101 - Changes

Well, yesterday when I wrote post #100, I alluded to the subject of the post when I mentioned it on FaceBook and Twitter... I knew what I would post about. But today, I don't feel like it...

I was going to talk about Eric Blair and his contribution to literature, society, and so on, but when I think about what to write, I can't help but think it's all been said before, and what's the point of reheating someone else's leftovers?

I guess the one thing I would do is urge anyone with any interest in his most notable work, Nineteen Eighty-Four, is to buy a copy of the hardback book that reproduces the surviving pages - just under half the book - of the original typed manuscript, with handwritten notes and corrections in Orwell's own hand. It is a thing of true beauty. 

The frustrating thing, of course, is that it doesn't have the whole book. But there are all sorts of interesting differences between this text and the final published version. I'll not go in to them as part of the fun is discovering things yourself. 

Also, it's not a small book; it's not the size of a regular harback. It's more a coffee-table book (though not quite a Taschen), as the pages with reproductions have the manuscript as its actual size, with white space around to allow the pages to breathe. I got a copy a good few years ago, and it's one of the most impressive books I have (the Taschen Kubrick book, and large format Fat Duck book, Pixies photograph book also spring to mind). 

I can't help but hope that, somehow, more of the manuscript is found, but I think it's unlikely as Orwell never kept his works in progress, notes, or manuscripts. The survival of even this section of the manuscript is quite something, as according to his widow, this was all there was; she put it up for sale in a charity auction not long after his death. I would imagine that if there were other documents or manuscripts they would have turned up at that auction.

Still, just under a half of the manuscript is better than nothing. 

(Now, when do we get a DVD release of the 1954 version of Nineteen Eighty-Four that starred Peter Cushing...?)

And look, I started off by saying I wasn't going to talk about it, and then I talked about it... Who'd'a thunk it...?