"It shook me to my core." Elif Shafak on Nineteen Eighty-Four

Read an extract from Elif Shafak's introduction to the Folio anniversary edition of Orwell's "cautionary novel"

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There is Orwell the human being. There is Orwell the novelist. There is Orwell the intellectual, the critic, the journalist, the essayist, the radical. But lately, George Orwell – who was born Eric Arthur Blair and who never fully abandoned his original name – has increasingly come to be regarded as a modern oracle, a gifted soothsayer who predicted with terrifying accuracy how fragile and fallible our political systems were, how close the shadow of authoritarianism. His body of work has become a compass to help us navigate our way in times of democratic recession and backsliding, as is the case worldwide. Among all his books, the one that has left the deepest impact on generations of readers across borders is, no doubt, Nineteen Eighty-Four.

I was an undergrad in Turkey when I first discovered the cautionary novel – a tattered copy coincidentally picked up in a second-hand bookshop. Winston Smith, a rebel who does not resemble the heroes in lore and legend; a lonely, pensive and observant individual in an oppressive regime. Big Brother, always watching, dominating every inch of daily life, like an unblinking celestial gaze. The rewriting of a nation’s past to suit the orders and needs of the government/the State/the Party. Sands of personal memory trying to survive the crashing waves of collective amnesia.

It all shook me to my core. I found myself thinking about the story long after I had finished the last page. Back in those days, I had quietly started writing fiction, keeping it to myself, dreaming of becoming a novelist – a wisp of a wish I could not even dare to say out loud. This also happened to be a time when I was reading extensively about the systemic human rights violations that had happened and were still happening in my motherland. Forgotten truths. Unearthed stories. Taboo subjects. Historical chronicles deftly erased by official propaganda. The labelling of anyone who dared to question the dominant narrative as a ‘traitor’. Sufferings and silences hidden under the veneer of ‘normal life’. The world described by Orwell did not seem to be far off. Nor that surreal. It felt eerily familiar and dangerously close.

In retrospect, I do not think I was alone in this feeling. Across the world there must have been so many of us who experienced a similarly uncanny sense of déjà vu upon reading Nineteen Eighty-Four for the first time. That is because for those of us who come from ‘wounded democracies’ or autocracies-in-the-making or downright dictatorships, Oceania was never some far-fetched dystopian land set in an unforeseeable future, but something closer, much more visceral. And frightening too. It was not even a prescient warning about where things might lead if politics went unexpectedly wrong. For us, Nineteen Eighty-Four was already here. It was already happening.

[…]

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Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four in a gloomy mood while he was dealing with sickness, deeply worried both for himself and for the state of the world. In particular, he was concerned that objective truth was withering away. The novel is, among many other things, about loss. The loss of truth. The loss of memory. The loss of love and empathy. This is not coincidental. Uncontrolled exercise of power and cruelty is only possible when truth, memory and love/empathy are fully subjugated. It is only then that a human being can be diminished to a ‘nobody’, an un person, and the whole society can be reduced down to mere numbers.

[…]

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Ours is the age of mass surveillance, populist authoritarian movements and fragile democracies. Social media platforms have accelerated the erosion of truth and the dissemination of misinformation, slander and hate speech. It was a mistake to regard and romanticise information as a panacea for the world’s problems. For they are completely different things: information, knowledge and wisdom. Every day we are bombarded with thousands of snippets of information, but there is very little knowledge, and no time to slow down to gain knowledge, much less wisdom. Nineteen Eighty-Four is more relevant than ever before. This remarkable novel stands out not only because of the cautionary tale it tells, but also because it sharply discerns the power of language. Words can heal, words can hurt. They can build or destroy. Since human beings think, remember and process their emotions through words, in order to control both critical thinking and emotional intelligence, language must be policed from above. The official dialect of Oceania is Newspeak. Words that have been eliminated must be instantly forgotten.

A totalitarian super-state hates ambiguities, and therefore it will not allow nuances of thought. The philosopher and Holocaust survivor Theodor Adorno once said, ‘Intolerance of ambiguity is the mark of an authoritarian personality.’ In this closed mindset there is no appreciation for diversity or pluralism. No room for uncertainty. Everything must be narrowed down to a rigid binary opposition – us versus them. The definition of ‘them’ might change depending on the whims of the regime but there always has to be an ‘enemy’, and history must be edited and rewritten to fit the new propaganda. The Party knows that “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

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This is an extract from

Elif Shafak

’s introduction to the Folio Society’s limited edition 75th anniversary edition of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, stunningly illustrated by award-winning design studio La Boca and available to purchase here.

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In Nineteen Eighty-Four, writing is the ultimate act of subversion. The Orwell Foundation exists to nurture and support the writers and reporters who share Orwell’s values, now and in the next generation. To celebrate the 75th anniversary of Orwell’s masterpiece, we’re encouraging supporters to help us introduce more young people to the power of creative and critical writing by making a donation of £2 + £2 (that is, £5), £19.84, £198.40 - or any amount of your choosing. Thank you.

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