Tuesday, April 17, 2012

O is for Orwell and Orr

Yesterday I talked about an ever shifting and fluid future. Today I’m going to talk about a changing past.

If there are multiple versions of the future as “The Minority Report” suggests, does that mean there are numerous versions of the past as well? The most logical answer is no; though the future may be full of possibilities, the past remains fixed. However, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven presents a slightly different idea. The novel's main character, George Orr, possesses the ability to retroactively change the past through the use of “effective” dreaming – in other words, when he dreams the world changes, both present and past. Only he, the effective dreamer, and those in his presence while he dreams, know that a change has occurred. Thus Orr (and his corrupt psychiatrist, Dr. Haber) remember countless editions of the past.

However, with so many different versions of history piled on top of one another, Orr finds it difficult to determine what’s genuine  “I keep wondering what things are changed, and whether anything’s real at all.” Reality becomes almost unrecognizable as it alters over and over again. At one point Orr tells Heather (his wife in one of the realities) that the earth was destroyed by plague and war four years previously, and as he lay with the world dying around him, he re-dreamed it into existence. But to Orr, that means that the world no longer exists. “We are all dead, and we spoiled the world before we died. There is nothing left. Nothing but dreams.”

Orr remains haunted by memories of a hundred versions of the past throughout the novel. But where Orr struggles to forget the past, Winston Smith of George Orwell’s 1984 fights to remember it. To Winston, memory is the only antidote to a constantly altered past. In his case, it's Big Brother, the totalitarian political party that runs the world, that creates multiple version of the past by altering every historical documentation of it – photographs, newspapers, books. Everything. As Winston Churchill once said, “history is written by the victors,” and in this case, the history Big Brother presents is absolute.

Memory then becomes the key to reality where records are falsified and history itself is unreliable. Winston becomes obsessed with his burred memories of the past, and seeks out members of an older generation that might recall the world as it was before Big Brother came into power. He even looks to the lower class (called the Proles) who've been largely left alone by the government, as a sort of cultural and anthropological memory. Unfortunately, Winston’s attempts prove utterly futile; even if the government hadn't intervened, memory as a means of preserving the one true version of the past only lasts as long as the person holding it remains alive, and their mind untampered. After enough time had passed and a pre-Big Brother generation was replaced with a youth raised under the regime, even memory would prove unreliable. And there would be no way of ever holding onto a single, unyielding past. 

In Lathe of Heaven and 1984, both protagonists fear a inconstant past. And they both make the reader wonder, if the past persistently changes, can the present ever be real?
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This post is part of the Blogging A through Z Challenge 2012. My theme is (in case you didn’t already guess) science fiction. Stay tuned for the rest of the alphabet, and if you’d like to check in on the rest of the participants, simply click here.

31 comments:

  1. Great reads! Great post!

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  2. 1984 has been on my TBR list for 20 years and I still haven;t read it. Thanks for the reminder!

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  3. I just found a copy of 1984 for free at my local used bookstore. It has one of those psychedelic covers from the 70's and is in awesome condition, I can't believe they were just giving it away.

    Anyway, I love the pic of Ringworld, I think I've mentioned before I've read that book several times, and have owned a few different versions of it, but even though that is the one cover I seem to see online everywhere, I have never seen that version if real life. Weird.

    But the thought of a malleable past is interesting. I've never really thought too much about it. What I have often wandered about, is if a change in history leads to that ever famous butterfly effect, or if a change is more like throwing a pebble in a rushing river - making a few ripples but getting swallowed up by current after a few moments.

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  4. deep thoughts! i read 1984 in 1984 for school =)
    makes me think of ender's game for some reason..

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  5. I have 1984 on my TBR list--I really ought to read it. And the other book sounds interesting--I've not heard of it. Changing the past and, as a result the future, is not a new concept, but doing so by dreaming a different past is definitely not something I've heard of before. Good article!

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  6. Ohmygoodness, that was some deep thinking for so early in the morning! I'm not gunna lie though, I'm kind of in love with this post. It's like the movie, The Butterfly Report. Those theories kind of terrify me, all of the possibilities!

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  7. This book sounds amazing! What a nightmare, to be able to change the past but not forget what your changed. Talk about going crazy!

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  8. What a great post. I have been wanting to read 1984 for quite some time now. With the number of people not having time to actually read...maybe I should do a read-along..;)

    Keep up the great work and adding to the ginormous TBR pile.

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  9. Lathe of Heaven sounds like a remarkable, tragic story. I will have to check it out.

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  10. I have not read Lathe of Heaven... somehow I missed it while reading other works of hers. And of course, 1984 is just so tragic, so terrifying. I think everyone should be MADE to read it. It is an incredible object lesson.

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  11. My husband is a huge 1984 fan. I've gotta get on that train. :)

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  12. What a great post. I haven't read these and have added them to my list... my long long list.

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  13. Also an A to Z challenger :) I like your theme for the month. Sadly, I have not read these yet but you're making them sound very interesting.

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  14. The present is real, but it's constant. The past cannot be erased, unless our memories are erased. I read 1984 when I was in 6th grade, but I haven't read The Lathe of Heaven.

    Jolie du Pre
    Precious Monsters

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  15. I can just about cope with multiple futures, but I get so confused when people start messing around with the past! It sounds interesting though - Le Guin is someone I keep meaning to read, I hear such great things about her.

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  16. Nice presentation!

    The Lathe concept is a scary one. I always wondered if what made him different wasn't that he had this ability, but what if everyone does, it's just that he's the only one who *remembers* it. If every person spawns their own universe from their thoughts, which constantly change and is overwritten just they aren't aware of it, his curse is that he does remember.

    1984: you read my long 1984 entry for N, so you know my thoughts about that- the most important book ever written. The voluntary mental destruction of reality and harnessing that power by government is the scariest possibility we've ever faced as a species.
    He who controls the past controls the future.
    He who controls the present controls the past.

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    1. That's actually one of my favorite parts of the book. Orr says "Did you ever happen to think, Dr. Haber, that there, there might be other people who dream the way I do? That reality's being changed and replaced out from under us, replaced, renewed, all the time - only we don't know it?" It's both incredibly fascinating, and utterly terrifying at the same time.

      And I agree with you about 1984. It really is one of the best and most important books I've ever been exposed to. I certainly didn't understand that as a kid when I first read it, but I've since come to understand the importance of Orwell's message.

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  17. 1984 was a brilliant film and book. The concepts were so far ahead of their time that we still have trouble understanding them.
    - Maurice Mitchell
    The Geek Twins | Film Sketchr
    @thegeektwins | @mauricem1972

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  18. You are AWESOME. This post just blew my mind. I have to get my hands on The Lathe of Heaven (I love Le Guin anyways), and reread 1984 (maybe not *shudders at the thought of the rat*) so I can think about this. :-D

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    1. Thank you so much! That is such a wonderful thing to say. It's so nice to hear that someone read and appreciated what you wrote.

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  19. I really loved 1984 back in high school. I'll have to go pick it up again one of these days :)

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  20. fascinating concepts. A changing past could totally screw up a person's identity because it's the past and our memory of it that shapes us.

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  21. Is this kind of like Inception or am I totally missing the mark here? Either way, I'm going to read this book now. You've convinced me!

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  22. Ursula LeGuin is one of my favorite authors. I haven't read this one yet.

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  23. I have a stack of Le Guin novels somewhere that I haven't read it. :(
    I need to get around to those.

    Orwell is awesome; although, I should probably go back and read 1984 again. It's been a long time. Animal Farm was the one I ended up reading over and over.

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  24. I love 1984 and The Lathe of Heaven sounds like a really interesting book. Thanks for introducing it to me.

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  25. 1984 was one of my "inspiration" books! Great post, lovely girl!

    MISS YOU!!!!!!

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  26. Rusty – I’ve wondered the same thing. I can’t help but be fascinated by how little changes in the past grow exponentially through time until they become these huge changes in the present. And I try to make sure the pictures I chose are the same as the ones on the cover of my actual copy of each book.

    Stephen and Colin – you both really should check it out. It’s one of the best books of all time.

    Geeky Daddy – I feel your pain. My TBR pile has doubled over the course of this blog challenge.

    GLBT Promo – Your comment makes me think of the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

    Annalisa – her novel is definitely mind-boggling, but so worth reading.

    Lynda – What a terrifying thought. But you’re so right. It’s not just reality that’s effected by changing the past…it’s our very identity.

    Diantha – Inception is a bit reminiscent of The Lathe of Heaven. Must be one of the reasons I love that movie so much.

    Mshatch – Mine too.

    Andrew – She’s just a terrific writer. And Lathe of Heaven is one of her very best – or at least one of the most thought provoking. And you should definitely re-read 1984 if you ever get a chance. Animal Farm is fabulous, but I think the concepts in 1984 are something we should be aware (and weary) of. I think Laughing Ferret agrees with me on that one (see above comment).

    Julie – Mine too. Miss you too! Lots. Sigh. Stupid California.

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  27. Doubleplusgood post! As I told Laughing Ferret in his post, I think the most horrifying component (among many) is the deliberate destruction of language to reduce the ability to think.

    PS Oceania is at war with Eastasia : Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia...

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  28. 1984 is one of my favorite books. Fantastic.

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  29. I don't know... I think Animal Farm is more relevant in many ways. I mean, I think we actually somewhat learned from 1984 and other stories like it, and, even though we are the most monitored society in history, we have done a pretty good job of protecting certain rights and making sure truths are known. At least, there are enough of use concerned with those things that we've retained ourselves in the face of the government.

    However, we have not seemed to learn the lesson of Animal Farm and continue to insist that "some animals are more equal than others." In fact, we seem to have gotten completely behind that instead of resisting it, so we have a society of people all fighting to be the pigs instead of a society trying to get rid of pigs.

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