1984: Catch your breath

Author: [British] George Orwell Sun Zhongxu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-05-01
Features: This book includes two works by the British novelist George Orwell. Nineteen Eighty-Four is his masterpiece, a political allegorical novel. The protagonist Winston Smith lives in a fictional "Oceania," a highly authoritarian state with no personal freedom or dignity. Winston is an ordinary person with a conscience, yet he cannot escape his fate of being tortured to death. Coming Up for Air depicts the frustrated and relentless life of insurance salesman George Bellingham, raising questions about industrialized society. Both novels focus on ordinary people, writing about their life experiences and thoughts. The two male protagonists are equally pitiful and helpless, squeezed into the cracks of life. Such people, crushed in life, seem incapable of enduring major political themes. Orwell shows no grand narrative structure, sweeping panoramic scenes, or powerful and high-sounding prose. All he aims to do is place characters in their specific human and social environments to unfold their stories, whether realistic (Coming Up for Air) or prophetic (Nineteen Eighty-Four), making them believable within their respective contexts. Thus, the stories of these two ordinary people become carriers of significant themes and ideas, more authentic and persuasive than any grand structure or narrative. This reminds me of a line by Lawrence on novels: "Anything is true if it happens in its own time and place." This is the truth of art. Orwell achieved it. Look at the chubby insurance salesman Bellingham in Coming Up for Air, his chaotic home, the typical living district where he lives, and the messy emerging middle class around him—these people make up—oh my, the majority of the British! Even such an ordinary man as Bellingham cannot bear the weight of life, needing to surface like a turtle for a breath, only to find there is no air to breathe! Look at the unlucky Winston in Nineteen Eighty-Four, who turns to extramarital affairs to "come up for air" under immense political pressure. See the repulsive faces of the people around him, including his separated wife; see the actions of the Ministry of Truth where he works, and the neighboring Ministry of Peace, Ministry of Love, and Ministry of Plenty—Peace is responsible for war, Truth for spreading lies, Love for torture, and Plenty for creating hunger; see how willingly people fabricate lies and climb the ladder through surveillance. These people make up—oh my, the upper echelons of a nation! In the end, even a man with a conscience willingly betrays and dies with love for an idol. What could be more cruel than such a human condition?