| I don't think that place inspired 1984; reverse the arrows: the place was a result of the thinking that led to 1984's "Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism". Orwell had tried joining the proletariat for their franchise, but Blair's habitus always gave him away (see "The Spike"). His nonfiction ("Ode to...", "Atom bomb...") suggests he had no reason to believe that Airstrip One would also not turn Stalinesque[0] (at worst), and his upbringing gave him every reason to believe it was (already) run like an English boarding school in macrocosm; either way Jura would've been an insular escape. (if one reads Maugham's Sanatorium as a reflection on the small world of great power helvetic intelligence and counter-intelligence during the Great War[1], then could Jura "for one's health" have been a better way to come in from the cold than a large, formal, institution?) [0] Might Blair have had any reason to believe that someone, somewhere, might've had a sawed-off ice axe with Orwell's name on it? [1] I was just reading something the other day where during that period Swiss authorities had at first, upon discovery of an arms cache, thought they'd uncovered an Indian Anarchist plot to arm Italian Anarchists, only to eventually discover there was an English double agent fomenting the whole thing... cf https://www.srf.ch/play/tv/sendung/davos-1917?id=04afcde8-77... Pen-Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Plhtk_XJqhM |
Any theories where Julia is named after Jura? What would that make of Kilbride?
[0]https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/1984-author-george-orwell-fear...