1984 and its afterlife

Lynskey notes that the meaning of Orwell's novel has shifted over the decades along with the preoccupations of its readers; and that in our low, dishonest moment it is "most of all a defence of truth"

Shortly after the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump and his counsellor’s invocation of “alternative facts,” anxious readers, bracing themselves for the worst, propelled George Orwell’s 1984 back to the top of the best-seller lists. Published in 1949, under the shadow of Hitler and Stalin, the novel projects a nightmare vision of a future in which truth has been eclipsed. Its inventive vocabulary of state power and deception — Big Brother, Hate Week, Newspeak, doublethink, the Thought Police — clearly resonated with the despair of present-day Americans. As does the very term “Orwellian,” used increasingly to describe any number of troubling