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/lit/ - Literature

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6032087 No.6032087 [Reply] [Original]

>there are people on /lit/ who think that this isn't the best dystopian novel ever just because they were forced to read it in highschool and will spout bullshit like Brave New World or We was better just so they can fit into the /lit/ hivemind

I seriously hope you guys don't do this.

>> No.6032091

>>6032087
Most dystopian novels are stupid as shit tho

>> No.6032097

>>6032087
This is a great novel, and given the /lit/ hivemind, "entry-level" "pleb", one can discern that /lit/ has poor opinions.

>> No.6032133
File: 1.67 MB, 950x7583, Brave-New-World-vs.-1984.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6032133

But Brave New World IS objectively the better book.

>> No.6032141

>>6032087
I wasn't forced to read it in highschool, they forced Brave New World on me instead.
We is objectively the best dystopia, Huxley and Orwell are both for plebs.

>> No.6032172

W-what about Fahrenheit?

>> No.6032210

>>6032172
From the qualified mind that gave you >>6032141 , it's alright.

>> No.6032212

>>6032087
really i don't know why people compare 1984 and Brave New World. they are not the same thing at all. Huxley's book was a prediction. Orwell's was a warning.

>> No.6032216

>>6032133
>Guys, modern consumerism is like, mental slavery and stuff. Stop enjoying things, sheeple!

Secular puritanism. Brave New World is literally an almost perfect utopia, nearly everyone is happy. Who gives a shit if that doesn't satisfy some pretentious fag's definition of meaningful living, or whatever?

I enjoyed 1984 but some people take fiction waaaay too seriously, it wasn't a prophecy or anything. It was just a well crafted story about how tyranny can completely crush the human spirit.

>> No.6032231

>>6032216

>an almost perfect utopia
Way to completely misread the whole point of a book.

>> No.6032245

BNW crystalizes the whole attitude behind all this middle class malaise and social justice horseshit. "We want the whip!" Christ. We're living in a utopia, and you want to tell me shit's going down the drain because trannies are nervous about going to the bathroom and gun laws might get tighter? People go nutty when there's nothing to struggle against and everything's working fine.

>> No.6032253
File: 42 KB, 358x480, bend_sinister.large.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6032253

>1984
>brave new world
>we
>best dystopian novel

Those are the only three you've read. I get it. Gotta pick one. I think your thread would be better suited for /r/books

>> No.6032258

>>6032253
>look at me guys, I read Nabokov. I'm such a fucking patrician, guys.

>> No.6032264

1984 is the most overrated book in literary history. I fucking hate it so much. And I hate Orwell too, the fucking wanker.

>> No.6032274

>>6032264
ya know what anon, he would probably have hated you too.

>> No.6032289

>>6032264
>>6032253
>this chronic phobia of anything remotely popular

Please grow up.

>> No.6032302

>>6032087
>tfw was forced to read We in high school and loved it. Read Brave New World and thought it kinda sucked

It's like a complete inversion of this thread

>> No.6032308

>>6032087
I wasn't forced to read it in HS because I'm not English/American.
And indeed, Brave New World is much more interesting,

>> No.6032416

>>6032302
Are you Russian?

>> No.6032478

I think 1984 is so much better than BNW. The story is so much more engrossing. People look way too hard into the political themes.

>> No.6032556

>>6032087
you realize the whole book is just a metaphor to explain the dangers of communism to stupid people, right?

I mean, he used talking fucking farm animals. Could it have been any more disney?

Do you also think that the Fox & the Hound is the greatest movie ever made about racism?

>> No.6032578

>>6032556
Wrong book m8.

>> No.6032588

>>6032578
i know. sometimes edgemastering is a fun distraction from all my other distractions

>> No.6032877

>>6032588
You should probably get help anon.

>> No.6032898
File: 109 KB, 623x874, dystopiannovel.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6032898

sure, it invented the formula, but it's still equally meaningless.

>> No.6032915
File: 18 KB, 170x250, aco.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6032915

>not this
shig, etc

>> No.6032948

>>6032898
only dystopian novel i can think of that this applies to is Anthem. and scarily so.

>> No.6032962

i though 1984 was really good

when i was an edgy 17 year old[/spoiler/

>> No.6032971

it's so over the top it might as well be satire

>> No.6032973

...Read more dystopian novels besides 1984, We and BNW? Don't treat every opposing opinion like a personal attack, and read more before you make bold claims like that.

>> No.6032974

1984 is incredibly good: it doesnt just describe one of the best-ever written dystopies, but also it is a very good psychologial book about a single rebel within the world on the work.

>> No.6032975

>>6032216

>iterally an almost perfect utopia, nearly everyone is happy

lel, Last Man coming through real hard in this post

>> No.6032981

>>6032974
>missing the plot completely

it's about trading freedom for happiness

>> No.6032985

>>6032556
You're actually right though. The Party is called Ingsoc and the economic system is described as 'bureaucratic collectivism'. Orwell was terrified that evil Stalinist totalitarians would use nuclear weapons to conquer the entire world (one of his last essays was about this). See his informing for MI5 by handing them list of suspected communists during the Red Scare. Of course this was absolute bollocks and Stalin died a few years later and the USSR liberalised relatively in the Khrushchev thaw, while after the 1970's state control of the economy collapsed worldwide. But it's still a useful book for the ruling class who hardly need to 'control the past' to maintain power; they can wheel out 1984 for media campaigns such as Hitchens' use of Orwell in the run-up to the Iraq War to brand everyone who didn't support overthrowing Saddam as 'totalitarian appeasers'. But this is the absurdity of contemporary society where 1984 is universally acclaimed as some 'dire warning' when anyone with half a braincell can see that ruling elites have no interest in the total control of society by force. It actually disgusts me. All smoke and mirrors.

>> No.6032987

>>6032231
The point of the book is to question what the purpose of civilization should be. Should it create an environment ensuring that everybody is happy at the expense of progress? Or let unhappiness occur and have society focus on a bigger picture than the individual satisfaction of the citizens? It doesn't give a conclusion one way or the other, it just shows one such government.

>> No.6032989

>>6032981
How in the name of fuck did you get the idea that the citizens were happy?

>> No.6033000

>>6032216
someone please tell me this is b8 before I get assblasted.

>> No.6033030

>>6032971
1984 IS satire, you dingus

>> No.6033062

>>6032985
i think you're missing this little thing called context, anon. the world was different in the mid-to-late 1940s.

>> No.6033063

>>6033030
satire of what, then?

>> No.6033077

Huxley had a greater understanding of the stakes at play and the themes he conveyed were profound, but Orwell wrote the better story.

>> No.6033228
File: 35 KB, 387x305, 1418723698142.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6033228

>people who don't realise that 1984 was a utopia

Did you faggots even read the ending?

>> No.6033291

>>6033228
BNW is utopia
1984 is a dystopia that happens to work

>> No.6033293

>>6032212
I thought Orwell's book was an analogy to Stalinist Russia, which at the time wasn't widely known to be the terrifying place to live in it was.

>> No.6033295

>>6032289
>nabokov
>not popular
LEL

>> No.6033344

1984 is actually a utopia that gets misinterpreted frequently as a dystopia

Remember that Orwell was socialist and Oceania embodies the idea of a socialist government to its perfection

>> No.6033363

>>6032087

I wasn't forced to read it and still I found in a bit overrated. Orwell was much better essayist than novelist. In addition, even though he was right on his Newspeak prediction (as we all have seen at the latest with the conception of Islam as a religion of peace), he was also wrong on many things. He was naive enough to believe in proletariat which is nowadays the most brainwashed group even though their economic situation has improved significantly since Orwell's time.

>> No.6033380

>>6033293

>wasn't widely known to be the terrifying place it was

It still isn't known as that to liberals

That's why liberals and far left people want so much to recreate that era of Russia in their own countries

>> No.6033387
File: 62 KB, 567x567, carl m williams.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6033387

>>6033380
>stalinist russia
>true communism

>all liberals are communists

>> No.6033397

>>6033387

Not him but I can confirm that I transferred universities because I wanted to do a project on Soviet history and was told that any project on the Soviet Union would have a "conservative bias" and I should therefore avoid the topic

>> No.6033405

>>6033397
not sure how that relates to either of my critiques of his post, but ok

>> No.6033423

We is a lot better
It has so much more to say in terms of philosophy, mathematics and the human condition. Pleb shit like 1984 wouldn't exist without it

>> No.6033444

>>6032981
First, what makes you think the citizens of oceania are happy? If you were to read more of Orwells work, or many other works about totalitarianism to be honest, you would probably realize that fear and depression are key to the existence of totalitarian societies.

I dont get why so many people read through O'brien's "speech" at the final chapters and get the idea that Oceania was in fact utopia, or a "happy" society in any way. Through O'brien's words Orwell allows us to get a different prespective on Oceania- Actually understand how comes there people who soberly believe in the ways in which it functions, and while it is a very interesting insight, it doesnt really deals much with the citizens "happiness", let alone "trading freedom" for it; It talks about fullfilment through society and the sorts of like.

Anyways, even if you were to debate about the
freedom-happiness trade existing within the novel's world - implying it's the core of the plot/the dystopia presented is ridiculous.

>> No.6033454

>>6033063
Soviet Russia
After WW2, there were still rations and shortages. Large class divisions too. The Allies won WW2 with the help of Soviet Russia, but the victory swings around to the Cold War, with Soviet Russia as the enemy. Orwell was trying to replicate this with the whole debacle between Oceania, Eastasia, and Eurasia.
Big Brother is supposed to be Stalin

>> No.6033461

>>6033444

Control through fear is a good thing

It keeps people from destroying each other within your society over petty ideological disagreements

High stakes consequences preserve social order

>> No.6033468

>>60330630
I wont go as far as calling it satire, but it does have many comedic elements. Part 1 is actually quite funny, at second read especially.

>> No.6033490

>>6033468
Satire doesn't have to be humorous

>> No.6033499

>>6033461
The society of oceania is based highly on weakening human-relationships to enhance the patry and the citizens relation the the big brother as the thing they love the most;
It does so by making the citizens always be on the hunt for each other, trying to catch "betrayers", even within their families.
They literally destroy each other.

>> No.6033500

1984 wins over BNW for the last part alone.
>that description of the torturing in room 101

>> No.6033505

>>6033490
Thats true, the definition I had in mind was of what people usually call satire.
My bad, anyway, 1984 is comedic at points.

>> No.6033509

>>6033397

Oh god this. Not sure what school you were at but professors would literally give anyone the stink eye who mentioned Soviet history after the Bolshevik Revolution, and would get angry or defensive if you brought up purges under Stalin or talked about why or how the Soviet Union's planned economy was a failure.

>> No.6033510

>>6032987
>at the expense of progress?

Where in the book did it mention that 'progress' was inhibited? That research and technology had halted and stalemated?

>> No.6033515

>>6032987
So reading Brave New World made you realise that you're a hedonist?

>> No.6033526

>>6032141
>Look up We setting on wikipedia
>Males have odd numbers prefixed by consonants; females have even numbers prefixed by vowels.
They fucked up the numbers, it should be the other way around.

>> No.6033529

>>6033509
Uhuh. That must be why cold warriors such as Richard Pipes and Robert Conquest fought at Harvard and Oxford and set the (hilariously biased) academic orthodoxy on the USSR.

>> No.6033531

>>6032141
>>6032141
>Look up We setting on wikipedia
>Males have odd numbers prefixed by consonants; females have even numbers prefixed by vowels.
He fucked up the odd/even genders

>> No.6033539

>>6032133

As a Turkfag I can easily say that Orwell's depiction of dystopia fits modern Turkey perfectly (never mind the socialism/capitalism mismatch). President Tayyip Erdogan is the perfect Big Brother and his party AKP is the perfect Party. Not a single day passes without some random guy starts sucking up to the president or the party for money, status, popularity, the party's trust, etc. Just a few weeks ago some writer came up and said that if Orwell were alive he would be amazed by Erdogan, and she wasn't even sarcastic.

I've never read Brave New World so I can't confirm whether the image is true, but if that's the case, both Huxley and Orwell were correct since one's version applies to eastern cultures and the other one to western cultures.

>> No.6033541

>>6032141
>Look up We setting on wikipedia
>Males have odd numbers prefixed by consonants; females have even numbers prefixed by vowels.
They fucked up the number parity allocation for genders, no wonder it's a dystopia.

>> No.6033553

>>6033539
>Just a few weeks ago some writer came up and said that if Orwell were alive he would be amazed by Erdogan, and she wasn't even sarcastic.
That's something people say every single day, just swapping Erdogan with whomever. "oh man this is totes 1984"
It's bullshit.

>> No.6033584

>>6033531
There is a similar gendered association of odd and even numbers in Chinese culture.
http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_curiosity/2004-01/19/content_45749.htm

>> No.6033597

I found it too depressing to get through. Couldn't he have made a happy dystopian future?

>> No.6033744

>>6033597
>Getting so emotionaly-involved with a book
teach me how

>> No.6034284

>>6033529

>Only Soviet apologists should teach Soviet history