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

David Duffy · 11 May 2011, 10:43 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: davidD at qimr.edu.au (David Duffy)
Date: Wed, 11 May 2011 20:43:35 +1000 (EST)
Subject: (urth) "Realistic fiction leaves out too much." - Gene  Wolfe
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Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.1105112039050.5158 at orpheus.qimr.edu.au>

On Fri, 6 May 2011, Mo Holkar wrote:

> 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.
>
>
> It's interesting that you had that reading of Nineteen Eighty-Four. I read it 
> not as trying to depict a development of USSR society, but as trying to 
> depict what a collectivist society would be like specifically as it could be 
> in the UK. So I think there is no real attempt by the author to think about 
> the Soviet actuality -- but mostly just a mission to critique tendencies in 
> 1930s-40s UK politics and society.
>
> I guess I have this perspective because I live in the UK myself, but then 
> Orwell did too :-) and I think that in Nineteen Eighty-Four he was trying to 
> send a message to his own country, more than to the rest of the world. As you 
> say, Animal Farm, because of its abstraction, is a more universal piece of 
> work.
>

Have you read Anthony Burgess's _1985_?  The first half is an essay 
discussing these points, the second half an adequate extrapolation not of 
1948 Britain, but 1984 Britain.

Cheers, David Duffy,

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