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Dueling authors.... well, ideas anyway.
Bill Bohanon wrote: wrote in message oups.com... People always make a mistake when they drag in a novelist's politics, or what they think is his politics. Anyone who is in the used book business can likely tell you that 1984 remains one of the most requested novels by a Twentieth Century author who has been gone a couple of generations -- and for 'the most part is read by people who could care less about Orwell's politics. In a sense, people make the same mistake with "1984" that they make with Heinlein's "Puppetmasters." In the case of the latter, people often take a simplistic approach holding that Heinlein was merely commenting on communism. The reality is that he was likely commenting -- if we want to take his terrifying story as anything beyond sheer entertainment -- on a pernicious tendency in human nature, a tendency which became overt not only in communism, but also in Nazism, and, I suspect, Heinlein would agree, in the terrorist groups of today. When people start making suicide attacks on innocent people, then something just as pernicious as Heinlein's Puppetmasters (a novel which should be required reading for anyonce seeking a better understanding of Al Quaida) .has gotten hold of their nervous systems... But getting back to 1984, technology being what it is today, any sort of totalitarian government could institute a surveillance system far more through than what Orwell depicted. That is very basic knowledge to likely all "1984" readers, which is one good reason why the novel remains scary stuff.. Hi Bill. Regarding this 1984 book you mention above, I recently bought a copy at a book sale for a dollar. The title is spelled out though, it says Nineteen Eighty Four. It would be interesting to see how Orwell felt about the matter. What I can tell you is that the Signet (New American Library) paperback, which was first published in July, 1950, not only has the title on the outside front of the paperback written in numbers, but the title page also has "1984" written the same way. On the other hand, the spine of the book has "Nineteen Eighty-Four" written as a word. Perhaps, then, we are to conclude that it is 6 of 1, and one-half dozen of the other, regarding important differences in the way you write the title. (I usually write the title in numbers because, hey, if you can save maybe 16 keystrokes and still get your idea accross, why not?) Inside it says "first american edition" inside and has a blue dust cover. I didn't know it was famous or anything, You have spent the past sixty years touring deep in the Coal Sack Nebula, I take it I bought it because I thought it was a typo of some sort, because the book was published in 1948 which is 1984 sort of backwards. Are you saying that this book might be worth more than the dollar I paid for it? No, but instead of asking me you should be checking in Addall.com. That would be ironical, because although I collect things that are mistakes (like books with typos) I bought this by mistake but it isn't a mistake. Hmm...sometimes I have a hard time telling if a post is a clueless attempt at humor or just written by someone who happens to be clueless... [Memo from the upstairs office.] [Memo from the upstairs office.] ============== j-c ====== @ ====== purr . demon . co . uk ============== Jack Campin: 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland | tel 0131 660 4760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ for CD-ROMs and free | fax 0870 0554 975 stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, & Mac logic fonts | mob 07800 739 557 |
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