[enriquto]

Unreliable narrator [0] is literary device that any writer can chose to use, it has nothing to do whether the described events are facts or fiction: it can be used for both. I don't think at all that 1984 uses this technique, but if it did it could be interpreted that Smith was receiving mild torture but describing it as brutal.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreliable_narrator

[disown]

I know what an unreliable narrator is. There are hints/clues within the story to show why the narrator may be unreliable. You can't say a narrator is unreliable because the fictional world does not align with the real world. That's my point.

It would be like saying bilbo baggins is an unreliable narrator in lord of the rings because magical rings don't exist in the real world. Absurd. But you could say the narrator in fight club may be unreliable since its revealed he has mental issues and the stories don't line up within the movie/book.

[enriquto]

I agree, it is absurd to say that 1984 uses an unreliable narrator (and any other Orwell writings for that matter, it's just not his style).

[082349872349872]

It's not absurd because in 1984, Goldstein's writing shows evidence of thinking like Orwell (based on Orwell's other writing) and evidence of rational thought processes, while Smith is an extremely dislikable protagonist, a wannabe acid-throwing murderer[1], which makes me think he's cardboard, suitable for the "fast-forward".

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24737728

[1] part II chap 8. By comparison with 1984, the FBI usually gets violent nutcases to come up with their own scenarios without such explicit prompting, but in real life these sorts of people are not lacking for supposing that (their often paranoidly fictional) ends justify the (thankfully equally fictional, at least when they procure "bombs" from HumInt sources) means, either.

[disown]

> the FBI ... but in real life

You really are failing to understand the criticism. You can't claim a narrator is unreliable because the fiction doesn't align with reality. That's not how that works.

You do realize that 1984 was written in the 1940s predicting describing a fictional world nearly 50 years in the future?

It's a simple concept you are intentionally ignoring. If you want to claim "unreliable narrator", you need to show that within the fictional world. You can claim it because the fictional world doesn't match the real world. Because using that absurd logic, everything is unreliable.

[082349872349872]

Except Goldstein, another character in the same work, does align with reality...