Hostname: page-component-68945f75b7-l9cl4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-05T19:16:52.366Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Not the Last Word: Point and Counterpoint: The “Sweet” and the “Swill”: Farewell Welfare?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Extract

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen” (Orwell, 1949). The opening lines of 1984 have passed into the collective consciousness, gathering the familiarity that is reserved for great works of literature. The ‘Ministry of Truth’ was Winston Smith's employer and the name is now applied by journalists to the Victorian Government's media unit.

Much science fiction has been treated with condescension and the label of approval, ‘literature’, has been applied sparingly, if at all. I have enjoyed the genre since reading The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. The terror and adventure of the story of the invasion by Martians held me enthralled, but the real thrill for me as a schoolboy was that much of the early action took place where I lived.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Butor, M., (1971), “Science Fiction: The Crisis of its Growth” in Clareson, T.D., (Ed.) S.F.: The Other Side of Realism: Essays on Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction, Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, pp 157165.Google Scholar
Costello, P., (1978), Jules Verne: Inventor of Science Fiction, London: Hodder and Stoughton.Google Scholar
Howe, I., (1982), “The Fiction of Anti-Utopia” in Howe, I., (Ed.) Nineteen Eighty Four: Text, Sources, Criticism, New York: Harcourt Brace Janovich, Inc. pp 303309.Google Scholar
Huxley, A., (1984), Brave New World, London: Granada (first published 1932).Google Scholar
Metherell, M., (1989), “Is the caring, sharing era over?”, The Age, 28th July.Google Scholar
Orwell, G., (1954), Nineteen Eighty Four, London: Secker and Warburg (first published 1949).Google Scholar
Schmerl, R.B., (1971), “Fantasy as Technique”, in Clareson, T.D., (Ed.) S.F.: The Other Side of Realism: Essays on Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction, Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, pp 105115.Google Scholar
Turner, G., (1989), The Sea and Summer, London: Grafton Books.Google Scholar
Wells, H.G., (1951), The War of the Worlds, London: Heinemann.Google Scholar