Open Password – Friday April 22, 2022
#1057
Homage to the book – Open Password – Simon Verlag für Bibliothekswissen
Vivian Stroetmann – 1984 – Eric Arthur Blair – George Orwell – Pole Fire – Vladimir Nabukov – Newsweek – Expanding boundaries outwards through persistence and willpower – Laconic acceptance of betrayal – Double Think – Mirroring the changeability of one’s own self – Big Brother – George W. Bush – Newspeak – Dystopian Literature – Encoding Power Structures in Discourses – English Linguistics – UB Bocum – Institute for Social Movements at the Ruhr University Bochum – American Drama Group Europe
Thea Hellmig – Steven Barnes – Obi-Wan Kenobi and the Biodrids – Silence is sometimes golden – JRR Tolkien – Fantasy – Star Wars – Lord of the Rings – The Witcher – Julia Kliemann – Harry Potter – Joanne K. Rowling – Astrid Lindgren – Thea Koenigs – Neverworld – Marisha Pessl – Minden City Library – Andrea Gerecke
Homage to the book (XII)
An initiative by Open Password
and the Simon Verlag für Bibliothekswissen
Written with heart, passion and deep knowledge about books
“that moved us”
Now that the book is threatened by short attention spans, lack of reading pleasure and electronic formats, it is time for a tribute to the book. Open Password and the Simon Verlag für Bibliothekswissen have teamed up on the project “Books that moved us” and have recruited 41 authors who report with passion, passion and deep knowledge how they were influenced by a particular book.
In the twelfth episode of our homage to the book, Vivian Stroetmann talks about books that stubbornly haunt you until they became a constant in your life, also because they are about existential questions that cannot be answered clearly. For Thea Helmig, Julia Kliemann and Marisha Pessl, fantasy is king, and who wouldn’t want to meet JRR Tolkien and Joan Rawlings again?
Vivian Stroetmann is reading the book of her life.
1984 by Eric Arthur Blair
(better known as George Orwell)
Everyone who contributes to this format has found his or her encounter with a book transformative in different ways and from different aspects.
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These stories follow you in an unpleasant way at first. Over time, however, they become companions and old confidants.
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In my subjective experience, there are very different reading experiences. There are
Books that stimulate on an intellectual level, books that touch you on an emotional level at the moment of reading. These stories are fleeting encounters. There are also books that strike a chord in the reader, or that touch me inside, or feel like they are putting a hand on my shoulder. You think about these stories for a long time. And then there are those stories that reach deep into your innermost being and squeeze. The books that reading is in the literal sense (and aptly described by the English idiom) a “gut-wrenching experience”. And in a few cases, that hand never really lets go. These stories initially follow you in an unpleasant and persistent way. But over time they become companions and old confidants. You don’t necessarily like them unconditionally, but you are always attracted and fascinated by them and they become a constant in your life for which you feel affection.
I have had such an encounter with a book twice so far. Not long ago with Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov. Today, however, I would like to tell you about my old companion, Eric Arthur Blair’s book 1984.
I heard about this book and its author for the first time when we discussed the well-known symbolism of “Big Brother” in the 12th grade English advanced course, which has become part of everyday language and is now used in an inflated way. We read an article from Newsweek (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: Article from Newsweek (2000)
It was intellectually stimulating, but not earth-shattering. We also saw the film adaptation of the book in class. I thought she was bad, to be honest. However, this is probably the starting point of the path that I have followed since then, with 1984 at my side. Maybe you feel intuitively drawn to certain material… In any case, I had the feeling that the film couldn’t convey to me what the book had to say to me and I borrowed the copy from my teacher. As I later discovered, it’s the same age as me – so it’s no surprise that she warned me to be careful with it. And as is often the case in such cases, it naturally fell apart for me as I read it. Maybe I held it too tightly while reading, or turned the pages too hard… I bought her a new copy, threaded the old one onto a spine, and kept it to this day (see Figure 2). It is the nucleus of my small collection that has developed over the years. And along with the impression the book made on me when I read it, perhaps the fact that this old copy stayed with me is one of the reasons why the book had a lasting effect on me.
Figure 2: 1984 edition from 1982
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Confrontation with fundamental, existential questions to which there can sometimes be no clear answers – not only between different people, but also within oneself.
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Reading the book was an experience for me at the age of 18 that questioned my fundamental beliefs for the first time. That’s why I found it very shocking at first. The question of surveillance with which the book was presented to me and which often determines the interpretation of the book was secondary. And reducing 1984 to that seems one-dimensional to me. What struck me more was the fact that I found myself in an inner conflict about the usefulness of Winston’s resistance.
The fact that I live in a short, severely disabled woman’s body and grew up at a time when inclusion didn’t really exist yet taught me to steadfastly hold on to my beliefs and goals in the face of external resistance and to expand my own boundaries outwards through persistence and willpower . Through the invaluable support of others, I had learned that this attitude could bear fruit. In Winston, for the first time, I saw a character who fought for what he believed in, was betrayed by the people close to him and failed because of the decisions of those around him, even though he tried everything. For the first time, I was confronted with the laconic acceptance of betrayal and brooded over the unbridled will of the self-perpetuating system shown to destroy people completely – and over the willingness of people to turn a blind eye to it through double thinking out of fear, convenience, indifference or for the sake of it to close one’s own advantage. And I turned the question back and forth in my head as to whether it wouldn’t have been better for Winston to spare himself the resistance and suffering if he was going to fizzle out without a trace anyway.
These aspects of the book occupied me for a long time without being able to find a definitive position on them – I was left with a vague, ambivalent feeling. And this is one of the points that made 1984 a formative reading experience for me: it gave me access to fundamental, existential questions at a formative phase in my life and confronted me with the fact that sometimes there can be no clear answers to them – not only between different people, but also within oneself. Since I couldn’t clearly solve the questions for myself, they stayed with me – and with them the book. And over time I realized that I answered the questions differently at different times in my life. So I would say that a life-changing book is characterized, firstly, by the fact that it can serve as an opportunity and a foil for discussing fundamental questions with oneself and others at different times and in different situations. In this way it also becomes a mirror of the changeability of one’s own self. Depending on how and who you are at a time in your life, you read it differently.
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Dystopias, Newspeak and the encoding of power structures in discourses
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The second point that makes 1984 a valuable companion for me is its complexity. “Big Brother” is often primarily associated with the book. For me, however, a variety of aspects can be applied to the book or viewed through the lens of the narrative and the world of Eurasia and Eastasia. Since the book speaks to me very clearly, this is a perspective that is very interesting and obvious to me personally. On the one hand, these questions concern the fundamental aspects of life and human nature mentioned above.
Apart from that, one of the most interesting questions for me that can be examined using 1984 is the targeted use of linguistic means. In order to illustrate how Orwell and politicians shape discourse, our teacher brought us a commentary on Bush’s then-current New Year’s address the following year (2001). Like the Newsweek article, I still have this commentary in the Orwell compartment of my bookshelf, but unfortunately only as a copy without a source (see Figure 3).
Figure 3: Happy New Year: It’s 1984 (2001)
Newspeak and the targeted design of discourse was an aspect of the book that also accompanied me from the beginning. I do not mention this here to open a linguistic discussion. Rather, for me, this pragmatic question illustrates a second quality that life-changing books can have: they open up new areas of interest to the reader, which can develop further over time and take on their own significance in life.
For me this was, on the one hand, an interest in political philosophy, which accompanied me in my two majors, English and Oriental Studies, as well as a preference for dystopian literature. On the other hand, I was fascinated by the power of the targeted use of language and therefore specialized in the field of pragmatics in my English studies with a focus on the encoding of power structures in discourses. I analyzed the interrogation scene in the Miniluv with passion under these premises – I still keep a yellowed printout of the housework to this day (see Figure 4).
Figure 4: Pragmatics homework by Viviaen Stroetmann (2004)
I also encountered Orwell again in my oral BA final exam in English linguistics (2005). All of my jobs involved tasks that require linguistic sensitivity and linguistic meticulousness. This also applies to my two current jobs at the UB Bochum and the Institute for Social Movements at the Ruhr University Bochum. The keen awareness of the beauty and subtleties of language, which began with my reading in 1984, is therefore a central part of my daily life and my professional profile.
Finally, and on a less profound note, life-changing books thirdly offer the opportunity to develop a “hobby horse”, to read up on related material, and to take advantage of relevant cultural offerings. And last but not least – as a book-loving person I certainly don’t want to deny this – collecting relevant books. In this context, I particularly enjoyed the spectacular, minimalist stage interpretation by the American Drama Group Europe from 2002 (see Fig. 5). It was a while ago, but as someone who is more interested in cinema, it literally blew me away – and I would recommend it to everyone if it were to be on the program again.
Figure 5: Theater poster from 2002
Over time, the 1982 edition just shown was joined by Eric Arthur Blair’s other works, biographies of the author, interpretations of his writings, and a hodgepodge of unpublished materials from various sources. There are of course analyzes from 1984, as well as editions with special forewords and afterwords that illuminate different aspects of the book (see Fig. 6-8).
Figures 6 and 7:
Cover of an edition with a special foreword and afterword (1983)
Back cover of the same 1983 edition
Figure 8: Example of further analysis (1983)
As you can see from the pictures, such special sections or analyzes have a special attraction for me when they appear in old editions. And I’m always particularly happy when I see a nice edition from 1984 – whether with or without special parts. After all, it never hurts to buy a good book!
What I would like to have is a first edition from 1949. Maybe in the future one of my acquaintances will recognize my annual wave with the fence post and give me a copy for my birthday. Since 1984 has been with me for so long in so many forms and contexts, that would be something very special for me.
Thea Hellmig* is reading the book of her life.
Obi-Wan Kenobi and the Biodroids
by Steven Barnes
A book that I found very exciting was “Obi-Wan Kenobi and the Biodroids” (by Steven Barnes), as I find the world of “Star Wars” very fascinating. With all the different species and the many planets. I love this book because it features one of my favorite characters: the Jedi Knight Kit Fisto. He is a very wise and intelligent character. I still stick to his advice, “Silence is sometimes golden.” But he is also a powerful fighter.
An author I really admire is JRR Tolkien because he created such fascinating worlds and even his own languages. I also write some of my stories in a medieval fantasy world because I just love it. In general, I like “Star Wars”, “Lord of the Rings” and “The Witcher” so much because they all take place in a self-imagined world or universe. And there are so many comics and books about “Star Wars” alongside the films and series. I just think that’s great.
Julia Kliemann* is reading the book of her life.
“Harry Potter” by Joanne K. Rowling
“Harry Potter” changed my life because this book was so exciting and it got me excited about fantasy. “Harry Potter” showed me that fantasy doesn’t always have to be a pink, glittery book. Fairies and stuff can actually be pretty cool. My author role models are Joanne K. Rowling and Astrid Lindgren.
Thea Koenigs* is reading the book of her life.
“Never World” by Marisha Pessl
The book (by Marisha Pessl) that changed my life is called Neverworld. It’s about five teenagers who narrowly avoid a car accident. The following night, an old man appears and tells the five of them the unbelievable thing: the accident did happen! Now the five are stuck in a time loop that has lasted for the last eleven hours. The five now have to decide which of them can live on. The vote must be unanimous. But there is something else that all five want to know. Who killed the sixth of them a year ago? It’s a good thing that time travel isn’t out of the question in a time loop… But be careful… – time is running out…
* The last three texts were created in the workshop within SchreibLand NRW: “Your hobby? Write stories!” at the Minden City Library in spring/summer 2020 (ages between 11 and 14 years, exercise in the seminar/thinking and writing time approx. 15 minutes), under the direction of author Andrea Gerecke
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