Cheer Up! It's only Orwell.

I don't know if it's a sign of approaching senilia nostalgica but recently I have been re-reading a few books that I haven't opened for years. I've just completed Nineteen Eighty Four and, having promised her indoors that this time it will not involve me growing a wispy beard and hitching down to Brighton a lot, am about to start Kerouac's, On the Road. But to return to Nineteen Eighty Four. Many people find Orwell's classic a depressing book and certainly it's not a fun holiday read but I find a basically optimistic message at it's core. The book has been interpreted as a critique of Stalinism, of totalitarianism in general and as a warning for the future. It is all of this but also a message of hope about the human spirit. Even the terrible power of the Thought Police could not stop the emergence of people like Julia and Winston, who by the simple act of making love and being in love are seen as such a threat to an all powerful state. Julia and Winston are defeated utterly, but we know that there will be others.