The good folks at
The Classics Club posed this meme reboot from September 2014: Select two classics from your list (by
different authors) that you have finished reading. Now switch the authors, and
contemplate how each might have written the other’s book.
When I first read
this I thought – I got nothin.
And then, an
epiphany: What if George Orwell had written The
Lord of the Rings and J.R.R. Tolkien had written Nineteen-Eighty-Four.
Orwell’s final
chapters of LOTR would go something
like this: Frodo and Sam enter the
bowels of Mount Doom, just as Tolkien described, Gollum appears and wrestles
with Frodo for the ring, bites his finger off, BUT --- just as he is falling to
his death, the Lord of the Nazgul appears, grabbing Gollum by the arm, he draws
his sword, cuts the arm off below the wrist, and Gollum indeed falls to his
doom. The ring is in the hands of the Nazgul, quickly to be taken to Sauron. The
rest of the Nazgul arrive to capture Frodo and Sam. One of them dips his sword
into the lava until it is white hot, and cauterizes Frodo’s wound to stop the
bleeding. It is not an act of mercy. Frodo and Sam are wanted alive for
torture. They are packed off to the fortress of Barad Dur, where they are
subjected to unspeakable physical and psychological torment. They are offered
relief, if they will only betray the other. They resist until Sauron devines
each one’s greatest fear – Frodo’s something to do with spiders, Sam’s being
forced to eat PO-TA-TOES without salt. In the face of such terror they break and
each renounces the other forever. They are released to wander and make their
separate ways to the Shire. Once there, they discover Sauron’s puppet Saruman
has been given regency over the Shire, which he rules with an iron fist, and
forced labor, growing pipeweed and brewing beer. Aragorn and the rest of the
fellowship perished at the gates of Mordor. Gondor, Rohan, and all free peoples
are brought under the subjugation of Mordor. The End.
Tolkien’s version
of Nineteen-Eighty-Four: First the title is changed to The 16th Year of Big Brother’s
Reign – Oceania Reckoning. The rest of the novel goes off as Orwell
described until Winston Smith and Julia begin their clandestine relationship.
Winston and Julia come in contact with the underground resistance, which they
learn has been aided recently by a magical race of beings known as urban elves.
The elves by cunning and craft, and occasional garrote, have developed
elaborate means to traverse Oceania undetected. They use this freedom of movement
to recruit more forces for the resistance and to prepare several weapons caches
in strategic locations. All that is lacking is the prophetic appearance of
Bigbrokaput, or in the common tongue – He who will kill Big Brother. Winston is
declared to be the long awaited Bigbrokaput, by virtue of arm wrestling, or a
trivia contest, or ability to solve Rubik’s cube – the certain account is lost
to us. During a special rendition of the Two Minute Hate – special because it
is scheduled to last four minutes, though it is inexplicably not renamed the
Four Minute Hate – but during the HATE rendition, Winton is ushered by the
urban elves through a labyrinth of secret passages, only to emerge at the
central studios of the inner party, where he kills Big Brother on camera for
all of Oceania to witness. Winston is proclaimed Emperor, but he only rules
long enough to outlaw newspeak and leisure suits. He institutes a general
election and retires from public service. Winston is quickly forgotten as the
great hero of New Oceania, but he is perfectly content. He and Julia retire to
the country, have two sons, George and Lennie, and raise rabbits.
Next year perhaps:
what if Cormac McCarthy wrote The Little Prince and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
wrote No Country for Old Men.
