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Illusion is a very sheer fabric, of the kind used in wedding veils.

Cricket 123

Thank you very much for your answer, and sorry for the delay in replying! I do appreciate that - I will see if I can get hold of a collection of his later essays to see if the quote...

Hi

In "Can socialists be happy?" Orwell mentions that "A Catholic writer said recently that Utopias are now technically feasible and that in consequence how to avoid Utopia had become a serious...

Of course, that is more probable. The mention of the man in the cell who is starving to death does seem to suggest, as you say, that he has never left.

At any rate, I think that Room 101 is not a...

Winston doesn't know what it is when he hears it mentioned first, and Ampleforth is "uncomprehending". I think the prisoners who are afraid of it have been there before and re-arrested. I don't...

Was 101 not the number of his office at the BBC's Broadcasting House? Or is that story apocryphal?

ETA - that is a good question!

I am not a student either, but I love this book, and see it as still relevant.

The theme that is really important for me is the use of language to narrow the mind; deprive the people of language...

I always read this as meaning that O'Brien had always supported the Party and its doctrine, and is playing word games with Winston. Interesting question!

I think Julia loves Winston because their outlook and understanding of the world is similar in some fundamental ways. Both are outsiders, and I think this makes them mutually sympathetic.

I just don't see the point in nitpicking so strenuously.

And I don't see the point in saying that children should not be reading something they enjoy, on the grounds that they're not learning...

Drkshadow, I mentioned other authors, not name dropped them, as part of the point that a balance may be struck between acknowledged classics and Harry Potter books.

I said that Harry Potters were...

Yes, I am very aware of Alice in Wonderland and the influence it had on later literature. I loved it so much, and I knew a lot of it off by heart when I was a child, and its influence cropped up...

Wessexgirl, your point is an excellent one - if the anti-Harry Potter brigade do not approve of Harry Potter, what do they want children to read? What children's literature is sufficiently edifying...

The Man who loved Children - Christina Stead

Apologies for the delay in replying, I mislaid my copy of Persuasion when I was starting my re-read, and so I am working from memory of a re-read a few months ago.

Respectfully, I disagree with...

I think "put it in the freezer" was used in an episode of Friends, about a book that everyone found too sad to read and stashed in the freezer to make it go away :)

I'd think Evelina would make a...

I doesn't put me off when there are no or few female characters in a book. It puts me off when the author knows nothing about women, and tries to write them anyway. I'd much rather read a book with...

Kelby_lake, would a novel about a school work for you? Perhaps Hard Times, or something like that? It describes such an enclosed and defined system that it could be easily examined, and I think...

Cheers. I must dig that one out!

Good idea!

If short stories are on the short list, would anyone be interested in reading the collected stories of M. R. James?

I found Absalom Absalom really good, but The Sound and the Fury was my favourite of his. I would recommend both of those to you. I'm reading Light in August at the moment, and though I like his...

Whatever you've heard, no matter how bad, is an understatement.

Crime and Punishment, for me. As others have said, I should be inclined to read Anna Karenina before War and Peace, but Crime and Punishment before both.

1984 would also work but is also too obvious, I guess?