Nineteen Eighty Four. By George Orwell

OK let us start with a cliche: this is one of the most celebrated, classic works in ‘eurocentric’ literary history .... so we might infer from this that I am a "proud African" who nevertheless appreciates international literature.

1984 is something of a nightmare, over 70 years after its initial publication; not even in the heart of Africa can one envisage such totalitarianism - actually Africans generally celebrate life, jollity, fecundity et al... people are much too concerned with their own blissful exuberance (especially those at the top) rather than worry about the ordinary man's behaviour, thoughts, and predilections. 'Yes-men' hold sway, but that suits all the parties, quand meme!

But yet one squirms upon re-reading this work, a very grim scenario where everything sad, dismal and restrictive holds sway. As our main protagonist Winston Smith makes clear:

"...Already we know almost literally nothing about the Revolution and the years before the Revolution. Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been re-written, every picture has been re-painted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right..."

And what concerns the powers that be with private love interests, affairs, and such manifestations? Yet Big Brother ensures that such a thing (relationships) which even now we take for granted in every society is part of the horror story. No wonder our main female protagonist here too is an embodiment of palpable despair, cynicism and frustration, as we read: "Julia was 26 years old. She lived in a hostel with 30 other girls ('Always in the stink of women! How I hate women!' She said parenthetically). ..

Both Julia and Smith suffer in transcendent fashion (though the focus is on Mr. Smith.). He is tortured, de-humanised and brainwashed to the extent that it has become an egregious ordeal for one to re-read this book. What is the point of it all?

Since we know that no matter what, Winston Smith will lose it all. The inevitable bullet awaits and Smith himself is very much aware of this. Yet when at the end we read, nauseatingly, "... the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother "... we await the goddamn bullet for ourselves- Malome Eric