Four Hundred and Nine...

Ridiculous Literature Rant

"You know when fluoridation first began?"

I absolutely love this character because he is an excellent portrayal (in a funny way mind you, which I love) of what happens when people give up informing themselves on their own and doing their own investigating and instead have their heads filled with crazy, uneducated ideas, which is very relevant to today. He might as well be ranting about death panels.

I was re-reading 1984 today (yeah I said re-reading in a sad attempt to impress you, better than that though, a friend told me about a friend who read Catch-22 every year) and, back to the point, there is a part in the book where Winston, the main character, is writing in his journal, and it reads, "If there is hope [wrote Winston] it lies in the proles." This is one of those lines where you just have to stop reading right there and go do something else for a while because it blows your mind out the back of your skull. You really have to read this in the context of the book though because it just hits at the perfect time. It's an incredibly powerful, hopeful line and I think one that has a lot of truth to it.

I love Orwell because you can tell he really cared, I try to care -no strike that - I'm just a guy who whines a lot, anyway, Orwell is great because of the extent he took his obsession with human rights and the plight of the common man. This is what makes him more than just some guy who wrote an incredibly amazing book that is way better than whatever the fuck your favorite book is so there and furthermore I'd say I hate on enough things as is so it's probably for the better that I embrace any work of art with anything approaching feelings of love, besides it's not for the totalitarian message, I love this book more for the well presented relationship between Winston and Julia that breaks your heart, the precise, economical writing and descriptions, and the fact that I can't breathe for the last 90 pages of the novel, than for the heavy underlying social message, it just so happens it's about something on top of all of this awesome, and that something happens to be a BIG something.

This is why it's the greatest novel I've ever read. Orwell didn't just rest on the fact that he had a really neat idea, because he actually cared for the characters in his story, much like he cared for the plight of anyone under oppression. What makes Orwell so great is his journalistic side, he really didn't live in his head nearly as much as most writers, I'm generalizing here but I'm pretty sure it's a safe one, because lot of his fiction was very much grounded in reality, well, never mind, all writing is essentially. I can't a think of a lot of writers who have created a fake world of poverty based on personal experience. Tell me if you know.

You also have to love Orwell because he openly admitted he wrote for narcissistic reasons and that it was the laziest pursuit anyone could take up. He had no delusions of grandeur. On top of this he wrote Politics of the English Language, which every writer, every human being really, should read at some point in their education. God I wish David Foster Wallace had read that thing, then maybe he wouldn't have killed himself. Also, I don't want to hear about these new contemporary writers masturbating for 900 pages, that's a bunch of shit. Yeah, Joyce did it but he's Joyce not some young punk kid who can't get enough of the words he writes. Shit, what a crock. 1984 is infinitely smarter than Infinite Jest and it's 1/3 of the size and has twelve hundred billion less syllables. Oh, and at least 1984 has double quotations for God sakes! Wait, a lot of books have double quotations! Gosh, if we're going for cute stylistic choices why don't we just stop capitalizing and butcher all the useless words?

If it takes you 1000 pages to tell your story, you're doing it wrong. Why stop at 1000 then? Why not 2000? Or 4000? Clearly plotting is of no concern to you, so just go hog wild, make a book so huge no one can pick it up, include every fucking detail of every moment of every stupid, pointless character within a 100 mile radius.

I'd also like to mention that 1984's plotting is pitch perfect, comparatively it makes White Teeth look like Zadie Smith just vomited the words and story of her novel out for several days then sold it off as literature. Sorry, that was unnecessary, well, while we're bashing White Teeth, I also would like to mention that White Teeth is the first book I've read where I skipped to the back and read the last page just to be done with it. Sorry, now I'm just digressing and spewing venom.

I should read Ulysses someday. You know, I think if Orwell ever read White Teeth he would vomit for several days. This is undeniable. I wrote this without coffee. I actually don't hate Zadie, she's an incredible writer of digressions that don't matter (which I love if you had not guessed) and I've read some things she said in interviews and cheered, she just can't tell a story. I apologize if I offended anyone's favorite book, if it makes you feel any better I have several slivers in my finger and they are quite a bother, furthermore I am losing my hair and you are likely not so no matter what I say, the jokes on me. Orwell had wonderful hair. Sigh...