Books in Brief: 1984 Revisited

1984 Revisited, edited by Irving Howe (Harper & Row, 276 pp., $10.95)

In recommending that his firm publish the first edition of 1984, Fredric Warburg concluded: “It is a great book, but I pray that I may be spared from reading another like it for years to come.” With all the overblown publicity attached to the current Year of Orwell, one is inclined to agree. One is even tempted to take a sabbatical to East Germany, since, according to Deputy Culture Minister Klaus Hoepcke, 1984. being directed entirely against Western “multinational concerns and their bloodhounds, that crush national sovereignty. order the removal or installation of presidents, plunder economies. [and] dictate disinformation,” has nothing valid in the way of commentary on Communism and is therefore banned in East Germany. Orwell would have been amused. Probably not so much so by this collection of essays edited by Mr. Howe, although it does provide Orwell aficionados with, if not food for thought, at least a few intellectual bones to gnaw. Mark Crispin Miller, Elaine Hoffman Baruch, Bernard Avishai, Luther P. Carpenter, Robert C. Tucker, Michael Walzer, Leszek Kolakowski, Milovan Djilas, Johanno Strasser, James B. Rule, Robert Nisbet, and Richard Lowenthal provide enough variations on enough themes so that no reader need fear being entirely alienated. Much of what is said need not be taken seriously—especially Mr. Lowenthal’s contention that “the basic ideological trends of the final part of our century are no longer linked, with self-generated perversions of the Western tradition . . . the new movements, within the West and among its enemies, lead us beyond totalitarianism.” Tell that one to the next refugee from Big Brother Chernenko or Big Brother Khomeini you run into. Western, perhaps not; totalitarian, definitely.

AB

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Aram Bakshian Jr.

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1984 Revisited, edited by Irving Howe (Harper & Row, 276 pp., $10.95)

In recommending that his firm publish the first edition of 1984, Fredric Warburg concluded: “It is a great book, but I pray that I may be spared from reading another like it for years to come.” With all the overblown publicity attached to the current Year of Orwell, one is inclined to agree. One is even tempted to take a sabbatical to East Germany, since, according to Deputy Culture Minister Klaus Hoepcke, 1984. being directed entirely against Western “multinational concerns and their bloodhounds, that crush national sovereignty. order the removal or installation of presidents, plunder economies. [and] dictate disinformation,” has nothing valid in the way of commentary on Communism and is therefore banned in East Germany. Orwell would have been amused. Probably not so much so by this collection of essays edited by Mr. Howe, although it does provide Orwell aficionados with, if not food for thought, at least a few intellectual bones to gnaw. Mark Crispin Miller, Elaine Hoffman Baruch, Bernard Avishai, Luther P. Carpenter, Robert C. Tucker, Michael Walzer, Leszek Kolakowski, Milovan Djilas, Johanno Strasser, James B. Rule, Robert Nisbet, and Richard Lowenthal provide enough variations on enough themes so that no reader need fear being entirely alienated. Much of what is said need not be taken seriously—especially Mr. Lowenthal’s contention that “the basic ideological trends of the final part of our century are no longer linked, with self-generated perversions of the Western tradition . . . the new movements, within the West and among its enemies, lead us beyond totalitarianism.” Tell that one to the next refugee from Big Brother Chernenko or Big Brother Khomeini you run into. Western, perhaps not; totalitarian, definitely.