Quote:
Originally Posted by TimMason
I don't believe I'm reading this. Orwell had certainly read H.G. Wells' 'War of the Worlds', (he even refers to Wells as the 'father of science fiction') and he wrote a note on Zemyatin's 'We', which was, as is well known, a key influence on '1984'. He was familiar with Jules Verne. Orwell had an abiding interest in popular culture, particularly in such publications as Boys Weeklies.
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Count me as one of the ignorant, but up until this very moment in time, I had no idea 'We' was in any way connected with 1984, especially not such a personal connection. I'm intrigued now though, extremely intrigued. I always pictured Orwell, through what I'd read about his life, as somewhat distasteful of popular culture and isolated by the time he came to finish 1984. I could see how he would have known of Verne and Wells within popular culture, but not those two having influence on 1984. I can see 'We' though, which has me even more intrigued now.
Tell me more.
EDIT: Ah, I see, Orwell reviewed 'We' in 1946.. Is that what you mean when you say 'wrote a note'? I'm digging up some very interesting stuff on Orwell that I hadn't read before thanks to your post.
Oh, here's the review of Zamyatin's 'WE' by Orwell (the web page is eye-bleedingly awful).
http://www.orwelltoday.com/weorwellreview.shtml (He spends a good deal of it trashing Huxley
)
It seems that from the review (I'm still looking for an explicit reference to the influence of Zamyatin, although there are plenty of nods in that direction) he classified 'We' not as 'Science Fiction' but as 'Fantasy'. The influence is pretty much evident though, to anybody with two eyes, so yes, my original statement that he was probably not aware of sci-fi is wildly inaccurate.