Visions of Dystopia by George Orwell
Foreword by D.J. Taylor, Edited and Introduced by Professor Richard Bradford
(Flametree Press, 2021)
Reviewed by L.J. Hurst
One day when Winston Smith went to work without his black shabby briefcase he was stopped in the street and given one. Later, he discovered that it contained a ‘heavy black volume, amateurishly bound, with no name or title on the cover’. That was ‘the book’. Visions of Dystopia in some ways disguises itself as well, as it has the appearance of a medieval grimoire, its impressed cover gleaming with red, black and silver ink, and a single eye staring out. It is actually a theme anthology: the publishers, Flametree, have republished four of Orwell’s other works individually, but this thick volume contains three of his books: Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and the non-fiction Homage to Catalonia, all complete, along with extracts of two more of his earlier works. Following biographer D.J. Taylor’s Foreword, there is a longer Introduction by Richard Bradford, and finally extracts from two earlier dystopian works known to Orwell—Jack London’s The Iron Heel (which Orwell reviewed early in WWII as one of the ‘Prophecies of Fascism’), and Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We (which Orwell had also reviewed towards the end of the War).
Both Taylor’s Foreword and Bradford’s much longer Introduction emphasise the continuity and the evolution of Orwell’s work. Pointing out that some of the descriptions of Wigan can be sensed again in the life of Winston Smith’s neighbour Mrs Parsons, Taylor suggests that Orwell earlier had been not just reporting but researching these lower worlds: ‘the tone seems less that of a sympathiser than an anthropologist testing out his theories’. Towards the end of his Introduction, Richard Bradford notes that it was only after Orwell had died that his warning was released: ‘The moral to be drawn from this dangerous nightmare situation is a simple one. Don’t let it happen. It depends on you.’
The Introduction is in thirty-three parts with sub-headings such as A Rather Superior Tramp, Treacherous Work, The Absolute Truth, The Horrible Truth, Dangerous to Possess, and Orwell’s Nightmare Made Real. The sections follow Orwell’s biography, the publication of his books, the final publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four, its reception (particularly by the Stalinist press), and finally ends with the reasons why Nineteen Eighty-Four has flared into our consciousness again: the role that ‘alternative facts’ has been given in American political life. There is obviously a lot more to be said about this, and one wonders if the words ‘alternative facts’ came to the lips of Kellyanne Conway unbidden as she faced a press conference, or whether she had been prepared with the phrase.
Flametree also publish some of Orwell’s works as individual volumes with Introductions by younger critics: Homage to Catalonia, Jaron Murphy, and The Road to Wigan Pier, Débora Tavares, for instance. Dr Tavares’ work there would be interesting, as Professor Bradford passes over Orwell’s critique of industrialism in the later parts of Wigan Pier, yet those criticisms also have a relevance to the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four. By contrast, Visions of Dystopia can be read as a themed volume, in the way that US publishers issue works for American university courses. The emphasis is on Orwell’s lived experience being re-worked to produce his final novel, rather than—say—the reading and research he did into totalitarianism. Other books about Orwell, for example, would mention James Burnham’s Managerial Revolution, about which Orwell wrote two long essays, or Bertrand Russell’s pre-War Power: A New Social Analysis, which Orwell had also read and reviewed. That comes out in:
‘How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?’
Winston thought. ‘By making him suffer,’ he said.
‘Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough.’
What we have to fear, of course, is people who have planned to take power so that they can make others suffer. That may be what Richard Bradford thought he had found happening in America.
Review from BSFA Review 19 - Download your copy here.