Something to do with the new administration and its forward-thinking views on the mutability of facts I wouldnt want to speculate.

He even named his protagonist Winston as if to honor Churchill.

The book is a hammer against those who looked the other way at the crimes of Englands then-ally, the USSR.

Details of the show trials, the paranoia, and the use of raw alcohol to cope are straight from the Communist regime.

Supposedly, in Moscow once, there was a neon sign celebrating the year-early completion of a Five-Year Plan.

Its a parallel universe, where World War II is in its 45th continuous year.

Loyal party member Winston Smith (John Hurt, who passed away last week) is starting to have doubts about the news hes required to obliterate at the Ministry of Truth.

Against the will of the state, and its symbol Big Brother, he starts an affair with a fellow Party member Julia (Suzanna Hamilton, whose intensity and haircut suggest Ayn Rand).

No argument here.

The necessarily hushed dialogue makes it hard for those who arent familiar with the plot, up to the ending where the entrails of a secret police state are anatomized by Smith and his superior OBrien (Richard Burton in his last role).

At that date, there was still enough post-industrial wreckage left in London to serve as a believable backdrop in this bleak parable.

But its the linguistic cargothe story of Newspeak, the outlining of the censors callingthat makes this tale still fearful.

Such was Orwells judgment, elsewhere: To see whats in front of ones nose requires constant struggle.

1984 John Hurt Torrent