Nineteen Eighty Four is one of the most influential books I have ever read. I have read it many many times and always see something different.
The power of the book comes from the mind and energy of the author George Orwell and the long fermentation of the ideas in his mind.
I am writing this as I think about an answer I am writing for Quara. A young person wants to know how to write a legendarium like Tokien. I thought that I knew the answer but as I started writing I realised that I did not so I gave up writing to have a little think. I thought about Tolkien, about Star Wars and other authors and now I am considering Orwell.
What I have realised after reading everything I can by Orwell, doing the same with JB Priestly and CS Lewis is that these authors have a huge canon of work but limited ideas. Priestly in particular repeats his themes of time travel, socialism and looking into a comfortable world that he then disrupts.
So my answer to the young man will be quite similar to the advise at Delphi, know yourself, know what you want to say and then say it but not just once. Say it over and over again and build up a huge canon of work knowing what you are wanting to say, saying it and saying it in different places, to different people and in different contexts. CS Lewis further advises that what we say should be true, work out the truth and tell people about it. This is why I think their work has such an enduring appeal, its true. Its not just enduring it is also universal. Both the right wing and the left wing claim Orwell not seeming to notice its not the man they like, I think neither would like the man, but his truth that totalitarianism and poverty is wrong.
Jack Russell 