How Politics Makes Bad Books

“Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces,” wrote Orwell in 1984. While books are not eliminated in Orwell’s dystopian vision, they were simplified and dumbed down to the point that authors become unnecessary: indeed, Orwell specifies that in 1984 books “are written by machinery.” The purpose of this absence of real literature is two-fold: for one, it simply means that there is no aspect of natural, passionate human experience that can be outside the purview of the party, and two, it closes off a release valve for personal and political expression, a form of human energy which can then be funneled solely into reverence and duty for the party. Sound familiar?