George Orwell and Aldous Huxley

I read Animal Farm and 1984 some years ago, and they were really shocking to me. And so was Brave New World. It looks like these books are going to become constantly more relevant. Unforetunately !!!

Huxley can't hold a candle to Orwell. And though there are obvious historical reasons why 1984 and Animal Farm are important, I think it's unfortunate that these books have overshadowed other great work by Orwell.

The Orwell piece that "made me think", as this thread says, was the essay "Inside the Whale". I go back to it repeatedly. Interesting politically, and a great piece of literary criticism.

Arguably his description of the British left intelligentsia could be applied to today's American neocons. And though the writers he refers to are now dated, the point he makes against the dumbing down present in political art could apply to much politically correct writing today. His complications are fruitful.

#2 -- Disagreed on Huxley. First of all, Huxley did it first. Secondly, although 1984 is quite important to the vocabulary and culture that has arisen out of the post-modern movement, Huxley's prediction that society would OD on its own freedom of hedonism is the closer of the two to what actually is numbing the minds of the Western world. Thirdly, Huxley wrote Brave New World Revisited, an amazing analysis that includes a comparison of Orwell's book to his. All in all, Huxley is more subtle and closer to reality.

Huxley was preceeded by Evgeny Zamyatin's We (Zamyatin in turn was a fan of H. G. Wells's, although "We" owes nothing directly to Wells).

I too think Orwell a much better writer than Huxley.

The Orwell piece that "made me think", as this thread says, was the essay "Inside the Whale"

It sounds like you'd be interested in Salman Rushdie's essay-reply to Orwell, "Outside the whale". (Reprinted in Imaginary homelands) I hesitate to summarise a complex theme, let's just note that it's an important attack on "literary quietism", such as Orwell apparently espouses in his essay.

Yes, I'm familiar with "Outside the Whale" and to be frank, I think it's a tendentious and not very clever reading of Orwell, a bit of grandstanding on Rushdie's part. (In fairness, in the intervening years of fatwa, Rushdie has adapted his tone somewhat.)

Orwell doesn't really espouse quietism in this essay as much as acknowledge how such an approach can make sense for a person like Henry Miller. Orwell was recuperating, both physically and mentally, from his experience in the Spanish war. He was still a politically committed writer. But he was impatient with effete or intellectually simplistic versions of politics, which allowed to him defend, in the same space, writers as diverse as Miller and T.S. Eliot.

Rushdie didn't display such a far-reaching or generous imagination.

I'm unfamiliar with Rushdie's fiction, if that's what you're thinking of, but I've never heard anyone accuse him of a lack of imagination, or intolerance.

After reading Rushdie's essay I took down Orwell's (it's been some 15 years since I read it) and I must agree with Rushdie that it's at least odd. As far as anyone can tell, he not only recommends the reading of a political idiot (I say this fondly, heeding to the Greek sense of the word, "naif" would be condescending) such as Henry Miller, at a time when Europe was breaking down spectacularly, but proclaims Miller's "intracetacean" occupations and attitudes to represent the only "authentic" contemporary writing.

Perhaps Rushdie overemphasised some defeatist nuance of Orwell's, but considering the perplexing jumbled mess of this essay, I'm not sure his reading was outright stupid.

I wouldn't say Rushdie's reading was stupid. But to me it was sweeping and somewhat misses Orwell's point.

Orwell here is writing about a literary culture, and its diminished role in traumatic political times. (He was, of course, active by other means, even eager to get in a fight at great personal risk.)

Rushdie wants to address a political culture, while assuming that literature can be an effective tool. (He's also writing at a less traumatic time.)

I'm glad that Orwell was wrong in his conclusion about the victory of totalitarianism. But I still think his appreciation of literature, its pleasures, and its political uses, is more savvy.

My favorite book is Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I first read it over fifty years ago when I was about twelve and now it's become one of those books one is always reading but never finishes.

Our infrstructure is crumblimg and many don't want to work. Have the great minds already left or are they gone forever and there's no hope for the future?

Don't worry. The great minds won't leave until after we have developed sustainable space travel. Till then they're stuck here with the rest of us.

I think the reference to We by Zamyatin is important. Orwell reviewed this book and was impressed by it.

I almost suspect that We sewed the seeds for 1984 in Orwell's mind.

The "Great Minds" all discovered they couldn't stand each other (something about runaway egos) and took their toys and went home.

Some went home, and some weren't great minds in the first place. But some died standing.

We by Zamyatin is amazing especially in the original Russian. I've written a paper on it. Personally I think it's better than 1984 and Huxley claims not to have been influenced by it but he has to be flat out lying. There are way too many scathing similarities. Plus its better because it was written way before 1984 or Brave New World and still jumped to the same conclusions. Brilliant.

These have been interesting comments, and I think I need to read "We."

#13 So lucky to be able to read We in the original language.

Have you read it in english as well? Are there any differences between the two?

I just read Feed by M.T. Anderson for a lit class and absolutely loved it. Whereas 1984 is more about the government, Feed is about our continued evolution to a consumer-driven society. The world is at a point where everyone has a "feed" implanted into their brains at a very young age, and it is basically like having a laptop in your mind - except you can't control the advertisements, recommendations, etc. that it makes. I loved 1984, so maybe you would like this book as well. :)

#3, heina:

You said it. I do think Orwell was a better writer in the sense of 1984 being more engaging than BNW, but as far as probable dystopias go Huxley was just spot on the money in terms of where modernity would lead us, and what the true danger is.

I also sometimes feel that people confuse the visible "Superbad Totalitarian Regime" symbolism with the basic fear Orwell articulated in 1984. The way I see it, it isn't so much the gray walls, shitty food, manipulation etc etc, but how difference and judgment becomes annihilated to the point of no human choice having any value anymore: right is wrong, and resistance is futile.

Huxley said the exact same thing, really, just far more subtly and realistically: he took it that one step further where it's not even about "right" and "wrong" being an externally imposed null, but that our focus on comfort and stability would lead to an internally embraced ignorance of why choice matters at all.

As for We, I've been told that a lot of Zamyatin's word play and more intricate references are lost in translation. However, it's still excellent. If you think Huxley and Orwell are any good, you HAVE to read We. Orwell apparently teased/poked fun at Huxley for getting everything for Brave New World from We. Huxley flat out denied ever having read it, but Orwell said he had. So there you go, conflict. ha

I can't believe no one has mentioned Aldous Huxley's book Island. This is Huxley's last novel and in effect an answer to his own earlier work Brave New World.

Erinys has a good point to make. Huxley wrote a lot more than just Brave New World, and it is really hard to interpret BNW outside the context of his other work. Huxley's first published novels were biting social satires that depicted the nihilism of the post-war british intelligensia from an insider's sympathetic but essentially critical perspective. Crome Yellow and Antic Hay are good examples of this. After Point Counter Point, which was probably Huxley's strongest exploration of human nature, he moved on to novels of ideas. Brave New World was a transitional novel that was essentially parodical in nature, but with the deep sympathy for the spiritual that is evident in his later work. My feeling is that the motivation behind it was a little different to that behind 1984 and Animal farm. Orwell's criticism was directed more squarely at totalitarianism, and his literary depiction of its evils was both powerful and instructive. Huxley, on the other hand, seems to have been reacting to the naive optimism toward the scientific organsiation of society evident in parts of the British intelligensia, especially in aquaintances of his such as Bertrand Russell. Both evils were manifest in the Communism of the day, but they are really two different sets of ideas that are being criticised.

george orwelll is AMAZING
I loved animal farm and just read wigan pier
weren't so sure over 1984