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In 1946, 30 years before Haruki Murakami became famous, the 43-year-old British writer George Orwell came to Chura Island and, at the northernmost tip of the island, found a corner that looked like the end of the world, with no traffic, no electricity, and no telephone signal. This writer lived in seclusion here.
Shortly before that, he had just died of his wife, and he himself was suffering from tuberculosis, and it would not take long for him to start coughing up blood. At that time, the outside world was not much better. A few years earlier, the Germans had killed and set fire to Moscow, and the Soviets had committed rape and plunder all the way to Berlin; the Americans had invented the most efficient killing tool in history and used it to end World War II.
However, this Englishman did not just come to escape the world and wait for death. In his opinion, although the world has been so bad, it is obviously not bad enough to end up—he is going to make a nightmarish prediction to let people see how crazy the world can be. Two years later, he wrote the prophecy into a novel, titled 1984.
The book "1984" describes a terrifying future world in which the entire planet will be divided among three superpowers. Under the rule of the dictator "Big Brother" of Oceania, everyone is monitored at every moment, any independent thought is a capital offense, there is an endless war between countries, and love, freedom, law, morality, language, history, and all aspects of personal life are completely destroyed and reconstructed. Scientific research has only two purposes, one is to read the thoughts of others directly, and the other is to kill more people at a faster rate.
Shortly after the novel was written, Orwell died. Since then, "1984" has gradually become a classic. It is a must-read extracurricular book or even a textbook for middle school students in Western countries, and it has also become a banned or taboo book east of the Berlin Wall. Even in Wang Xiaobo's novel, the male protagonist asks the young woman, have you seen "1984"? The young woman said, "I have seen it." There is no need to say it again, it is all in the heart.
What kind of person was George Orwell? He was born into a family of junior government officials in the British Indian province of Pengar, and a few years later he returned to England with his family. In 1917, Orwell relied on his own efforts to obtain a scholarship and entered Eton College, britain's most famous aristocratic high school, but his poor student background made him discriminated against. His early experience of discrimination made him sympathize with the bottom of society and produced an extremely important influence on the formation of the idea of equality and human emancipation.
In 1921, Orwell, who graduated from Eton College, could not apply for a scholarship to a British institution of higher learning due to his mediocre grades, and his family's financial situation could not afford him to further his education, so he had to apply for civil service and joined the British colonial police in Burma, serving for five years.
As a British police officer, he enjoyed many privileges to observe the trials, floggings, imprisonment and hanging of prisoners up close, a period that gave him a detailed glimpse of the brutal side of human nature; a reflection on western colonial policies. His experience in Myanmar made him aware of the evil side of colonialism and he left the colonial police force as a result.
Back in England, George Orwell began a four-year wandering life, during which he traveled to the British island and the European continent, going deep into the bottom of society, working as a hotel dishwasher, a teacher, a bookstore clerk and a dock worker, but his upper social status and aristocratic accent formed at Eton College made it difficult for him to be truly accepted by the lower society. However, this period of experience still made him deeply feel the pressure of society as a whole on the individual and the general social injustice.
Orwell himself once mentioned that "living in poverty and feelings of failure reinforced my innate hatred of authority and made me aware of the existence of the working class for the first time". From 1928 onwards, he began his writing career. In order to collect materials, he lived a poor life in Paris and London.
In 1944, after George Orwell published "Animal Farm", he became famous and received many praises, followed by many invitations and interviews, which made him very busy and troubled, so he decided to get away from the hustle and bustle to write his next novel, saying that after being introduced by friends, he decided to go to Jura Island.
This grim, remote but laid-back island, like a peach blossom garden, is located in the western sea of Scotland, next to the sacred island of Islay, the sacred place of Scotch whisky, with a total area of only more than 300 square meters and a total population of only about 300 people. It is home to rare sea eagles, playful otters, 5,000 majestic red deer and golden eagles. The wine produced by Jura has a very different taste and style from the Islay wine, and the softness, fragrance, sweetness and slight peat taste should be the first taste of Chula.
In order to concentrate on writing on the island, George Orwell used the pseudonym "Eric Blair" to avoid letting outsiders know that he lived on Jura Island. George Orwell's residence on the island was still 5 miles away at the end of the island's only road and had to be reached on foot. In his free time to write new novels, he walks around the island and greets the island's residents with kindness. During his seclusion on Chula Island, he also wrote a "Chura Island Diary" to record his life and feelings on Chura Island.
It is said that the inhabitants of Jura Island would treat him with coffee and locally produced whiskey Jura to treat george orwell.
At the time, the Chula Whisky Distillery was an old closed house that had been rebuilt without financing. Islanders recall seeing George Orwell strolling through the desolate and desolate wilderness of the island, watching thousands of red deer in the distance. The novelist also sneaked into a whisky distillery on Chula Island to explore the old equipment of the distillery. In addition to creating, he also likes to taste the island's "water of life" - Jura whiskey, which gave him the inspiration and motivation to create the novel "1984".
In 1950, George Orwell died of a lung disease that had plagued him for years at the age of 47. His life was short, but he examined and recorded the era in which he lived with keen insight and sharp writing, made many predictions that transcended the times, and was called "the cold conscience of a generation".
In 2014, Chula Whisky Distillery released "Jura 1984 Single Wheat Vintage Whisky" in honor of George Orwell, in honor of the world-famous author, as well as this world-renowned novel.
Comics: Shuyi Lam, a graphic designer from Hong Kong, freelance illustrator and young author of the Little Skull brand.