The Monkey King's Used Primate Emporium and Book Reviews

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Anthony Burgess, �1985�

Started August 27 � Finished September 5, 2003; 240 pages. Posted 08 September 2003

About a week back I got to see first hand how incredibly obvious we as a race are in certain situations. I was in line at my local Safeway, which despite being prime time for shopping, decided to only have three checkout lanes running, the end result being lines that stretched all the way down the side isles with about twenty people waiting in each line.

Now here�s where the obviousness came in. Everybody, and I mean everybody, would say one of two things depending on their age group when they noticed how far back the line went.

Response number one: �Oh my God!�

Sometimes this was modified to �Oh my Gosh� and there was one person who said, �Oh my Goodness� but you see the pattern. That was for the older folks in the store.

Response number two, utilized by any person under 30, who would simply say, �Holy shit!�

If this wasn�t enough of an indicator that Newspeak is alive and thriving, I don�t know what is.

And then, at the same time, everybody who saw me reading this had the same reaction I did. After all, everybody who saw the book knew who Anthony Burgess was. (And if you don�t know, you should read more. He wrote A Clockwork Orange. You�re welcome.)

Everybody knew what 1984 was. And thus, the idea that Burgess would write a sequel to 1984 was intriguing to everybody. After all, the guy who invented the language of the droogs should have great fun with Newspeak, yes?

But as it turns out, this isn�t a sequel. The first 102 pages deals with Burgess interviewing imaginary characters about the symbolism of 1984, prophetic fiction, the nature of allegory, as well as many other aspects. Disappointed, yet still entertained, I read on.

Then, just when I was getting into the idea of a literary study of Orwell, we (or that is, I,) began part two of the book: 1985. This starts out with a man named Bev who attempts to cross a picket line, claiming his right as a free citizen to work regardless of the opinion of his Union, of which he was forced to join in order to do said work. A few mentions are tossed about involving thought crime, and I was ready to go, in for a great ride.

And then Burgess veered away from Orwell�s vision of the future. I suppose this is good. After all, I wouldn�t want a simple continuum of what has already been written, But he never returns to ANY aspects of Orwell, and I began to wonder why he felt the need to allude to it in the first place.

I don�t have an answer for that, but I�m beginning to think it was due to the fact that 1985 as a story was too short, and the literary criticism aspect was too sparse as well. Tie them together, add a dash of Orwellian paranoia, and you have a full novel-length tome to sell upon the unsuspecting masses.

But the true disappointment of this book comes from its lack of culpability for the masses — whether that lay with the government imposing it through fear, ala 1984, or brought upon by the masses passive acceptance themselves, as showcased in Huxley�s Brave New World.

Media critic Neil Postman showcased this brilliantly in the introduction to his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death. In it, he says, �What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.� Whose vision is closer in this day and age?

But Burgess isn�t really the one to ask about this. For those of you who have read A Clockwork Orange, or even seen the movie, there may be something you didn�t know — The book had a 7th chapter that was cut out by the publisher and subsequently never used in the film version. Burgess apparently fought like hell for years to get it put back, and the publishers eventually capitulated.

That chapter is garbage. Essentially, it nullifies everything in the book concerning free will and the authority of the state by having Alex say, �You know, all that ultraviolence was really just a product of bored youth — sorry about that.� That�s his vision of the future — boys will be boys.

Deep.

And now I�m off to Hawaii.


Rating: Worth used.

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