Since the last post, I have started writing my final essay. My introduction is done, as well as sections on Synthetics and Eugenics. Firstly, though, I will discuss the two final books I've read for the project (I realised I could probably fit them in)*.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess is a really remarkable book, one I'd read before, and one that would have been perfect to study with a language focus (it's written almost entirely in Nadsat, a slang derived from Russian and English, which after a while, is surprisingly intelligible). The only technology I really looked at in the book was the torture technology, the Ludvico Technique, which is used to de-condition Alex of his violent habits. This a chair very like the one on 1984 - it creates the sensation of pain in order to get the individual to renounce their previous attitudes or behaviours.
Ayn Rand's Anthem, which I bought from the famous (and famously overpriced) Blackwell's Books, describes a primitive society, meaning it is the lack of technology that's the defining feature of the dystopia. In the course of the book, the lead character rediscovers electricity, but the Council of Scholars don't want to know. It's a rather objectionable right-wing rant for the most part, but it's interesting to see how Anthem brings together Orwell's idea of halted technological progress and Huxley's idea of a homogenised, collectivist population.
In the Synthetics section, I've written mainly about 1984's Victory foods, and Brave New World and The Machine Stops' artificial materials and music. In the Eugenics section, it's been mostly about Huxley, though Ira Levin's This Perfect Day offers some relevant comparisons too. I feel it's going well, although reading it through, it feels very 'late night' - misplaced articles and clumsy grammatical structures - so I'm probably going to end up practically rewriting it before submission.
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