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Posted on 06/07/2025 6:04:53 AM PDT by DoodleBob
The 75th anniversary edition of George Orwell's novel 1984, which coined the term "thoughtcrime" to describe the act of having thoughts that question the ruling party's ideology, has become an ironic lightning rod in debates over alleged trigger warnings and the role of historical context in classic literature.
The introduction to the new edition, endorsed by Orwell's estate and written by the American author Dolen Perkins-Valdezm, is at the center of the storm, drawing fire from conservative commentators as well as public intellectuals, and prompting a wide spectrum of reaction from academics who study Orwell's work.
Perkins-Valdez opens the introduction with a self-reflective exercise: imagining what it would be like to read 1984 for the first time today. She writes that "a sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity," noting the complete absence of Black characters.
She also describes her pause at the protagonist Winston Smith's "despicable" misogyny, but ultimately chooses to continue reading, writing: "I know the difference between a flawed character and a flawed story."
"I'm enjoying the novel on its own terms, not as a classic but as a good story; that is, until Winston reveals himself to be a problematic character," she writes. "For example, we learn of him: 'He disliked nearly all women, and especially the young and pretty ones.' Whoa, wait a minute, Orwell."
That framing was enough to provoke sharp critique from novelist and essayist Walter Kirn on the podcast America This Week, co-hosted with journalist Matt Taibbi. Kirn characterized the foreword as a kind of ideological overreach. "Thank you for your trigger warning for 1984," he said. "It is the most 1984ish thing I've ever f***ing read."
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
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Thank you very much and God bless you.
Talk amongst yourselves.
I call it profoundly unnecessary and criminally frivolous. YMMV.
“Thank you for your trigger warning for 1984,” he said. “It is the most 1984ish thing I’ve ever f***ing read.”
We are there.
People are too obsessed with minutia and miss the main point of the story.
Some of us have read it and took it as Orwell meant it- as a warning. Others, like the democrat party, see it as a blueprint.
No black characters? So what?
Some people just can’t help judging others from their own myopic, flawed perspective. They don’t understand or conceive of a world that is not in lockstep with their own closely held, narrow and close minded beliefs.
Indeed, later in the article a professor (naturally) defended the forward, saying “Perkins-Valdez suggests in her introduction that ‘love and artistic beauty can act as healing forces in a totalitarian state,’”
A conservatives responded - “Love heals? In 1984?…The whole thing ends with Winston broken, saying he loves Big Brother.”
“Huckleberry Finn” is a perfect example. How many kids didn’t read that book because teachers were horrified that Twain had used the evil N-word?
Did the forward writer consider that perhaps, I dunno…MAYBE there are blacks amongst the Proles, and that The Party and Big Brother are bigots?
There should be a foreword to the foreword, explaining why the foreword is “problematic.”
A not a Trans in sight?
Tsk tsk…
She reveals herself to be a prissy khunt.
So they have actually done it.
I would love to hear Orwell’s reaction to this.
This book should immediately follow ‘Animal Farm’ in High School as mandatory reading. I’d add ‘Atlas Shrugged’ for extra credit and/or freshman college students.
Animal Farm too important and meaningful to spoil with such a childish, foolish, and stupid Foreword. Orwell’s estate chose poorly. Glad to see the irony wasn’t lost on Walter Kim, “Thank you for your trigger warning for 1984,” he said. “It is the most 1984ish thing I’ve ever f***ing read.”
One of these days that book will be correct. Got my used copy on EBay last month. The pencil marks and notes on basically every page were free. Could get interesting.
Did the forward writer consider that perhaps, I dunno…MAYBE there are blacks amongst the Proles, and that The Party and Big Brother are bigots?
Really. Does zhe* know no one in the book is black, just because Orwell might not explicitly say?
*(yeah, just assuming Perkins-Valdez' likely pronoun.)
How do we know Winston’s pigmanation?
“A side-element to this thread can be a debate if this forward is ironic or a paradox.”
Huh. I didn’t think this was debatable. The forward is factually ironic, re-writing history because of a “thought crime.”
Quite hilarious, only the fact the left is not aware of the irony is tragic.
“This book should immediately follow ‘Animal Farm’ in High School as mandatory reading. I’d add ‘Atlas Shrugged’ for extra credit and/or freshman college students.”
Wow. I nailed it with no planning! I read ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘1984’ in high school (NOT for a class assignment). I thought 1984 was the most depressing book I ever read. If it were merely a dystopia I could have lived with it, but it’s literally based on communism as it existed in Spain and the Soviet Union.
I read ‘Atlas Shrugged’ in the 90s, when I turned 40. I find that much more hopeful.
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