1985 (novel)

The novel 1985 is a dystopian science fiction - novel of the British writer Anthony Burgess . Published in 1978, the title is a clear reference (and homage ) to George Orwell's 1984 .

Overview

The novel consists of two parts. The first half consists of a few essays and interviews on the subject of 1984; the second part is the real story. It is not a continuation from 1984, but an extrapolation of the present.

The two main themes of the story are:

1. The growing power of the trade unions - in the book there is a separate trade union for each occupation, strikes break out at the slightest cause, and a small strike quickly turns into a general strike. ( Margaret Thatcher came to power a year after the novel was published.)
2. The Islam rises to become an important cultural and political movement in Britain, caused by increased immigration from the Middle East . The novel's London is full of mosques and wealthy Arabs.

action

At the beginning of the book, the protagonist Bev Jones loses his wife - she was in the hospital when a fire broke out. The hospital burned down because the fire services union went on strike (which actually happened for the first time in the UK in 1977). Bev now has to look after his daughter Bessie alone, who is mentally handicapped and cannot distinguish reality from fantasy because her mother had taken a thalidomide- like drug during pregnancy .

The death of his wife arouses deep enmity against the trade union system in Bev, having previously lost his position as a lecturer in history - the government places more emphasis on "practical" education.

One day he goes to his new job (as a pastry chef) even though his union is on strike. He is then kicked out of the union, effectively making him unadjustable. Knowing that he will lose his apartment, he puts Bessie in a government institution.

Bev himself becomes a kind of tramp in London and joins a group of fellow sufferers who survive by shoplifting. He is picked up and ends up in a state re-education center , a mixture of prison and psychiatry . Here he is forced to consume propaganda (similar to the protagonist of Uhrwerk Orange ). Nevertheless, he is not convinced and is released after serving his sentence.

Now he is returning to London, where he joins the Free Britons - a group that wants to maintain order and infrastructure in the chaos caused by strikes. Bessie has also been fired, and in order to at least provide for her he has to sell her to a rich sheikh as wife. He soon finds out that the Free Britons are actually the tool of an Islamic group that wants to turn Britain into an Islamic state. Because of his education, he becomes the group's spokesman. But even now his work is being censored by a Colonel Wallace, which frustrates him.

The rampant strikes brought the situation to the boiling point when the general strike was called. King Charles III now takes over the government as the country comes to a standstill. A few months after the strike, Bev was arrested again.

There he resumes his teaching activity by secretly giving history lessons to the other prisoners. Over the years, his teaching progressed from the Anglo-Saxons through the Middle Ages , the Renaissance and the Enlightenment to modern times . Snippets of news circulating among the inmates suggest that the Islamization of Britain has advanced - e.g. B. It is said that on the Isle of Man it was discovered that the alcohol in beer was replaced by a sedative. However, the inmates do not know which news is true.

In the end, Bev commits suicide by breaking out of the bedroom and voluntarily walking into the electric fence that is set up around the institution.