I’ll start

This is embarrassing but I cried when SHillary lost to Trump.

  • IMF_DOOM [she/her, undecided]@hexbear.net
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    8 months ago

    im going to die on the hill that even though 1984 is anticommunist and the plot sort of meanders around the place, i still think on the level of the individual sentences its really well written and Orwell was very good at conveying the emotions he wanted too without ever getting too flowery with it like some writers do. I’m not going to hold up 1984 next to like dracula or anything but its a decently written book and i think hexbear posters have a sort of kneejerk reaction to overly shit on it because the worst possible people like it for all the wrong reasons.

    • CindyTheSkull [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      8 months ago

      Actually, I will die by your side on that hill, or at least put in a good effort before retreating. The main reason I was repeating how the writing was poor is because the book gets held up as like this literary masterpiece since it’s taught in schools and is on every single list of “books you must read before you die.” Of course the reason it’s taught in school is largely about propaganda, not literary genius, but the people who love it will talk about it like it’s barely a step down from Shakespeare, even though a lot of the writing is objectively cringe. Like I just read the hero’s opening description as having “ruggedly handsome features.” But I agree, it’s really good at what it does well. I think in most cases and in most spaces, it should be shit on and taken down a peg because it doesn’t deserve its common position as being this great masterpiece, but the other side of that coin is that it’s an entertaining and effective book, certainly not trash simply by virtue of how it gets used to serve a reactionary agenda.