Welcome along to our forty-fifth audio adventure in our series Tales for Our Time. As I mention in my introduction, this one has been requested on and off over the years, and I resisted. But cometh the hour, cometh the dystopian novel.
George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1948, when the Soviets had gobbled up half of Europe and were eager for more. He pushed his world just a little further ahead - to the day after tomorrow, thirty-six years in the future. Given the previous thirty-six years (two wars separated by a depresssion, Bolshevism, Fascism, Nazism and nukes), his anxieties were understandable. Happily, the real 1984 did not live up to its advance publicity. We are now another thirty-six years on, and the things that fretted the world back then - Thatcher, Reagan, nuclear armageddon - seem almost benign compared to what afflicts us in 2021, as Dorsey and Zuckerberg and the other woke billionaires erect the prison bars before our very eyes.
Orwell foresaw that and much more: It is the rich and plausible social detail of the future he conjured that makes it such a gripping tale to this day, and one with many lessons to impart. To hear the first part of Nineteen Eighty-Four, prefaced by my own introduction, Mark Steyn Club members should please click here and log-in.
As many of you are aware, Kathy Shaidle, a beautiful contrarian spirit and our brilliant film essayist, died just before dawn yesterday morning. Over in our movie department, I quoted her throwaway aside on the metric system:
Same with the other new thing: metric, which is (not coincidentally I'm sure) also French. I only passed years of mandatory French classes by a nose, and to this day refuse to use Celsius and kilometers.
Kathy would relish the careless yet ingenious way Orwell's opening sentence establishes the totalitarian transformation of society.
I think you'll enjoy this audio serialization of a contemporary classic, but, if ten months of lockdown, looting and 'lections have left you pining for lighter fare, we have plenty of cheerier escapist yarns, including Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, and P G Wodehouse's Psmith, Journalist - oh, and a certain other fellow's The Prisoner of Windsor. Tales for Our Time in all its variety is a welcome detox from the madness of the hour: three-and-a-half years' worth of my audio adaptations of classic fiction starting with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's cracking tale of an early conflict between jihadists and westerners in The Tragedy of the Korosko. To access them all, please see our easy-to-navigate Netflix-style Tales for Our Time home page. We've introduced a similar tile format for my Sunday Poems and also for our audio and video music specials.
We launched The Mark Steyn Club over three years ago, and I'm overwhelmed by all those members across the globe who've signed up to be a part of it - from Fargo to Fiji, Vancouver to Vanuatu, Cook County to the Cook Islands, West Virginia to the West Midlands. As I said at the time, membership isn't for everyone, but it is a way of ensuring that all our content remains available for everyone.
That said, we are offering our Club members a few extras, including our monthly audio adventures by Dickens, Conrad, Kafka, Gogol, H G Wells, Baroness Orczy, Jack London, Scott Fitzgerald, Robert Louis Stevenson - plus a couple of pieces of non-classic fiction by yours truly. You can find them all here. We're very pleased by the response to our Tales - and we even do them live on our annual Mark Steyn Cruise, assuming such ventures are ever again permitted, and sometimes with special guests.
I'm truly thrilled that one of the most popular of our Steyn Club extras these last three years has been our nightly radio serials. If you've enjoyed them and you're looking for a present for a fellow fan of classic fiction, I hope you'll consider our special Club Gift Membership. Aside from Tales for Our Time, The Mark Steyn Club does come with other benefits:
~Exclusive Steyn Store member pricing on over 40 books, mugs, T-shirts, and other products;
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To become a member of The Mark Steyn Club, please click here - and don't forget that special Gift Membership. As soon as you join, you'll get access not only to Nineteen Eighteen-Four but to all the other yarns gathered together at the Tales for Our Time home page.
One other benefit to membership is our Comment Club privileges. So, if my audio realization of Orwell sounds to you like a boot stamping on a human face forever, feel free to have at it. And do join us tomorrow for Part Two of Nineteen Eighty-Four.
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36 Member Comments
Doubleplusgood.
That is a great choice, Mark. Thank you. Always timely but especially now. One of the most prescient authors
Ah, The Ministry of Truth. CNN? BBC? NBC? ABC? CBC? Actually, all of them.
All that Orwell is describing in '1984' is democratism - us, the demos - versus institutional diktatism (diktats, dictators, dictatorships), a universal tension that has existed throughout human history, ancient and modern, and that will continue to exist throughout all future human history as well. Same old, same new, same future too!
All that we, the demos, have to do is to retain our balance and keep acting, both intellectually and physically, to ensure that the forces of democracy - us, the demos - are victorious against the forces of institutional diktatism, both public and private. Forward!
I was born in 1951 and thus spent my childhood and early adolescence in the shadow of the Communist threat. At that time we trusted our public institutions to protect and preserve our freedoms, thinking that the dangers of totalitarianism came from without. But here we are in 2021 and the takeover came not from a foreign entity but our own academia, government and media. I always wondered how the peoples of those countries living under the boot allowed such domination to happen to them; now I know. I am increasingly skeptical as to whether we will again know freedom in our lifetimes.
"This was not illegal, since there were no longer any laws."
Perhaps the most overlooked line from the first segment. In today's world, the Left believes we are moving toward more and more freedom, as the long established norms - male female marriage, two sexes, heck, simple law and order - are abandoned in favor of the ever evolving enforcement of ever evolving leftist norms. We have moved from a nation of laws to a nation of men, or persons, as it were.......
The Left has convinced far far too many people that the abandonment of societal norms means more liberty, all the while pushing for fewer and fewer freedoms.
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.
Indeed. Not to toot my own horn, but about 15 years ago, I emailed a friend I thought was like-minded: Libs today think Orwell wrote how-to books. I've seen similar thoughts from others in recent years. To his credit, my friend didn't abandon our friendship, but he never did respond, and he later revealed he is one of those who believe unbridled sex, drugs and rock n roll means the Left is committed to liberty.
World upside down, yo.
That's my own Newspeak invention. Police are bad, criminals are good. Law is bad, chaos is good. Free speech is bad, approved speech is good. Fantasized corruption is bad, actual corruption is good. The list is endless, sadly.
I think 1984 shows us the future, but Animal Farm shows us how we get there.
After MeToo I don't think the Left seriously believes in "unbridled sex" any more. That was all they ever had to offer productive white men, but these are no longer an important part of the Democrat coalition, so...
The Left believes in one thing: their own divine right to rule. The specifics don't matter at all.
It was the fall of 1977 for me, with a young literature teacher in his first semester, and there was still a little mild apprehension about what seven years might bring. What seems quaint now was how enthusiastically dismissive he was of communism and the USSR in particular. On a sort-of related note, my quest to read a biography of every US president recently had me reliving the War of 1812, after which the Federalist party -- Washington's party -- was run out of town and to ruin for not supporting the war with sufficient zeal. Perhaps it's time to revive that party, if it can be done without any electronic devices, of course.
Awesome, Mark! Probably the most important book of the 20th century (for both those who want to practice oppression or those who would rather avoid it). I'm on my second listen to a version from Audible, but I'll ditch that and listen to your version instead. (Suck-up alert) - I know yours will be much better.
If the Left don't cancel Eric Blair for any other offense, wait until they hear he served in Burma. As a policeman. There's a statue of Orwell outside BBC's Broadcasting House, long with an inscription which reads: "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." Or there is as I write. I wouldn't be surprised if the plinth now stands empty and the inscription has been spray-painted "FTP" (and, no, I don't mean File Transfer Protocol ).
Well, I wasn't going to brag about having read "1984" in that very year (which I did) until after perusing the comments section that designation appears to be the new "first day (which I didn't) founding member" appellation. Oh well, can't win 'em all.
I'm guilty as charged Phil! Owing to my regret at not being a first day founding member myself I try to score brownie points where I can. ;-)
A timely story. Especially since the Democrat "Ministry of Truth" is busy rewriting history and crushing dissenters.
I'm sick of the argument that Big Tech is private companies that may trample free speech any way they see fit. The deal for Sec. 230 protection was that they would be a communication platform, but Big Tech decided to act as censors of conservative opinion. Moreover the "public-private partnership" they formed with Democrats makes them agents of the leftist state—a Thought Police Auxiliary. As with police informants in criminal cases there's a point where they cross the line and effectively are the police. Likewise, the Big Tech Thought Police become the government and therefore restricted by the First Amendment (assuming Democrats won't throw it out until Usurper Biden is inaugurated). For their loyalty to Democrats, Big Tech fascists are now rewarded by being allowed to fatally wound competitors with not a peep out of the DOJ Antitrust enforcers. When their leftist ideology enhances their already bloated pocketbooks...that's serendipity.
"I'm sick of the argument that Big Tech is private companies that may trample free speech any way they see fit." Agreed. What's going on right now with the partnership between big tech, the media and the Dems is no less than racketeering. Democrats complain to lefty journalists about some individual or platform that they don't like, then the lefty journalists use their direct line to some button pusher at a big tech company, and finally the button gets pushed and someone gets deleted. It's a one sided deal and the sinister thing about it is that the judgement of one of these platforms now means deletion just about everywhere.
Somewhat ironic that the actual 1984 was peak Reagan/Thatcher, now the good old days.
Is this the most famous book that people quote while never having read it?
Over the years, so many clever television pundits have used the term "doublespeak," I am sure thinking that it comes from this novel.
I have only read this once, so it will be nice to "read" it again in this format.
Orwell's 1984 was part of my secondary school English Literature O Level curriculum, the exam of which I took in 1984. I also studied the similarly affecting Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding and released just five years after 1984 was published. I've read prodigiously since then, yet both novels remain on my all time favourite list.
I also enjoyed the movie version of 1984, starring among others, John Hurt and Richard Burton. As science fiction, I could easily dispel any anxieties caused by the dystopian theme.
I can't say that I'm enjoying the current remake, in which we all appear to be unpaid extras.
Last year, I, too, realized that 1984, the year, was as far in Orwell's future as 1984, the book, was in our past (those thirty-six years you mention), and resolved to read it again--along with Homage to Catalonia (which I had never read), and selected essays on language, literature, and politics. Orwell matters--then, now, always. (Christopher Hitchens wrote a whole book on the subject.) If your read Catalonia as a companion text to Mark's reading of 1984, you will be richly rewarded. It was all there; he lived it. Only he escaped (barely) to novelize it less than a decade later.
I also commend 'The Road to Wigan Pier', which among several notable qualities, stands as a powerful rebuke to lefties citing 'white privilege'.
Thank you Ian and Josh for the recommendations, I will find them and read them.
This is another one of the perks to hanging around SteynOnline! The book recommendations keep piling up.
If Mark Steyn didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him
A truth seeking lefty.
Pity there aren't more truth seeking anythings around now.
Cheers.
I haven't actually read 1984 yet. I read Zamyatin's We in Honours, and then discovered that Orwell had taken a lot of ideas from it.....
Meanwhile, though, Mark, have you seen Douglas Murray's "What Now for America?" ???
What's happened to Douglas?
Full of Never-Trump cliches!!!!
If 1984 is now considered a non-fiction instruction manual , the counter may be "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch" as a true survival manual for our future times as former bitter clingers. My wife is now committing more Bible verses to memory just in case another novel transforms into reality .
Nobody does it better than Mark Steyn!
While listening, I morph into Winston.
In Jan 2021, I see a mini truncheon beating against the Capital window, the crowd screaming, the MAGA man tackling the goon from behind. But the beating resumes and Freedom is smashed. Big brother smiles. A vile smile coming for us all.
Depressingly prescient, indeed. The telescreen which can be dimmed but not completely turned off reminds me of TVs in airport terminals, every one of which is invariably tuned to CNN. I have been searching unsuccessfully for a universal TV remote control to carry with me when traveling which seeks out the frequency of the TV at my smelly gate and anihilates its circuitry, granting me a blissful few moments to watch the fading ghostly afterimage of Anderson Cooper's overly judgemental pursed lips.
Let me know if you ever find one, Bill. I thought many times how handy would one be, yet now I'm wondering if I'll ever fly again. Well, perhaps a little commuter hop into space from our local spaceport as soon as the flights begin (and after the fares cone down a bit). Won't be long now. Maybe even before the restaurants and schools open up.
Wonderful Mark. Thank you. I first read 1984 during my freshman year in high school...in 1984.
I'm a bit younger than you Sal, but was doing the same thing that year! It was a Signet paperback, which I still have a dog-eared copy, with a intro by the then-still-venerable Walter Cronkite. In so many words, he said '1984 may not come on time, but there's always 1985'.
Well on this one, Walter was on target, even if he never would have realized how as this last week has shown. Really looking forward to this one from Mark as the lights continue to go out in our Internet world..
The way things are going now do hold on to that paperback as Amazon, et. al. may decide to erase 1984 from their e-book platforms. Quite ironically it was Apple that produced the 1984 inspired TV commercial shown in January 1984 during the Super Bowl in which the narrator states that if people buy the Macintosh (presumably as an act of defiance against Big Blue IBM) then life in the year 1984 won't be like life in the book 1984. Thirty-seven years hence Apple IS Big Brother...looking down...judging...erasing. 1985 indeed.
You can always learn something new here. Most amusing , thanks.
Can't remember if that was a Montana to Rice final or not.
Cheers.
Thanks, Mark. Looking forward to another great read.
And here I was hoping for a cheery Anne of Green Gables type tale!
I recommended a while back that Kathy review the film History Boys, but she said she hadn't got around to see it. I hope she did get to see it even if her antipathy to French might have made it harder to appreciate the classic scene in the film and play when the students practice their French.
Tu vas nous manquer terriblement, Kathy.
Je me sens le même, Nicola, et je suis trés triste nos temps.
HI Mark, How fortuitous! I'm reading 1984 now - about half-way through - so I'll listen to your intro and then let you catch up. I'm looking forward to your reading. John