Friday, July 24, 2009

"1984" Today (Amazon.com's Kindle)


(WQ) One of the often overlooked details about the visionary and fateful Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (a classic must-read few seem to take seriously nowadays) is that at that time in the future (the year is not known), in that dystopia, all information is subject to constant revision: The main character (Winston Smith) works at the Ministry of Truth, overseen by an invasive, citizen-spying, totalitarian government known as "Big Brother." His full-time job is to retract, revise, and re-issue "reality" (Pravda-style) for official purposes. Facts are fabricated. History is altered. Inconvenient people are erased. Irony of ironies, Kindle (Amazon.com's new electronic-book distribution platform) is set to do the same thing as it proved today. Geekbrief TV reports.

"Amazon caused all kinds of controversy today when it took back books Kindle users had bought. The books in question were George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 from publisher MobileReference. Amazon later released a statement..." (GBTV Episode 597).