Immediately, of course, people then sit back and say, 'Oh look! Good heavens, this is very Orwellian, very 1984.' This has happened many times over the decades where things have happened in world politics, which has become sort of Big Brother-ish. Only very indirectly in the sense that over the decades, world affairs have clashed with it from time to time.

But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. RB: The world of 1984 bears no relationship to the life that I have led. O cruel, needless misunderstanding O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But as an adult reading the book, what do you see as being related to your life, family and your father's world that might have inspired or influenced the book? Maybe what he wrote was a little bit closer to home than he realized. If it was summertime, we would go out in our little rowing boat and go fishing and do all the things that fathers and sons like to do together.ĬO: The book 1984, would be impossible for a boy to understand. And then he would come down early evening and we would have supper together. And one of them was, generally speaking, he was busy in his bedroom writing 1984.īut, he would appear for lunch at midday, and then he would go back and continue writing in the afternoon. Richard Blair: As a little boy, after we left London and went up to the remote Isle of Jura, on the west coast of Scotland, I remember certain things that happened during that time.

Here is part of their conversation:Ĭarol Off: You were just a boy when your father was writing 1984.

The younger Blair spoke to As It Happens host Carol Off about the book's influence, and how his father would react if he saw how things are today. One of the readers was Richard Blair, the son of Eric Arthur Blair, who was better known by his pen name, George Orwell.

Big brother 1984