"Realistic fiction leaves out too much." - Gene Wolfe

soloviev at irit.fr · 06 May 2011, 16:16 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: soloviev at irit.fr (soloviev at irit.fr)
Date: Fri, 6 May 2011 18:16:35 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: (urth) "Realistic fiction leaves out too much." - Gene  Wolfe
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Dear Mo, dear James,

in my posting I tried to
explain what was my impression when I first read "1984"
in 80-es (I don't remember now, was it before or during
Gorbatchev's "perestoika" - could be before, I had enough
possibilities to read it in "samizdat"). At this time
in the USSR in "intellectual" circles it was naturally
seen as a grotesque representation of Soviet society.
It is interesting to note that in Gorbatchev'e time
(when Soviet propagandistic system still worked but
tried to discuss critically "anti-soviet" books, instead
of just rejecting them) it did say quite cleverly
something in the sense of what Mo is saying: that
"1984" is not the satire against Soviet society, but
that it depicts exactly Angsoc - English totalitarian
society. What I did find unconvincing in "1984"? As far as I remember,
not the ideas, but rather the combination of "romance", the love story,
as it is described in "1984" with the totalitarian
society background. If you wish, the feeling that
this romantic line is borrowed from XIX century literature,
and not really felt by Orwell. I could believe
in the society he describes - it was not so much different
from our stalinist period, as I could see. But accepting
this, I felt (and knew - the USSR after Stalin was not so
totalitarian, but there was certain continuity) - I felt that
the romantic line in such a society would be different,
that the "psychology" of heroes would be different.

For example,
the member of "inner party" would never pay so much attention
to a destiny of an individual, playing as a cat with a mouse.
The owner of the bookstore who gave a room
to the hero (to meet with his lover) and sold him later to the security,
again paid too much attention to an individual. The personage was taken
right from Dickens. The idea that the torture will be most
efficient using personal fears - again too much attention to
the individual. It was not convincing.

The feeling of the
totalitarian epoch for us could be better described by a
line of the poet Mandelstam (by the way, Gene Wolfe uses
him once for an epigraph) - "epoch of anonymous deaths", and
by recollections of prisoners of Stalin's time (one, as I remember,
counted the number of times the prison attendants checked
whether he is hiding something in his arse - it was precisely
described algorithm for such a check - it was 13 times one
day, when he was moved from one prison to another).

By the way, I think Gene Wolfe understands very well the
spirit of totalitarian times. I remember his "Eyeflash
Miracles". I don't know whether our Russian nationalists
(very anti-american) do read Gene Wolfe, but sometimes
I've glanced their pamphlets and I had an impression
that they have read something like this and later presented
(pretended) that American literature itself gives a proof
that American society is totalitarian. (Total identification
by irises, killing of genetically modified children after
an experiment, a boy who was blinded and who is the
miracle-worker and Christ-like figure, hunted by
federal agents, the computer possessed by devils...)

All the best

Sergei Soloviev

> Actually, that was to Sergei.
>
> On 5/6/2011 10:01 AM, James Wynn wrote:
>> Mo,
>>
>> That's interesting observation. What specific ideas did you find
>> unconvincing? Have you seen the movie "The Lives of Others"?
>>
>> The only thing that *might* be unconvincing to me is that such a
>> society could be maintained _worldwide_ among three nations. But then,
>> I only know about the other two nations from what we are told. They
>> might actually be free. On the other hand, the belief in the eventual
>> inevitably universal spread of Soviet Socialism was not uncommon in
>> the UK in 1947 (much as the current belief in Liberal Democracy). So,
>> maybe Orwell was speculating "What if it _did_ happen?"
>>
>> J.
>>
>>
>>> At 19:01 05/05/2011, Sergei wrote:
>>>> By the way, I didn't like much the Orvell's "1984" (I did like
>>>> the Animal Farm). The reason - "Animal Farm" is presented as abstract,
>>>> symbolic fiction, and it seems almost perfect symbol.
>>>> The "1984" contains many details that were not convincing,
>>>> even as a possible development of the society in the USSR.
>>>> It was still very good
>>>> as a scheme, on the level of abstract ideas (language in "1984",
>>>> inner Party, etc), but not in realistic details.
>>>
>>>
>>> I
>
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