon’s actions. But its significance is already clear. Between Amazon and the Google book project, two privately-owned, for-profit digital giants are poised to promote our literacy – to make books available to everyone, everywhere. But they’re also poised to control that literacy, limiting through their monopolistic influences exactly which books we can and cannot see. Amazon’s even gone so far as to pick our pockets to remove texts that they’ve decided we have no right to possess.
Yes, there are massive and indisputable benefits to the Web’s interactivity, but they come at a price, a reconfiguration of public and private space that is so dramatic as to be hard to miss, and yet sometimes so subtle that it’s easy for us to forget about. The internet allows us to go out into the world from the privacy of our desktops, to surf sites and to create them, to upload and to access information, in ways and at speeds never before possible. But our surfing also opens those private desktops to public view, by letting us publish our private thoughts, but also by creating a visible record of our keystrokes and our searches open not just to hackers and spies but also to retailers and advertisers who visit our hard drives, and sometimes, as Amazon has done, alter or remove their contents.
When the government reads our emails or tracks our web searches in the interests of national security, we cry big-brotherism and worry about the erosion of civil liberties. When corporations like Amazon and Google track us, ostensibly to better anticipate what we might want to buy, we tend to praise their ingenuity as hi-tech capitalism at its best. Amazon’s latest fail should remind us that Big Brother is watching not from the CIA’s bricks-and-mortar headquarters in Reston, but from corporate headquarters somewhere, everywhere, in cyberspace, and that we must defend our civil liberties from corporate as well as government abuse.
Photograph: George Orwell (Public Domain)
George Orwell's 1984 was challenged in Jackson County, FL in 1981, because Orwell's novel was "pro-communist and contained explicit sexual matter," according to the American Library Association.
Now a recent Guardian article by Robert McCrum tells "the compelling story of Orwell's torturous stay on the island where the author, close to death and beset by creative demons, was engaged in a feverish race to finish the book."
According to the article, Orwell was very ill, as he grappled with the "demons of his imagination" in a borrowed cottage in Scotland. The idea for the story had been percolating in Orwell's head since the Spanish War but he claimed that he was inspired by the Tehran Conference of 1944 where he believed, "Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt consciously plotted to divide the world," according to a colleague at "The Observer" Isaac Deutscher. 1984 is a much darker novel than Animal Farm, a novel which brought him much fame but also unwelcome attention.
A random act of violence in his flat and later, the death of his wife during a routine operation and his own poor health, as well as the bleak period that was post-war Britain, were circumstances which he faced prior to the writing of 1984. The publisher of "The Observer" offered Orwell a holiday at his cottage which Orwell agreed to with enthusiasm, craving the isolation so that he could concentrate on writing.
He struggled from 1947 until his death in 1950, explaining to his publisher in May 1947 that he was in "wretched health." By October he had completed a rough draft when Owell, his son Richard, and others who were returning from exploring the coast in a small boat almost drowned in a whirlpool. Orwell, a heavy smoker whose cough worried his friends, became seriously ill. He began to write at a feverish pace until November 1947 when he was hospitalized with TB, a condition for which there was no cure at that time. The publisher of "The Observer" arrange for an experimental drug -- streptomycin -- to be sent from the US. While the TB symptoms disappeared, Orwell suffered horrible side effects like throat ulcers, blisters in the mouth, hair loss, peeling skin and the disintegration of toe and fingernails.
As he was completing his hospital stay, he received a letter from his publisher, urging him to complete the novel by the end of the year, if not earlier, so he promised to deliver the manuscript in early December 1948. He ended up writing from his bed. When it came to retyping the completed but almost unreadable manuscript, it fell to Orwell, despite being too weak to walk in mid-November. According to the writer of the article, Orwell, "Sustained by endless roll-ups, pots of coffee, strong tea and the warmth of his paraffin heater, with gales buffeting Barnhill, night and day, he struggled on."
Once he had forwarded the manuscript, he checked into a sanatorium saying, ""I ought to have done this two months ago but I wanted to get that bloody book finished."
Nineteen Eighty-Four was published on June 8, 1949 in Britain.
Orwell died on January 21, 1950 at the age of 46.
Growing up in the 80s I always found it that the side kick characters or mascots from cartoons were the hardest toys to find. Inspired by these hard to find characters, I decided to do a series of three that were my favorite! Here's my first from Masters of the Universe, Orko.
Ransom, Candice F. 1984. Amanda. Scholastic. (Sunfire Romance). 361 pages.
It would be hard for me--quite honestly--to pick a favorite, favorite Sunfire Romance novel. But I can tell you this much. Amanda and Caroline would both be in my top five. Amanda is probably one of the Sunfires I read most. Meet Amanda. At the start of the novel she's quite the spoiled brat. Hardly a redemptive bone in her body. But by the end, by the end, wow, she has grown. Talk about turn around! But I'm rushing. Her father--a man whose reckless gambling has cost him almost everything--runs away from his debtors with his daughter. (She's told simply, put on your riding habit, pack two dresses, and hurry! Of course, she chooses two silk dresses; one is her fanciest dress!) Born into wealth, Amanda is forced to get real. A transformation that she fights and fights and fights. But once the pair have joined the trek west--going to Oregon--Amanda has no choice but to grow up and fast. For the first time in her life, she is working, she is living. She finds out what true friendship and true love is along the way. I loved this one. I loved it because it had substance. I loved it because Amanda is a great little heroine.
© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
If you're reading this post on another site, or another feed, the content has been stolen.
Roberts, Willo Davis. 1984. Caroline. Scholastic (Sunfire Romance). 361 pages.
I've mentioned this before, but I just loved the Sunfire romance novels (name books) published by Scholastic in the 1980s. Caroline was one of my favorites. In this story we meet Caroline "Caro" who is determined to follow her two older brothers west to California no matter the cost. She decides to cut off her hair, rub dirt on her face, don her brother's hand-me-downs, and go west disguised as a boy. She pairs up with Dan Riddle for the long trek west. But what Caroline didn't expect was that she'd fall in love on the way...and that her brothers would be so tricky to find. Will Dan forgive her for her deception? Can he return her feelings? Will she ever find her brothers? Can she have her happily ever after...gold nuggets and all? Read and see in this lovely little romance.
© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
If you're reading this post on another site, or another feed, the content has been stolen.
Read any of George Orwell's works online for free, including 1984 and Animal Farm at "The Complete Works of George Orwell." The books and other writings are searchable. Also included are Orwell's biography, photographs, and quotations. Both books have faced censorship.
The Forbidden Library reports that 1984, was challenged in Jackson County, Fla. (1981) because the novel is "pro-communist and contained explicit sexual matter."
E-notes explains of Animal Farm,
Completed in 1944, the book remained unpublished for more than a year because British publishing firms declined to offend the country's Soviet allies. Finally the small leftist firm of Secker & Warburg printed it, and the short novel became a critical and popular triumph. It has been translated into many languages but was banned by Soviet authorities throughout the Soviet-controlled regions of the world because of its political content.
Wikipedia adds,
Orwell originally prepared a preface which complains about British government suppression of his book, self-imposed British self-censorship and how the British people were suppressing criticism of the USSR, their World War II ally. "The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. ... [Things are] kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that ‘it wouldn’t do’ to mention that particular fact." Somewhat ironically, the preface itself was censored and is not published with most copies of the book.
George Orwell's 1984, made use of the term Newspeak. Newspeak limited the vocabulary of the society and also removed any words that might lead to free thought, free speech, or any other rebellious ideas from the vocabulary of the people.
Newspeak was brought to mind when I read this story. According to the Daily Press & Argus, Howell Public Schools administrators are not 'banning' a book, but 'pulling' it. Well, that's a relief!
Deputy Superintendent Lynn Parrish, Deputy Superintendent stated that The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and The World Around Them is being reviewed by a committee. It contains controversial material which includes drug use, sex, and profanity.
However, one needs to hear the whole story of the Freedom Writers before making a call that their story should not be told.
In their own words,
The Freedom Writers Diary is the amazing true story of strength, courage, and achievement in the face of adversity. In the fall of 1994, in Room 203 at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California, an idealistic twenty-four-year-old teacher named Erin Gruwell faced her first group of students, dubbed by the administration as "unteachable, at-risk" teenagers. The class was a diverse mix of African-American, Latino, Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Caucasian students, many of whom had grown up in rough neighborhoods in Long Beach. In the first few weeks of class, the students made it clear that they were not interested in what their teacher had to say, and made bets about how long she would last in their classroom.
Read
more about the teacher hero who helped them see how they could turn their lives around.
This inspiring story has been made into a
movie which is due to be released in January 2007.
By:
Elaine Anderson,
on 8/10/2006
Blog:
Fahrenheit 451: Banned Books
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
banning,
1984,
ban,
Wild Swans,
Mao,
memoir,
Jung Chang,
China,
Nineteen-eighty-four,
Add a tag
I recently finished reading Wild Swans by Jung Chang. This memoir has been banned in China since 1994 and apparently even pirated versions omit references to Mao.
Chang looks back over three generations of women in her family and the upheaval in their lives as they endured the Japanese occupation; the Civil War; Mao's rise to power; and the Cultural Revolution. It is a fascinating look at history and its effect on one family. From her grandmother, whose bound feet were an outward sign of her lack of freedom as a concubine to a powerful man, to Chang herself, who worked towards Mao's goals with a passion, the book describes the turmoil the Chinese have endured. It also is a tribute to their strength of character. It sold more than 10 million copies and was translated into 30 languages.
Chang has just published a controversial biography of Mao which is banned in China, but she hopes the first Chinese translation will break through. The book took 12 years to complete.
Ironically, the book Nineteen-Eighty-Four made her wonder, "in a naive way, if Orwell had ever been in China. I was reading about the society I'd been living in. How did he know?"
I can’t remember him ever mentioning a non-anglophone writer among his favorites – and rarely refers to them on his own work.
[…] from another recent interview, here are some excerpts from Alan Moore’s praise for fellow Purgatorio stablemate Kieron […]