I recently finished reading George Orwell's novel 1984. I don't
usually read fiction, but I will read it if it is something that
captures everybody's attention. 1984 was written in 1948 so it
came out before I was born but references to things in the book
find their way in to normal conversation at times so when
something recently made me think of that book, I checked with the web
site of the Library of Congress' Talking Book program and they
had it available.
I figured that since this is an older book, I might have
to get it on tape from our regional lending library which means
that I must ask for it from there and they would mail it to me
but that is not what happened.
Since 1984 is considered a literary classic, the Talking
Book program has re-released it to users of the service as a
digital download but the voice reading the book is that of the
late Alexander Scourby. For those of you who are younger,
Alexander Scourby was an actor on both stage and screen and also
read many Talking Books for the blind starting in the late
thirties.
Many of us who were around in the fifties and sixties
remember his deep voice on Talking Books so it was a real treat
to hear that voice again as he could make any book come alive.
As for 1984, the Book, I found it very thought-provoking.
Since George Orwell wrote it in 1947-48, it occurred to me how
he arrived at his vision of life in futuristic London.
World War II's terrible memories were still fresh in
everybody's minds who lived in England. The US and Britain had
just beat Hitler's appalling empire and the Soviet Union was
still going strong.
I may be wrong, but I think that food rationing was
still in effect in the UK and many of the things people needed
for daily life were dodgy or hard to come by.
There was also the relatively new concept of atomic
warfare and many people figured well in to the sixties that
there would eventually be another world war fought with atomic
weapons.
Orwell would have been familiar with television as
England had it in the late thirties and again after the war
ended so he probably was able to conceive of his novel based
upon asking the question, "What would life be like if all these
things were carried to their worst possible extremes?"
For those who haven't read it, it is a bit depressing
but it will captivate your interest when you get in to it.
========================================
The Just-chat E-Mail forum is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and
worm-free
To modify your subscription options, please visit for forum's dedicated web
pages located at:
<http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/just-chat>
You can find an archive of all messages posted to the just-chat group at either
of the following:
<http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/just-chat/index.html>
or:
<http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]>
You may subscribe with your RSS reader at the following URL:
<http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml>
---------------------------------------
