Orwell’s son
President would have inspired novel
George Orwell would have been amused by Donald Trump’s election to the White House, according to his son.
Sales of Orwell’s classic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four have soared in the US and Britain as readers try to understand the president’s efforts to manipulate facts.
Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway’s use of the phrase “alternative facts” echoed those dreamt up by the author nearly 70 years ago, including “doublethink”, “newspeak” and “thoughtcrime”. And in Nineteen Eighty-Four, which was wr i t ten on Jura and in an East Kilbride hospital, the main character, Winston Smit h , wor k s for t he Ministry of Truth, where he rewrites history with lies.
Orwell’s only son Richard Blair said: “I think dad would’ve been amused by Donald Trump in an ironic sort of way.
“He may have thought, ‘ There goes the sort of man I wrote about al l those years ago.’”
Nineteen EightyFour has captured readers’ imagination ever since its publication in 1949 and has sold around 30million copies.
Richard is convinced his father, who sat i r i sed St a l in’s Sov iet dictatorship in Animal Farm, would also have had Trump in his sights.
He said: “I’m sure he would be writing about the political scene.
“He said that he wanted to turn political writing into an art form. I’m sure Trump would’ve been one of his subjects if he were alive.”
Richard was adopted by the author, whose real name was Eric Blair, and his wife Eileen as a baby in 1945.
He was just 10 months old when Eileen died during surgery.
The next year, Orwell and Richard moved to a farmhouse on the island of Jura.
Richard said: “My childhood was idyllic. My father would write during the day and we’d go fishing in the summer evenings. I’d also watch him make little wooden toys for me.
“He desperately wanted to form a bond with me but because he was infectious with tuberculosis, he’d sometimes be careful not to get too close.”
Orwel l died seven months after Nineteen Eighty-Four was published.
Richard, a retired farmer who lives in Warwickshire and is patron of the Orwell Society, added: “My father said that Nineteen Eighty-Four would either be totally ignored or stun the world.
“The world has become Orwellian and he is a noun and an adjective now. He will always be relevant.”