Fido Nesti

This is a book I have several editions of. 1984 is an important book in Western literary history for many reasons. The major one being the haunting foretelling of the way in which governments use combination of fascist and communist methods to enslave people to perpetuate the very system which oppresses them. This edition is a graphic novel. I only have a few graphic novels. Graphic novels are a retelling of literary narratives using comic book-like cells (sometimes without dialogue bubbles). The artist Nesti is Brazilian who has previously worked in newspaper and magazine cartoons. His style emphasizes faces and body parts. 1984 is a bleak work describing a dystopia in a country that was formerly named England now called Oceania after a catastrophic bomb blast in the Roman founded city of Colchester. This graphic novel is an editing of the Orwell novel but keeps most of the crucial elements of the post-apocalyptic and dystopian tale. 1984 is usually considered as one of the top 100 greatest books ever written. I would agree that it is a melding of many genres although despite its dense political content it is still read in some high schools. I read it originally in high school but only a little of the class discussions were given to it. More class time was given to Shakespeare and John Steinbeck. Having reread 1984 several times since, I am OK with letting its importance sit until I could learn more of European history to appreciate was Orwell was doing.
This graphic novelization of 1984 is very well done. It is an over-sized book on stiff hard stock paper to handle the many artistic images of limited colors primarily black, white, orange, and grey. Two chapters are included from The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism: Chapter 3 War is Peace; Chapter 1 Ignorance is Strength. This book was given to Winston Smith by O'Brien thinking O'Brien was a fellow subversive to the party. O'Brien was not. O'Brien was a mole agent hunting down people who might abandon the party for some other false hope of escape once and party member harbored doubts about the party's propaganda. War is Peace gives the supposed reasons why the party had to be born after the collapse of capitalism and the necessity of socialism's dominance. In actuality this book was a false narrative of a diverse opinion for how the world inevitably came to be in its current form. It was a revisionist history showing class struggle leading to equal by equivocal names: Death-Worship in China, in England Ingsoc (English Socialism), Neo-Bolshevism in Europe. The Appendix of Nesti's book gives The Principles of Newspeak. Most of the illustrations are crude drawings resembling Edvard Munch's world renown The Scream. This book has one of the most famous first lines in literary history, "It was a cold bright day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." This sad line has echoes of Chaucer's General Prologue of April mirth and aspiration being replaced by Winston Smith's damnation to oppression and morbidity. This graphic adaption focuses on Winston and his dubious intuitions as well as his dual "relationships" with Julia and O'Brien. The original novel is depicted as a trap for Winston to be caught and crushed as the only possible outcome for any individual in this state of Politburo truth erasure.… (more)

1984 is one of those books that is stuffed full of important concepts but is so dreary and dull to read. This adaptation captures that perfectly, packing in all the important stuff through giant captions and 14 pages of straight text (talk about giving up!) and draping it all over drab art colored only in murky shades of gray and burnt orange. It's all so bleak, but necessary to revisit regularly.

Winston's government job of literally rewriting history does pair nicely with a book I read recently, The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin's Russia, that shows the results of Stalin executing his real and imagined enemies and having them scribbled, airbrushed, and cropped out of photos in the official archives.

Side note: This adaptation was originally published in Brazil with a translated text but has been republished in English drawing directly from Orwell's original text.… (more)