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| On Waukazoo Street in Northport, Michigan |
First, some bookshop news and blog notes:
Reminder: Dog Ears Books is open four days a week this winter, Wednesday through Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Reminder: you can order audio books through Libro.fm and choose Dog Ears Books as your bookstore on the Libro.fm site, and we will earn a little something from each audiobook you buy that way. It will help us get through the winter. Thank you!
Blog note 1: This blog, Books in Northport, has been around since September of 2007. It has always been free and will be free as long as it survives. I make my living as a bookseller, not as a blogger. Neither will I be moving to a Substack account, although many professional writers and independent journalists are there now, and I encourage you to follow a few, upgrading to a paid subscription if you can afford it, especially those whose work is crucial to giving us real news, e.g., Dan Rather, Heather Cox Richardson, and others. The importance of these sources will increase sooner than you might imagine.
Blog note 2: Call my blog a “labor of love” or call me a graphomaniac – however you want to characterize it and/or me, I’ve stuck to this project for over 17 years. Some of you have been with me from the beginning, while others are brand-new readers, but I appreciate every single one of you, however long you have been reading. My morale this year, however, could use a little extra support (I’ll be trying to provide support for the morale of my readers, too), so I encourage you to (1) sign on as a follower, (2) comment on posts, and (3) send links to your family and friends for posts you find particularly meaningful. There is no financial advantage to me in this, only personal satisfaction.
That’s it for bookshop hours, audiobooks, and blog! Now, for some book thoughts --.
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| Still relevant! |
George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, an “instant classic,” first appeared in 1949 and hung over us like the sword of Damocles for 35 years. When the fateful year of his title passed, we in “the real world” heaved a sigh of relief. It didn’t happen! We’re still free! Did we then become complacent? Oh, gripes about government continued, with “Big Brother” now used as an epithet. It took until 2019 for worry about corporations keeping tabs on us to start catching up with worry about government. In 2023 concern over corporate surveillance surpassed the worry about government.
Where are we now? Is Big Brother watching us? Follow-up question: are Big Government and Big Corporations separate?
In Orwell’s novel, was the fictional Big Brother an individual modeled on Stalin or a figurehead personifying the ruling party of the totalitarian state? Follow-up question: Does it matter?
In the novel, there is no life of significance without Party membership, and for Party members there is no such thing as private life, as they are frequently reminded by ubiquitous posters and ever-on telescreen messages: “Big Brother is watching you.” Is it ironic or just pitiful that Americans in the 21st century have not waited for the government to install telescreens in homes but rush to put their own personal lives online in videos for all the world to see, even grooming their toddlers as video stars? Follow-up question: How will that play out in the future of those children?
Admittedly, this blog of mine has not been restricted to book reviews and bookshop news, and over the years I’ve shared quite a bit of my personal life, from photographs of my dogs to an account of my husband’s death and my cross-country trip home to Michigan without him. It's been kind of a memoir in installments. (This blog is not AI-generated. I am a real person, as well as a live bookseller.) I do, however, maintain a degree of privacy and intend to keep it that way.
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| January 30, 2025, Up North |
However, back to the book --.
Winston, the protagonist in 1984, lives in constant uncertainty and fear. He doesn’t have to worry that he is breaking the law because there is no law! There are only bad thoughts. But if he is suspected of having them (as we pretty much know from the beginning he will be), there will be no possible defense. He is guilty when accused, accused because guilty, and all that remains is for him to confess and name names, specifically the name of his lover, since he is not supposed to have a private life. But no, that’s not all he has to do. He can’t just give a name. He must be broken.
We Americans in 2025, forty-five years after the date Orwell's book predicted world totalitarianism, can keep our lives relatively private if we choose to stay offline and buy local with cash. All of us can do our best to seek truth and hold onto it in a whirlwind of public lying and stories that change from one hour to the next. Certainly we can ration our viewing of “reality” videos and so-called “news,” even completely unplugging for days at a time.
All that done, even so, it’s hard to live in a country whose leaders have turned their backs on law.
When, as now, in the last week and a half, the rules change day by day … and people appointed or elected to run government are not restrained by laws or held accountable for breaking them … and individuals formerly in positions of authority are persecuted because they believed in and followed laws and testified against law-breakers … then, with or without constant surveillance, with or without thought police continually monitoring our posture and facial expressions, we have been taken hostage by the world of 1984.
And yet--. And yet--.
This morning on a back road I came upon a pickup truck that had run off the road and was half-buried in deep snow, and a little way up the road a man was walking. “Is that your truck? Do you need a ride?” He did.
In the afternoon the sun came out and shone for hours, and our cold northern Michigan world was so beautiful. Shadows on snow are so beautiful! Sun on snow is so beautiful!
We can still help each other and see beauty in the world, and each one of those small moments is important. Each such moment is resistance to tyranny.
In the wake of the Wednesday night air tragedy that resulted in the loss of 67 lives, the Blamer-in-Chief wasted no time in pointing the finger—in an absurd direction, naturally. It is his way. He does not want Americans to come together, either in joy or in sorrow and certainly not in understanding and love and mutual aid. Instead he wants all eyes fixed on him, his followers’ eyes in endless admiration, his opponents’ eyes filled with fear. He incites hatred, constantly whipping up frenzies as Americans with different agendas consider each other from across the political and moral chasm he keeps digging, very intentionally, deeper and deeper. He’s got the whole country in a dire game of the prisoner’s dilemma, and as long as he can keep us from joining together, he will keep pulling the strings and jerking us off-balance.
I must believe more people will finally see his naked narcissism and incompetence when it begins to affect their lives--although when hardships fall on MAGA families, of course he will tell them it’s someone else’s fault. It’s always someone else’s fault. President Harry Truman’s famous motto was “The buck stops here.” In the DJT White House, the buck doesn’t have time to catch its breath before it's thrown in someone else’s face. And it’s hard not to react to the absurd nonstop blaming with anger, but we cannot live every waking moment in outrage. It’s important to deny the Blamer his childish satisfaction. It’s also important for us to continue to love each other and love the world, our poor, broken world.
What helps you remain hopeful about our ability to heal the world? What strategies do you have to contribute to healing yourself and others? For putting the pieces back together again? To mend the world?
16 comments:
Powerful words and comparisons, Pamela. Thank you. Most of us struggle to keep positive and hopeful in this already ugly DJT world. For me, and for you, I'm guessing, being out in the natural world keeps me sane and gives me hope.
You are absolutely right that I breathe more deeply and feel more relaxed--even during strenuous activities!--when I'm outdoors. Nature is a solace. My dog, too, of course. Friends and conversations with them about all kinds of things, including books we're reading. Being able to make someone else smile or laugh helps a lot. I didn't go out of my way to give that man a ride yesterday. He just happened to be there, on foot, when I was passing through. But being there at the right time to be able to help someone made my day a little brighter. And finally, strange as this may seem, writing helps me regain hope and positivity. Even when I start out shaking with dread and rage, if I write long enough I almost always manage to write myself into a better psychological space and a better outlook on the world.
Interesting about Orwell's '1984'. You are likely aware that he spent considerable time in the Spanish Rebellion in a Marxist
unit. My guess is he abhorred Totalitarianism far more than
Stalinism. Does it matter? IMO, yes. The far right claims him
as a hero against communism. Of course that bunch admires
bone spurs as well. :)
Bob, I have read Orwell's HOMAGE TO CATALONIA. He was, like Camus, a man who rejected the easy comforts of a party line and eventually came to see devils on both sides. Do you not see Stallinism as totalitarianism? Or, call it autocracy. Either party line may proclaim "freedom," but neither really wants it for the people as a whole, and autocrats rise from both extremes of right and left politics. My vote is for representative democracy and a mixed economy.
"I must believe more people will finally see his naked narcissism and incompetence when it begins to affect their lives--although when hardships fall on MAGA families, of course he will tell them it’s someone else’s fault. It’s always someone else’s fault." Hope, but no hope. MAGA folk have their entire lives set up to excuse Trump and find blame with Trump's enemies. It's a closed loop of impenetrable lies.
Yours is the kind of hopelessness I cannot afford, because what we're talking about is a cult, and there are people in that cult that I care about. I would remind you that cults do not last forever, and that few end with every member joining together in mass suicide. I'm sorry you see no hope. I must continue to see it.
I have not been personally affected by the clown circus chaos
but it is so endemic that I worry. Last night I had a nightmare,
a set of rapidly changing images where progress became regress. Back through WWII, the englightenment, renaissance, crusades and awoke in the Dark Ages. Alarmed and sweaty, I went to the fridge and make a snack sausage sandwich and glass of milk.
Hope restored, I am enjoying Groundhog Eve! Cult seems OK,
but I guess that group might be a sect, faction or persuasion:
my hope (and guess) is that as government collapses, “that group” will become disaffected and the entire phenomenon fade into history.
Admittedly, I am not using 'cult' in the broad, objective sense but in the narrow, pejorative sense of people brainwashed by a leader who is to them (unbelievable as it is to the rest of us) charismatic. I can relate to the content of your nightmare.
I am definitely not in a good head space, especially now that the circus is in town, and it appears our democracy is being swept away in a tsunami----and in light of my being so restricted again in so many ways until I have cervical decompression surgery. I am grateful for your blog and always shines some light on the path for me.
Angie, you have had SO much to deal with in the last couple of years or so! I hope you won't have to wait too long for relief from the current pressing condition. -- I did not intend a pun, so don't think I am making light of your situation. If I manage to shed the light of as much as a single match, I am happy to do so. Wish it could be more. I will keep up the effort, anyway, and keep you in mind so I won't forget and bog down. We all need each other! You made the effort to comment and let me know you're still herewith me, and I appreciate that. Bon courage, my friend!
Did I already send you this? I'm hanging on to it for dear life: https://www.themarginalian.org/2024/12/31/some-blessings-to-begin-with/
No, Lucia, you had not already sent that, so thank you for sending it today. It's a good way to start the morning.
As has for ages, the earth turns in it's ageless manner. Oblivious to our concerns. We are a unique species, somewhat smarter than an earthworm. It is remarkable that what we call fortune, destiny or fate are our inventions, of little effect on
the space-time continuum. Help! Need a philosopher!
Perhaps. :)
You need to be more specific, Bob. What kind of philosopher? A logician? A phenomenologist? Metaphysician? (That third group is in short supply.) Ethicist? Maybe a philosopher of science would come closest, but as an engineer you would probably be happier with a scientist. That's my guess, anyway.
I am such a bad 'friend' when it comes to commenting. I making a plan to do better. :). Having said that, I check your blog every day to see if you have a new post up. I have so much I wish I had the 'courage' (see your next post) to spill across the page on my blog. Maybe in time I will learn to do some of that without the heat that arises in me every minute of every day right now. My momma used to tell me not to burn bridges, and boy was I good at that when I was young, but I'm more conscious of trying to be more judicious now. *rolling eyes*. Thank you for being here, dear friend, and oh goodness, that sweet face of Sunny Juliet.........
Carl Sagan's 'Pale Blue Dot' sums it up for me.
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