Retro-itinerary: reading, a movie, plus a song

Friday to Friday goes pretty fast. It's been pretty quiet, fairly routine for me this week. Of course, the routine for me is quite busy. I've been enjoying the very mild and not hot weather we've been having here along the Wasatch Front.

Two weeks ago, on Hulu, I stumbled across the series Hitler: The Lost Tapes of the Third Reich. The series is based on audio recordings made in the 1970s with those who knew Hitler. As shows go, it was pretty thin gruel, but interesting enough for me to watch all the episodes. Watching this series did lead me to check out and read German historian Heike Görtemaker's 2011 book Eve Braun: Life With Hitler, which I finished last night. I found her book fascinating.

Just as I was finishing Görtemaker's book, I received D.J. Taylor's updated biography of George Orwell- Orwell: A New Life. This is an update of his award-winning 2003 bio Orwell: A Life. Taylor's biography of Orwell is widely considered to be, at least for now, the definitive biography. According to Blake Morrison, who reviewed Taylor's new book for The Guardian, the updated bio is

eight chapters and 100 pages longer, draws on various new caches of material, mostly letters. It doesn’t offer shocking revelations. But nor is it a reprise of the first book, except for the short thematic interludes between the main chapters

The first thing I ever read by Orwell was his short story A Hanging. I was a junior in high school and read it as an assignment for English class. My opposition to the death penalty started with reading this powerful work. To this day, my personal politics have been shaped by George Orwell. One book on Orwell that I have to mention is the late Christopher Hitchens' Why Orwell Matters.

John Hurt as "Winston" and Suzanna Hamilton as "Julia" in 1984

During the summer between my junior and senior years in high school, 1983 (40 years ago), I went on to read Fahrenheit 451, Animal Farm, 1984, and A Brave New World. Suffice it to say, I was never the same after that summer.

As you may or may not know, George Orwell is the pen name of Eric Blair. I've long thought that using Eric Blair as a pen name would be quite clever. I have to remark that when the Michael Radford-directed movie 1984 came out, it matched up pretty well with my imagining of the book when I read it the previous year. I am also starting Moisés Naím's The Revenge of Power.

The Eurythmics recorded the soundtrack for the movie 1984. Our traditio for this summer Friday is an extended mix off the 1984 soundtrack: "Julia"-