[082349872349872]

Mordor: "[that] amazing city of alchemists and poets, mechanics and astronomers, philosophers and physicians, the heart of the only civilization in Middle-earth to bet on rational knowledge and bravely pitch its barely adolescent technology against ancient magic"

[protomolecule]

Yeah, I was thinking about that book[0])

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

[082349872349872]

Here are similar works, anyone have potential additions?

   Grendel
   The Persian Version
   Snow, Glass, Apples

(I have half a mind to write an epistolary short story from the point of view of one of Winston Smith's coworkers at the Ministry of Truth, dismayed about Smith's paranoiac reactions to normal office routine —colleagues transferring, etc.—, his labile personality[0] in general, and his conspiratorial mindset[1] in particular. All the objective events of Parts 1 and 2 can easily be explained much more rationally than in Smith's interpretations, but Part 3, being so explicit, has thus far resisted such treatment)

Lagniappe: "there can be no peace until they renounce their Rabbit God and accept our Duck God" https://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/141201_...

EDIT: also, Bulgakov's hard-boiled detective version of the gospel (his who-dun-it has a pragmatic advantage in that although christians and jews both still exist, no extant groups claim to belong to the Senatus PopulusQue Romanus)

[0] consider how quickly he hooked up with somone who merely dropped papers in front of him?

[1] want someone to kill people in a random pizzeria for conspiracy reasons? Smith's your man.

[protomolecule]

>short story from the point of view of one of Winston Smith's coworkers

I like the idea. I think the part 3 can co-exist the new interpretation of parts 1 and 2 -- Smith can be a conspiracy nut amid mundane reality but Big Brother's security apparatus nonetheless exists and for some reason eventually gets interested in Smith.