h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ok. I have never ever studied 1984 (had enough with Animal Farm) but I recently re-read it and now I have a question. Did the Thought Police use Julia to lead Winston astray? Or did they just meet by chance?
Sorry if this is something I should know - like I said (look away if you had to study this book & hate it) I read it for fun

I too didn't study the book, but I did study Animal Farm and that spoilt it. I think I've said that before.

Anyway, it's never made clear what Julia's part was, I don't think. And as the book's out of arm's reach at the moment, I'm not about to re-read it to find out. As far as I remember, Smith thinks that everyone is against him just before he gets converted. It is kindof implied that Julia was in on it, but whether that's just Miniluv trying to break him or not is unknown.

P.S. Do you think it's unfair to go up to a group of people who are about to embark on a reading of the book, shout "RATS!" and then walk away?

About studying books, I recently re-read Animal Farm (after studying it 20 years ago) and it was fantastic. So, I don't know how old you are, but if you wait 20 years you'll have a good time with Napoleon and his cronies.

When are you going to write an entry about AF then? Hee hee heee

My impression of 1984 is that Miniluv and the others were going round trapping the party members one by one. Julia and whatshisname (her boss) had that as their main job. But (now I'm a mum) I cried when I read about Winston stealing the chocolate from his sister. And I would like to know much much more about the proles.

I think it's ok to shout Rats. Don't shout Teeth though, (that made me cringe) and don't tell them that it ends in "tears" (well, Winston doesn't win, does he?)

I should be alive in 20 years - that's longer than my lifespan to date.

Anyways, the proles (it seems to me anyways), or proletariat, were the normal people in Oceania. True, the party didn't have any control over them, but that didn't matter because they were the plebians, they would work no matter who was in power.

Did anyone else find the sections taken from The Book, although relevant, a bit long? I think (oh my God, he's criticising one of England's literary genii) that it would have been better as an appendix in the form of a seperate essay, like the discussion of Newspeak was.

Need go phone charge doubleplusbig, Graham.

OH, now I feel REALLY old. Thanks a bunch but you mark my words, in 20 years you'll love it. I had the same relationship with Silas Marner too. Then: yuk. Now: one of the best books ever.

The proles aren't actually that different from all of us, they weren't allowed to vote, but who votes nowadays? And life goes on regardless of who's in power, because it has to. As the saying goes: if you think life sucks, consider the alternative.

The entries from The Book were very relevant. Long and a bit tedious (!) but relevant. It would be interesting to put them all together and have a good look at them. But, to me, the discussion of Newspeak was the most interesting bit of the whole thing. I mean, when I look at our language now I think that George Orwell had a point (maybe he started the ball rolling). Language is very complicated, and having so many ways of expressing onself is a form of power - I'm sure there are plenty of governments in the world who would like to restrict the number of words the "proles" can use! Must say also, as a dinosaur, that I prefer doubleplusgood to "mega...." and doubleplusbad to "pants"

It's a contentious issue though - whether the freedom to express governs the freedom to think. Obviously it is hard to describe illegitimate actions to another person if the only word that exists for it is "crimethink" - but does that stop you visualising it? Or doing it?

My own personal opinion (as you may have guessed by the wording of the above paragraph) is that, even if you don't have a word in your vocabulary for an action, you can still do it.

Oh, and it's not doubleplusbad, it's doubleplusungood.

Now, my quote of the day, from Confuscius: - War does not determine who is right; war determines who is left.

Sorry - I bow to your superior knowledge of newspeak.
You obviously read far too much - whatever too much is. I wish I had the time. There is a saying, but I can't remember the exact words, which goes something like: there isn't any action but thinking makes it so. Or something like that. Which comes under crimethink. And aren't we lucky that thinking something isn't (yet) illegal. Although planning something can be (depending on what it is).

I know this strays off the subject a bit (a lot actually) but have you ever read any Anthony Burgess? I can recommend The Wanting Seed - it resembles 1984 only in that it is set in some indeterminate period which may or may not be the future. Shows absolute power, and the actions of the power hungry, off to their worst advantage.

No I haven't, but thanks for the tip. The reason that I read so much is that (a) I'm boring, and (b) I've finished College, don't go to University for another two and a half months, and only work 7 hours a day, but am awake for 18. That leaves me 11hours of quality time to waste, currently taken up by Brighton Rock and Ethics.

Anyhoo, other books set in an unknown time include Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Farenheit 451 (mentioned in the main article), and the Star Wars trilogy, which features the ultimate in megalomaniac power-hungry government leaders. You'll recall (unless you've got a life) that the Emperor was originally a member of the Galactic Senate, became President, dissolved the Senate, became Emperor, was an ugly bleeder an' no mistakin'.

I envy you your reading nevertheless. So what do you do for work? How do you stay awake for 18 hours?
Brighton Rock - another book it took me 20 years to get back to (school ruined that too).
I hated Farenheit 451 but loved to bits (literally, it fell apart on me) Brave New World. But my favourite is Clockwork Orange (I haven't seen the film yet). I am interested in language & how it works (particularly Russian & German) and Anthony Burgess was a bit of an expert in that field.
I don't know Star Wars from the books - just the films (am I a pedant?) is there much difference?

The basic difference is that the films were cinematic classics, the books were crappy cheap cash-ins.

Anyway, all this talk about Julia, and I've just realised something I meant to put in the main article but now can't be bothered to. Julia was the inspiration for Bowie's song "Rebel Rebel". There you go, you learn something new every day.

Really? Never knew that. (what about the "torn your dress" bit - did Julia wear a dress, I can't remember now?)
Did you see the film of 1984 with Richard Burton? I thought it wasn't as menacing as the original b/w version. Maybe not, since it probably came out when you were still in nappies! But if you haven't you should check it out.
And did you ever work out how gin can taste oily?

Oi don't know how gin tastes oily, but oi now how it tastes late at noight, oo-ar.

Oh my God, I didn't mean to do that did I? I think the "torn your dress" thing refers to the day they skipped work to go to the Golden Land - surely a euphemism?

Oh, I try not to dig too deep these days, but you're probably right there.
It would be interesting to see just how many "pop" (in the widest sense) songs have been inspired by this book. There must be quite a few (including the Eurythmics ones for the film)

I'm guessing that the entire "Diamond Dogs" album was based on the book. It includes the tracks "Rebel Rebel", "1984", "Big Brother", and the intro to Diamond Dogs goes:

And...in the death-as the last few corpses lay rotting on the slimy thoroughfare-the shutters lifted in inches in Temperance Building-high on Poachers Hill and red mutant eyes gazed down on Hunger City-no more big wheels-fleas the size of rats sucked on rats the size of cats and ten thousand peoploids split into small tribes coveting the highest of the sterile skyscrapers-like packs of dogs assaulting the glass fronts of Love Me Avenue-ripping and re-wrapping mink and shiny silver fox-now leg warmers-family badge of sapphire and cracked emerald-any day now-the year of the Diamond Dogs "This ain't Rock 'n' Roll-this is Genocide".

The inner sleeve also has loads of metropolean towers foreshortened from ground level. Make of that what you will.

Oh, I had forgotten all about Diamond Dogs. I'll have to wind up the old Gramaphone Player this evening and astound my kids with Records and Real Music!
There is, to get off the point again, a village near where my parents live called Grenoside (Sheffiedl) and every time (that is twice a day for my mum) she gets there and shouts "this ain't rock'n'roll this is Grenoside" much to the amusement of the cows and sheep.

A faintly audible thud is heard, as Casanova the Short falls off his chair in fits of humourous ecstasy, his sides rent by the action of laughter.

No really.

Ouch. Hope you didn't hurt yourself. I could tell you loads more about my hippy mum, but:
a) this isn't the place
b) you are not in the A&E of your local hospital (or are you?)

You're quite right, there should be a time and a place for everything. Perhaps a new article, entitled "Sho's hippy mum" would be appropriate?