[joe_the_user]

I think the tortured prose comes from an effort to acknowledge 1984 isn't a conventional "good novel" but still avoid saying that Orwell's popularity comes because his writing has a lot of relevance because the modern world can certainly seem "Orwellian".

This quote gives an idea how much the author discounts the validity Orwell's political insight: The meeting had been ominous to Orwell: It placed in his head the idea of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin divvying up the postwar world, leading to a global triopoly of super-states. The man can be forgiven for pouring every ounce of his grief, self-pity, paranoia (literary lore had it that he thought Stalin might have an ice pick with his name on it), and embittered egoism into the predicament of his latest protagonist, Winston Smith.