Big Revisionism

The Left reacts to Big Brother in its usual fashion:

The 75th anniversary edition demonstrates how the left doesn’t understand what “1984” is really about. In addition to an afterword from an author who wrote a retelling of “1984” from a feminine perspective (try not to roll your eyes too hard), this edition contains a foreword from author Dolen Perkins-Valdez, who won the 2023 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work—Fiction. A note for clarification: The original publication date of “1984” was June 8, 1949, but I can’t tell if this new edition came out last year or this year. All of the listings I see for it on Amazon and Barnes & Noble use the publication dates of earlier editions. Whether it came out last year or this year, it’s generating some recent controversy. In her foreword, Perkins-Valdez demonstrates one of the left’s biggest problems: its tendency to read older literature through a presentist lens. She laments the absence of black characters; according to Newsweek, “She writes that ‘a sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity.’” Perkins-Valdez also accuses the novel’s protagonist, Winston Smith, of misogyny. She even slaps him with the leftist scarlet letter P — for “problematic.” "I'm enjoying the novel on its own terms, not as a classic but as a good story; that is, until Winston reveals himself to be a problematic character," Perkins-Valdez writes. "For example, we learn of him: 'He disliked nearly all women, and especially the young and pretty ones.' Whoa, wait a minute, Orwell."

Orwell knew what he was talking about...