Our Banned Books Friday report this week is coming late Easter Sunday night, owing to much sickly time as well as some busy time these past few days. However, even if a somewhat fluid concept of “Friday” is required to be a friend of the blog, our banned book report will be done every week through the end of our list. 😉

As I mentioned last report, I did move from George Orwell’s Animal Farm last week to his 1984 this week.

Though taken for granted because it is so ingrained in our culture, rereading 1984 brought to my attention the ways that it has become the language we speak when we think of government intrusion and what a totalitarian future might look like.

First, just consider the actual use of “Orwellian” in our modern language, defined by languagetool.org as, “an adjective that describes aspects of society reminiscent of George Orwell’s critiques. It encompasses elements that erode personal freedoms, such as mass surveillance and restrictions on free speech.” (language tool orwellian article.)

Beyond that, we have to remember words like thoughtcrime, newspeak, and doublethink, that all come from Orwell, as well as 2 + 2 = 5 and its importance.

Finally, even people who aren’t familiar with any of this most certainly know what it means if Big Brother is always watching.

I’m glad I revisited 1984 – and if ever there was a book that should *not* be taken out of the hands of students, it is this one.

He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. – Orwell, 1984.

The second book I read from our list last week was also an absolute joy – Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five.

Written in the most unusual way imaginable, it is his *semi-autobiographical* telling of surviving the bombing of Dresden during World War II, where he was taken prisoner of war. Also part science fiction as well as satire, this anti-war novel is brilliant and touching and dark and funny at times – and there is none like Vonnegut’s worldview.

This was another I am so glad I revisited.

(Also, to the title of this post – throughout Slaughterhouse Five, the refrain “so it goes” is repeated as a form of acceptance of all things related to mortality and death and the war, Vonnegut’s way of saying, “onward,” among other things.)

Definitely read this one if you haven’t. ❤

(For next week’s Banned Book report – hopefully actually on Friday 😉 – I’m starting Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.)

Be well, everybody. Take care of yourselves and each other.

Grace and Blessings.