My students usually read George Orwell‘s “1984” when we need to discuss what a classical dystopia looks like.
For Russia, “1984” has recently become an inexhaustible source of quotes illustrating what is going on under Putin.
Some people, however, think that Orwell wrote a “novel of predictions, where he failed seriously”.
The thing is he did not. It’s not about predictions, but about a person’s behavior in totalitarian circumstances.
“But the plot is clear from the beginning! The system will take him, isn’t that trivial?”
Of course it is. And it’s exactly this transparency which proves again that the whole novel is about attentive gazing, pondering and speculating about such societies.
That are quite possible, as the existence of today’s Russia proves.
Original title (English): George Orwell “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, but most publishers simply print “1984”
First published in the Levinarium Telegram Channel (now closed and deleted)