"The book leaves the reader with the shocked feeling
that there is not a single horrible feature of the world of 1984
that is not present, in embryo, today."

FBI HOOVER REJECTED 1984

On 22 April, 1949 the vice-president at Harcourt Brace Publishing
sent an advanced copy of Orwell's book to J. Edgar Hoover at the FBI,
seeking his endorsement and urging him
to bring it to the attention of the American people...
Hoover replied that he did not endorse books.

To Orwell Today,

Dear Jackie:

I am a writer currently doing research on the growing cultishness of Orwell-appreciation and it's lending itself rather well to a new sort of anti-marketing to/of "downer" niche-targets. Just as Punk rock was started essentially to sell leather goods to Brit S & M types, is it even remotely possible that the "high priest of dystopia" is meaningful only as a means to sell a particular line of "downer" products a la Matrix spantex fetishes?

Having just seen the "movie version" of Aeon Flux I am convinced that this is indeed the case. Dystopia strikes a chord in 3 generations of mass-consumers, excluding Orwell's own... that is, babyboomers, gen-x'ers and gen-y'ers all respond to the dystopia craze, but for some odd reason, pre-babyboomer seniors don't seem to go in for that sort of nonsense...Hmm.

Your average Californa/Entertainment Industrial Compex cocktail party will have a herd of actors and Hollywood sleezoids all gathered 'round the coke-table-trough and between lines of Blue Flake cocaine spurt out a myriad references to Orwellian this and Orwellian that, and then without blinking an eye drop everything to "slave" away for Big Brother Major Motion Pictures in the starring roles of Dystopic Avenger and/or his/her intrepid sidekick.

(Don't you find it a bit disenfranchising that Orwell should send a copy of his book to Hoover along with a friendly letter? Was he just being sarcastic? Or is Hoover now cool because he was a cross-dresser?)

Oddballs abound thanks to the human condition, but it's the rare (Capitalism-grown) oddball who can sell his oddness. Orwell was such a rarity. Alas, most of his fans will have to tough it out as failures.....Or one cool-looking Church Of Dystopia congregation!

-Paul Lucian

PS - Look for my nonorwellian anti-dystopia book in the coming months. No, really, I'm cool.

Greetings Paul,

One thing the world can be sure of is that you, or your unwritten book, will never be the object of any appreciation cult like your much-hated Orwell and his "1984" is.

If you're from Orwell's generation, or, as you say, a pre-Baby-Boomer, Generation-Xer, and Generation-Yer, then you better get around to writing your anti-dystopia book soon. If Orwell hadn't died at the age of 46 in 1950 he'd be 103-years old now. He started writing early and never stopped - wrote 9 major books and 700 essays and articles.

But it was his last two works, "Animal Farm" and "1984" that brought him never-ending, ever-loving fame. However, the symbolism contained in these two masterpieces seems to have escaped you. Both of them describe political systems that bring Hell on earth. They combine the Capitalists with the Communists to run the world as a huge slave colony.

This "brotherhood" of adherents to "Big Brother" (the treasonous rich who believe in One World Government) are doing dirty work behind-the-scenes and people who have read and understood "1984" are getting wise to them. That's why Orwell is appreciated, and that's why Orwell is the topic in even coke-head circles, as you so describe.

Your snide remark about Orwell sending a copy of "1984" to Hoover twists reality, as can be expected from an Orwell-hater. The true facts, as described by Gordon Bowker in his biography INSIDE GEORGE ORWELL, page 397-398, are as follows:

"...The USA publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four was now imminent. What Orwell did not know was that on 22 April [1949] Eugene Reynal, the vice-president at Harcourt Brace, sent an advanced copy of his book to J. Edgar Hoover at the FBI, seeking his endorsement and urging him to bring it to the attention of the American people, saying pointedly, 'The book leaves the reader with the shocked feeling that there is not a single horrible feature of the world of 1984 that is not present, in embryo, today.' Hoover replied that he did not endorse books...".

FBI's Hoover, as you euphemistically point out by calling him a 'cross-dresser', was a homoexual, and that's not the only skeleton in his closet as history has now proven. For instance, while head of the FBI Hoover denied for years the existence of the USA Mafia until JFK's brother, Bobby, proved it without a miniscule of doubt and attempted to eradicate organized crime from America. Hoover hated the Kennedys for it. Also Hoover, the supposed "anti-Communist" head of the FBI did nothing to help Joseph McCarthy or other patriots expose Communists in the government. On the contrary, Hoover worked behind-the-scenes with the very Capitalist powers-that-be who were helping keep the Communists hidden.

So when Hoover was handed a copy of Orwell's "1984" it was probably all he could do to restrain himself from tossing it like a hot-potato into the garbage in hopes it would never see the light of day. Similar sentiments to yours no doubt.

All the best,
Jackie Jura

PS - After his death the pre-Baby-Boomers got Orwell's movie rights and twisted his message as best they could. Maybe that's where you're getting some of your warped perceptions, as it seems you aren't very familiar with the true meaning of Orwell's writing and thus his appreciative three-generation "cult" following.

1984 A BAD MOVIE and ANIMAL FARM A BAD MOVIE and RFK HATED BY HOOVER & MAFIA

Jackie Jura
~ an independent researcher monitoring local, national and international events ~

email: orwelltoday@gmail.com
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