Letter from Orwell to his publisher regarding 1984

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/12/bag-of-wind.html

by alexholehouse • 15 years ago

133 49 15 years ago

heat_miser• 15 years ago

I'm always surprised to find out that even great writers were skeptical of their masterpieces. I wonder if it is false humility, or genuine lack of self efficacy

redthrowaway• 15 years ago

I think you would find the same phenomenon in any creative endeavor, be it writing or composing or coding. A work on any medium is an imperfect representation of how it exists in our minds, and any creator with the degree of perfectionism required to produce a great work would surely be dissatisfied with the result of any attempt to bring it to fruition.

How many times have you finished a program but known it could be better, if only you had more time? A little optimization here, some refactoring there... The necessities of producing actual works prevent us from ever giving them the degree of polish we feel they deserve.

runjake• 15 years ago

It's normal. It's the Hanselman Principle in effect:

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ImAPhonyAreYou.aspx

MaxGabriel• 15 years ago

I read this quote yesterday on Bret Victor's site, it very nicely fits "I am not pleased with the book but I am not absolutely dissatisfied"

"The trick is to realize that there's no real contradiction here. You want to be optimistic and skeptical about two different things. You have to be optimistic about the possibility of solving the problem, but skeptical about the value of whatever solution you've got so far.

People who do good work often think that whatever they're working on is no good. Others see what they've done and are full of wonder, but the creator is full of worry. This pattern is no coincidence: it is the worry that made the work good.

If you can keep hope and worry balanced, they will drive a project forward the same way your two legs drive a bicycle forward. In the first phase of the two-cycle innovation engine, you work furiously on some problem, inspired by your confidence that you'll be able to solve it. In the second phase, you look at what you've done in the cold light of morning, and see all its flaws very clearly. But as long as your critical spirit doesn't outweigh your hope, you'll be able to look at your admittedly incomplete system, and think, how hard can it be to get the rest of the way?, thereby continuing the cycle."

-Paul Graham

Homunculiheaded• 15 years ago

I think behind almost every successful endeavor (no matter the scale) you'll find someone driven by personal dissatisfaction with their work. For example I think most good software comes from people who go to bed a little concerned about issues with their code or product features. On the more grand scale, when Michael Jackson released Thriller, the first album I believe to outsell the Beatles, all those around him thought his next album should be just a simple collection of covers so he could take a break, but he was determined to out do it, dissatisfied with his current success (which would seem absurd even to most HNers, you just outsold the Beatles, you can give yourself a pat on the back)

Success is the balance of dissatisfaction with your own work combined with a drive to push forward. The drive without the dissatisfaction just leads to a bunch of mediocre half done projects, the dissatisfaction without the drive will just end in depression.

I think truly great people are nearly torn apart by these clashing drives, but that's what leads to true masterpieces.

On a personal note I think it's important to find the level of dissatisfaction that works best for you. It my be great to make Thriller, but paradoxically if you're the person that makes Thriller you won't be able to accept its greatness. At the same time you never want to be in a state of comfort such that your life is spent playing xbox all day. Of course some (Buddhists being one group) would argue that true happiness is elimination of both the drive and the dissatisfaction, they may be right but I'm too driven in my personal work to follow that path ;)

masklinn• 15 years ago

> On the more grand scale, when Michael Jackson released Thriller, the first album I believe to outsell the Beatles, all those around him thought his next album should be just a simple collection of covers so he could take a break, but he was determined to out do it, dissatisfied with his current success

It's unclear whether you're talking about Thriller itself or about Bad, but Thriller was definitely driven by dissatisfaction with himself (he was extremely lonely according to his bios) and with the world at large: Jackson was frustrated by Off The Wall not having gotten Album of the Year (and felt it was unfair), and he was annoyed that the music industry and its press did not care about black people in general and him in particular (e.g. in 1980 Rolling Stone refused to do a cover story on him).

ComputerGuru2• 15 years ago

I was intrigued to learn that Tony Kaye went virtually mad during the production and writing of American History X, arguably one of the top ten movies of the last 100 years, and was so dissatisfied with the end result that he attempted to disown the film entirely, even going so far as to try to use a pseudonym (the undying `Alan Smithee' and, later, 'Humpty Dumpty') just to keep from being tied to the movie.

jgw• 15 years ago

Others have pointed out the phenomenon, but I like this concrete illustration of it in action.

Slashdot once interviewed The Filthy Critic, and he talked about a friend who had spent time in the writing rooms of a few sitcoms. The writers working on shows that were really pretty poor thought their work was hilarious. They couldn't get enough of their own jokes. He contrasted it with The Simpsons's writing room: full of frustrated, self-loathing writers who didn't think what they were doing was any good at all.

revorad• 15 years ago

Priceless just for the last paragraph.

rudiger• 15 years ago

Which of Sartre's book is he referring to?

harscoat• 15 years ago

"Reflections on the Jewish Question"

rmk2• 15 years ago

Haven't read Sartre's book in question, but I do know that Orwell was quite antisemitic himself, so this looks like his prejudice showing through.

hubb• 15 years ago

that's unfortunate. do you have any references to Orwell's antisemitism?

MiguelHudnandez• 15 years ago

How do you "know" that Orwell was antisemitic? Did you know the man? Whether you have first-hand knowledge or not, please do share your information.

I suggest reading his essay about anti-semitism if you wish to learn more about his opinion based on his writings. http://www.george-orwell.org/AntiSemitism_In_Britian/0.html

fennecfoxen4• 15 years ago

Wikipedia, which knows everything and is never ever wrong, says the following of the matter, which seems to differ:

"Writing in the spring of 1945 a long essay titled "Antisemitism in Britain", for the Contemporary Jewish Record, Orwell stated that anti-Semitism was on the increase in Britain, and that it was "irrational and will not yield to arguments". He argued that it would be useful to discover why anti-Semites could "swallow such absurdities on one particular subject while remaining sane on others". He wrote: "For quite six years the English admirers of Hitler contrived not to learn of the existence of Dachau and Buchenwald. ... Many English people have heard almost nothing about the extermination of German and Polish Jews during the present war. Their own anti-Semitism has caused this vast crime to bounce off their consciousness." In Nineteen Eighty-Four, written shortly after the war, Orwell portrayed the Party as enlisting anti-Semitic passions against their enemy, Goldstein."

-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell

kd1220• 15 years ago

I've had an interest in philosophy lately and I thought the last comment was fantastic. I'm on Heidegger at the moment and Sartre may follow. I loved 1984, so maybe I'll heed Orwell's criticism and substitute Kirkegaard for Sartre.

fennecfoxen4• 15 years ago

If you like this, you may also be interested in reading Orwell's book review of C.S. Lewis, _That Hideous Strength_, which appeared well before the publication of _1984_. The review itself is titled "The Scientists Take Over" and may give some insight into the mindset of the day. A copy is here: http://www.lewisiana.nl/orwell/

The Lewis book itself is remarkably little-read (the traditional C. S. Lewis fan may not appreciate its atmosphere, I suppose) and will probably surprise most people who have preconceptions about the man's philosophy and what he was capable of writing. But I digress.

MartinCron• 15 years ago

However, by the standard of the novels appearing nowadays this is a book worth reading.

It's good to think that in 1945, just as now, people felt that the golden age of literature was behind us.

dextorious3• 15 years ago

Actually not that good, when you realize that they are/were right about that in both eras.

Not much has appeared since 1945 that really is comparable to the "golden age of literature" (that would be around 18xx-1940, I guess) --just a few exceptions to prove the rule, and tons of crap.

1984 itself, is a minor work, literary wise.

ekidd• 15 years ago

C.S. Lewis also wrote an interesting review of 1984 and Animal Farm, claiming "Both are very bitter, honest and honorable recantations" of Orwell's earlier revolutionary beliefs. Interestingly, Lewis greatly preferred Animal Farm.

A partial copy is here: http://books.google.com/books?id=V7YkpPwnFlUC&lpg=PA103&...

(That Hideous Strength is a hard book to appreciate, because it doesn't have a natural audience. It mixes dystopian transhumanist science fiction with religious parables, Arthurian legend and British academic politics.)

fennecfoxen4• 15 years ago

Interesting.

The nice thing about the Orwell review for me is that by explicitly talking about the atomic bomb and spelling it out for me in that context, it led me to an understanding of a lot of other cultural output (especially film) over the next few decades. Star Trek IV? Oh, that space probe that's out to destroy the world is a symbol for the atomic bomb. (I had some help from the boombox quip about how "we'll all be crispy critters after WORLD WAR III.") Blade Runner? Is about living with the expectation your life could end tomorrow. Aliens? Is about the destruction of civilization. And it's not just hardcore sci-fi. Why did the film adaptation of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH into The Secret of NIMH rewrite the end plot with that stupid mystical jewel-locket-thing? Besides the fact that it's more cinematic, perhaps the director was pondering the promise and perils of science, especially atomic weapons and atomic energy. Flippin' Rock-a-doodle? I'm thinking 'nuclear winter'.

You just don't get that same flavor with things produced after the mid-eighties.

benvanderbeek• 15 years ago

That Hideous Strength is a fantastic bizarre ending to the space trilogy, completely different genre (satire?) from the others (sci fi?).

gcb• 15 years ago

First world problems. I read it all scrolling sideways back and forth on my phone... To find out a transcript after the image

arundelo• 15 years ago

"D.V." = "Deo volente" = "God willing".

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deo%20volente

user242• 15 years ago

"MS" = Manuscript.

"TB" = Tuberculosis.

Reading his little abbreviations, it's like some kind of new language or something... ;)

kristopolous• 15 years ago

I was hoping TB was actually a disused hallucinogen, popular during the 40s.

ComputerGuru2• 15 years ago

Interesting fact: that's still a phrase very much in-use in certain parts of the world (South America and the Middle East come to mind) in everyday layman talk.

nwatson• 15 years ago

Portuguese: 'Se Deus quiser' == 'If God wills' ... very common in Brazil.

Even more common: 'Oxala' (oh-shah-LAH) taken from Arabic 'in sha lah' meaning the same thing.

udp• 15 years ago

Amusing that when referring to a possible typist, it was automatically a "she". :-)

"On the other hand a skilled typist under my eye could do it easily enough. If you can think of anybody who would be willing to come, I will send money for the journey and full instructions. I think we could make her quite comfortable. There is always plenty to eat and I will see that she has a comfortable warm place to work in"

user242• 15 years ago

well, it would have been a she, especially in post-war England.

bloggergirl3• 15 years ago

I love that he thought Sartre was "a bag of wind".

Do any writers really, truly like other writers?

canop_fr• 15 years ago

Sometimes, yes. Sartre, speaking of him, had friends and followers, among them Vian and Camus, who liked him more for his role as moral mentor full of wisdom (he was older and lead a different and less animated life) than only as a writer.

Letter from Orwell to his publisher regarding 1984

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