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George Orwell estate accused of censorship after putting trigger warning at start of Nineteen Eighty-Four

Chock Full o Nuts

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George Orwell estate accused of censorship with trigger warning in1984

George Orwell's estate has been accused of censorship after a 'trigger warning' was added to his classic novel Nineteen Eighty Four.
www.dailymail.co.uk

The preface of the the 75th anniversary edition suggests Orwell's protagonist Winston Smith is 'problematic' and that readers may find his views on women 'despicable'.
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How about no foreword at all and let people just read the book without an opinion being interjected?
Ms Perkins-Valdez wrote she was enjoying the novel until Winston revelas himself to be a 'problematic' character who 'disliked nearly all women, and especially the young and pretty ones.'
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It's a fictional book...
She added the novel doesn't address race and as a black woman she found it difficult to connect with the characters.
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Now we're reaching real far; don't pull a muscle. Right, I can keep interested in a storyline because a story that isn't about race doesn't address race.
 
Jezcoe said:
I don't see how this is censorship.
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Don't think so much as censorship as it is telling people what they should think when they are getting ready to read a book about forcing people how they should think. Makes perfect sense...
 
Chock Full o Nuts said:
Don't think so much as censorship as it is telling people what they should think when they are getting ready to read a book about forcing people how they should think. Makes perfect sense...
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Literary criticism isn't "telling people what they should think" it is offering a view of a piece of art.

Walter Kirn is being a curmudgeon because like a lot of people who do a podcast with Matt Tiabbi and is a panelist on Gutfeld! he gets a lot of currency out of stupid culture war bullshit.
 
Jezcoe said:
Literary criticism isn't "telling people what they should think" it is offering a view of a piece of art.
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But it is putting a thought in one's head before they even delve into the story.
Jezcoe said:
Walter Kirn is being a curmudgeon because like a lot of people who do a podcast with Matt Tiabbi and is a panelist on Gutfeld! he gets a lot of currency out of stupid culture war bullshit.
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Myself don't even know who those people are. Well, besides Gutfeld. Lame political comedian.

Pynchon's foreword doesn't offer personal opinion, just some background and tie-ins to where Orwell stood giving way to the story he wrote.

 
Chock Full o Nuts said:
But it is putting a thought in one's head before they even delve into the story
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So? One can either accept or reject the analysis.
Chock Full o Nuts said:
Myself don't even know who those people are
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Walter Kirn is the guy who made this complaint.
Chock Full o Nuts said:
Pynchon's foreword doesn't offer personal opinion, just some background and tie-ins to where Orwell stood giving way to the story he wrote.
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Forwards and introductions aren’t the meat of the story but can help the reader to think about the content.

A couple of examples… David Lodge wrote an intro to Nabakov’s “Pnin” which prepares the reader to understand the character study that is the book. It is in incredibly helpful to navigate the book without giving away the tragic comedy of the prose.

Another example… “Flintlock and Tomahawk” is basically the only book that covers the events of King Philip’s War… a little known conflict between the Natives and the Puritans in the 1600’s. Since the book was written in the 1950’s the Introduction is somehow a little more racist in it’s depiction of the “savages” being put down by a “more advanced race” than the body of the text.

Being a person with autonomy, I chose to reject this analysis and went on to enjoy the book.

This whole thing is culture war bullshit and nothing more.
 
Lol. Its not the irony, its the self delusion thats the most funny.
 
Trigger warnings are the opposite of censorship.
 

What a bunch of crap.

I've read 1984, and in no way is Winston a "woman hater" (although he did admit to, for one moment, the temptation of killing his Big Brother Drone wife)

Chock Full o Nuts said:
Now we're reaching real far; don't pull a muscle. Right, I can keep interested in a storyline because a story that isn't about race doesn't address race.
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Some people are so big as Woke Zombies that they think everything needs to be about Race. It's sad. Those are the kinds of people who can't enjoy life because of that ridiculous obsession. A bunch of joyless people.
 
When it comes to Totalitarian oppression, Big Brother has nothing on the Woke/DEI/SJW Left.
Compared to forcing people into saying and believing that a man “is” a woman and vice versa simply by claiming it to be so, “2+2=5” looks like a basically correct arithmetical equation.

Mark
 
When has anyone been forced to believe that "a man is a woman"?

Man... if a simple literary criticism sets people off think of what defunding and attacking institutions that don't bend the knee to the President will do.
 
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