It's 1984 in the Third Age

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by alatar

Not even a little mischief was possible, as no teeth remained in either of these two's heads. .... Not so with the prisoners that Morgoth and Sauron release. Each was sent out with some intent, whether to do a specific deed or just to foment discord.

This is an interesting contrast between Orwell and Tolkien. Orwell's State was seen as so overwhelmingly powerful, and the Winstons so powerless, that there was no hope that the "good" could win out. By contrast, Morgoth's strategy of sending out "broken" ex-prisoners to cause doubt an despair amongst his enemies, is evidence that Morgoth was quite in doubt about his own chances of victory. This bespeaks a fundamental difference in the ways Orwell and Tolkien viewed the world: Orwell gave his readers a glimpse powerlessness and despair whereas Tolkien gave his readers a glimpse of profound triumph at a profound cost, but not without recourse nor hope.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I just today read a fascinating reference to '1984' in John Garth's Tolkien and the Great War. In the chapter "Castles in the Air" he discusses the development of Tolkien's early version of the Legendarium in connection with his WWI experiences. Melko (sic) 's influence over his captive-set-free Meglin (sic) is similar to that of Big Brother, though the writing style is different.

In its capacity to warn about such extremes, fantastic fiction has the edge over what is called realism. 'Realism' has a knee-jerk tendency to avoid extremes as implausible, but 'fantasy' actively embraces them. It magnifies and clarifies the human condition. It can even keep pace with the calamitous imaginings of would-be dictators. Doubtless Tolkien had no intention of making political predictions, but his work nevertheless foreshadowed things to come. A spiritual kinship exists between the unhappy Meglin and Winston Smith, downing his Victory gin under the eyes of Big Brother.

[Elmo]

Its my opinion that 'The Scouring of the Shire' is similar to the end of 'Coming Up For Air' when the main character comes back to his home town and finds its all industrialised and almost every thing which he had grown up with had been destroyed. I suppose Orwell and Tolkien who were alive in the same era mourned the destruction of rural England in the name of modernisation.

[alatar]

Having recently visited the UK on business, as we rode the train to London I noticed that many houses were very similar, small, connected and not having much surrounding green space. I was reminded somehow of the houses depicted in 1984 and in Lotho's/Sharkey's Shire. Are these places on the way from Gatwick airport to Victoria Station old enough to be what Orwell and Tolkien were seeing?

Note that I mean not to disparage anyone or their country, and note that there are places very close to where I live that look like Mordor after the orcs celebrated Sauron's birthday, and no 'facilities' were available.

[Elmo]

Don't you mind about disparaging England its Scotland's national sport I don't know about the houses in particular you're talking about but a lot of terrible houses were built in England (and Scotland) in that era and they destroyed a lot of the beauty of the countryside. As they cause of this destruction was modern 'progress' and it is no suprise that both writers developed an aversion to this and harked back to a supposedly better time.

P.S. Have you read Coming Up for Air? If not I really recommend it. It is a classic and relatively unknown though I probably spoiled the ending of it in my last post...

[alatar]

Originally Posted by hewhoarisesinmight

I don't know about the houses in particular you're talking about but a lot of terrible houses were built in England (and Scotland) in that era and they destroyed a lot of the beauty of the countryside. As they cause of this destruction was modern 'progress' and it is no suprise that both writers developed an aversion to this and harked back to a supposedly better time.

There are houses here that were thrown up (appropriate words) in haste. They are essentially boxes sitting on slabs. Back in the day when I worked construction, we worked on some of the houses and you could see that pieces of wood were numbered - each house was a kit. Anyway, the difference is that many of the same houses have been modified as the sameness, at least around here, is not desired. There are even some more well-to-do plans where even the mailboxes are the same (by village code) and it creeps me out to no end. Newer plans have each house somewhat different.

P.S. Have you read Coming Up for Air? If not I really recommend it. It is a classic and relatively unknown though I probably spoiled the ending of it in my last post...

Not yet but I will put it on the list, and note that I regularly reread LotR, and knowing the ending never spoils the fun.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by alatar

Having recently visited the UK on business, as we rode the train to London I noticed that many houses were very similar, small, connected and not having much surrounding green space. I was reminded somehow of the houses depicted in 1984 and in Lotho's/Sharkey's Shire. Are these places on the way from Gatwick airport to Victoria Station old enough to be what Orwell and Tolkien were seeing?

Note that I mean not to disparage anyone or their country, and note that there are places very close to where I live that look like Mordor after the orcs celebrated Sauron's birthday, and no 'facilities' were available.

I'm just wondering if you mean the modern houses or the older terraced houses (built of brick and stone, usually late Victorian)? The latter were very much around in Tolkien's day and were not necessarily very 'orcish' as many tend to have high ceilings and large windows and are pretty comfortable (which is why I live in one and not a modern house ). However, I also live in Europe's greenest city (the suburbs look like a forest with the odd building peeking out in high summer) and our terraces are surrounded by trees and all of them have back gardens, whereas in Birmingham the streets aren't quite so 'greened up'.

Now I personally knew well some of the streets Orwell wrote extensively about in The Road To Wigan Pier, all of which were beginning to be demolished when I was a youngster. My father worked in Wigan on the fringe of the district and we'd go and buy meat pies in a shop down one of the streets (cracking pies too - goes without saying in Wigan...). These were the unpleasant kinds of terraced houses - low roofed, quite shabbily built, fronting directly onto the street (no patch of garden), and none even then with inside toilets as there simply was no room to put them in, the houses were so poky (our house got a bathroom by the back bedroom being split in two and the outside thunderbox was long gone before I bought it). I don't doubt these houses were the ones that Orwell had in mind. And they would be nowhere near as nice as a spacious Hobbit hole with a green garden - only backyards in these houses, and sometime not even that if they were true back-to-backs (you only have windows on one elevation as the others have other houses attached to them!). There are still thousands of these in Leeds, all around the University, in the very area next to where Tolkien himself lived; Hyde Park, nothing like the London version, it's Britain's very own Beirut these days.

The one major factor that was lost, however, with the loss of these houses in Wigan, was community. People knew each other and helped each other, and living so close fostered community spirit, looking out for everyone else's kids and so on. The shiny new tower blocks broke up communities and only fostered alienation and then, crime and vandalism. So even the 'Orcish' little terraces of Wigan that Orwell hated had their bucolic side, and the really Orcish thing was to simply demolish them rather than improve them. Ironic and sad.