NationStates Jolt Archive

Ever since I read it, Jennifer Government became a personal favorite.
I compare it to my other favorite: George Orwell's "1984."

Even though they are on completely different sides of the scale,
they share one simalarity:

- They both represent the EXTREMES of governments

Does anyone else have any more similarities? Or maybe further comparison between Jennifer Government and 1984?

We in the Nation of Independent Ulster are still awaiting its publication.. not due still for another 3-4 months. Being in a position of power, I have managed to secure a copy as soon as it is published in the British Isles :wink:

Niádh O'Téach

I've read both JG and 1984, and can note some similarites between them, but I think that there are more parallels between JG and the movie Brazil, which I would suggest to anyone who enjoys JG and 1984.

I haven't gotten ahold of JG yet, but I've been meaning to - comparisons to Brazil mean I will expedite my efforts to get ahold of it. Awesome movie.

Now I wanna watch it. Curse you, Elde Island! *rummages*

I haven't read Jennifer Governement yet, but however I have read "Nineteen Eighty Four". It is a literary classic and the issues it raises are amazing. I find the political system in the book amazing. How the government cancels out the proles mentioned in the great quote: "To become consious they must rebel, but to rebel they must become consious."

Anthony Burgess, of "A Clockwork Orange" fame actually wrote a semi-sequeal to "1984", entitled logically enough, "1985".

The world it posits is very similar in satirical feel to "Jennifer Government".

I'd also recomend Kurt Vonnegut's "Player Piano".

It's a funny ol' world :)

Anthony Burgess, of "A Clockwork Orange" fame actually wrote a semi-sequeal to "1984", entitled logically enough, "1985".

OH MY GOD, YOU'RE KIDDING! I must read this book! ^^;;

i think they both have interesting views of a realistic future. obviously extreme examples of different types of governments are used to make a point. i think both focus on how easily a government can become corrupt. wether it's power as in 1984 or money as in jg. both great books.

My political science teacher got off on a bent about 1984 and what a topical and poignant work it still is even today. I have extreemly different political views than his own, but im able to defend my stances with the material he teaches me so he has to swallow it... also he just likes to have a good dramatic roaring argument in the classroom, he dosnt like to be acused of being boring.

so anyway he starts saying how pertenint, even to our times, 1984 is, and how prophetic Orwell was, and i stood right up and laughed in his face. I pulled out Jennifer Government which i had just finished that morning, and began to tear apart his theorys, telling him how communisim was dead, socialism is on its way to collapsing, just look at scandinava, and America is on an endless upward soar that is assimalating the entire world. Not only that but we are voting republican again, they are going to slash the size of the government once they blow their rocks on justifying their big defence budgets by attacking somone who wasnt expecting it. Then we are going to get another Democratic government because everyone is going to remember "Oh yeah, thats why we fucking hate having republicans in office" and they are going to force their free trade adjendas again, we are going to be far more like the world of Jennifer Government in 16 years than we will be like 1984 in the next 100.

Ever since I read it, Jennifer Government became a personal favorite.
I compare it to my other favorite: George Orwell's "1984."

Even though they are on completely different sides of the scale,
they share one simalarity:

- They both represent the EXTREMES of governments

Does anyone else have any more similarities? Or maybe further comparison between Jennifer Government and 1984?

I've read JG and 1984 (as well as Clockwork Orange and Player Piano, if anyone asks), and while there are similarities, one must realize that these similarities are mainly a product of the fact that 1984 is a sf classic. JG is clearly a cyberpunk novel, so one should read Gibson's Neuromancer first.

The only books I rate above Jennifer Government are Catch-22, Stranger in a Strange Land, and Starship Troopers, in that order.

I can see a few similarities between JG and 1984, although I'd put Barry's creation a lot closer to Huxley's Brave New World. I believe that JG is more concerned with media and commercialism than attacking the Government and the political status quo. Brave new World is less bleak and more colourful than Orwell's creation, and the overall setting and theme is similar to the technocrat era that you see in JG, Neuromancer, and the computer game Syndicate.

I can't find JG where I am, and I can't order it online due to lack of credit card!

Have you checked the library? Ours has it.

Actually, though I can see where comparisons to 1984 and other "dystopian" novels would come in, I thought Jennifer Government most closely resembled Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. If you liked one, you'll like the other; Stephenson's book also deals with a dark franchise-filled future, and it opens with a fantastically action-packed, over-the-top scene in which a pizza boy working for a Mafia-owned chain REALLY REALLY has to deliver in 30 minutes or less :D

Have you checked the library? Ours has it.

Our library is so small it doesn't even have that many books, muc less Jennifer Government.

the point remains, JG is one of the best cautionary political novels since 1984. it's probably much more likely than 1984 ever was

Well, I have yet to read it. This site was suggested to me by a friend, but I am going to pick up JG when I pick up the new HP book(yes, I know, the two don't really go hand in hand, do they).

Big ups with the "Snow Crash" comparison...they are quite alike in many respects, though Snow Crash is more of the traditional SF stance, with higher order tech and the like, many shared concepts, such as the security forces for-hire and the like. In fact, I recommend it to everyone. I love JG, buts Snow Crash has this way of really getting my rocks off. With a main character named Hiro Protagonist, how can you go wrong?

With a main character named Hiro Protagonist, how can you go wrong?

Cheers to that! :D You know what I really enjoyed about Snow Crash, though, was the idea behind it -- of a virus transmissible from computer to human. Yeah, yeah, we all thought Andromeda Strain was cool, but this... this is about how intimate the relationship between human and machine is becoming. So bioviruses can wreck your body, big deal, that's billion-year-old news... but infoviruses wrecking a brain? Fascinating.

...Eh. What is really starting to make me appreciate JG is that the stupid president of the USA resembles el John Nike more and more every day... so I like JG the way I like truth, which is not the way I like pecan pie. I greet one with acceptance and resolution and the other with drool.

After you read Jennifer Government, you should check out Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron and Buckley's Thank You For Smoking.

I'd compare it more to Animal Farm, but I haven't read 1984 yet.

As somebody who loves 1984 as a book and an allegory, I cannot see that it is similar to JG (which I enjoyed). They are similar in that they both represent dsytopias (opposite of utopia: worst imaginable environment). Like Animal Farm, Clockwork Orange, The Handmaiden's Tale, or We (by Alexander Zamyatin, the first dystopian book written), JG operates and for a large part bases its plot on its environment.

Obviously, the politics are different. In 1984, Winston Smith consumes Victory Cigarettes and Victory Alcohol...the black market is condemned and the state clearly supplies the lion's share of goods to consumers. In fact, one of its main actions is to use up goods in unnecessary wars. In JG, the government barely does much of anything, aside from occasional law enforcement.

The keys in 1984 are a)constant surveillance by the government and b)demand that all inhabitants embrace that system. In JG, we see little to no surveillance by corporations or governments (remember, the key to 1984 is the overarching authority of the state, whereas in JG there is little authority, as it iis the subject of a struggle between corporations and government). Neither force in JG apparently has the capability to track such important characters as Jennifer herself.

And I saw no evidence that consumers are forced to consume. None. Aside from slick marketing campaigns, there is no force to impel consumers to accept the system. In Airstrip One in 1984, Party members are not expected to *accept* the system, but actively *support* it. Thus the brainwashing of Smith and Julia. Thus the brainwashing of the children. O'Brien quite frankly acknowledges the goal of entrenching the current system not by making better shoes, but by eliminating the ability to consider or literally phrase an alternative.

So let's be frank. Jennifer Government lives in a very different world than Winston Smith. They both stink to live in, but that's the only similarity.

(a coda: my hardcover version has a world map of the back cover. Strange that aside from Indonesia gaining Malaysia's portion of Borneo, and the uniting of the island of Hispanola, the JG world has not redrawn a single border. I'd expect 20 years down the line to see some changes -- the Koreas uniting, perhaps, or the secession of Chechnya, Quebec, or Tamil Eelam. Curious.)

And I saw no evidence that consumers are forced to consume. None.

The only thing "forcing" people to consume would be the mind set of the people. I think that is one of the few parallels between JG and 1984. There is a kind of brainwashing happening in JG, but it is far, far more overt in 1984.

(a coda: my hardcover version has a world map of the back cover. Strange that aside from Indonesia gaining Malaysia's portion of Borneo, and the uniting of the island of Hispanola, the JG world has not redrawn a single border. I'd expect 20 years down the line to see some changes -- the Koreas uniting, perhaps, or the secession of Chechnya, Quebec, or Tamil Eelam. Curious.)

I have that as well. I think the purpose of the map was less to show what the world is likely to look like, as opposed to showing the near total dominance of the United States, and the so-called Anglo-sphere. Actually, I had just read and article about the Anglo-sphere when my copy of JG arrived, and it was almost frightening how close the two were.

I agree that the most profound similarity between 1984 and Jennifer Government is the fact that the worlds they portray present us with two extremes, both of which are uncomfortably close to present-day reality in the West. On one hand an all-seeing totalitarian dictatorship which watches and influences the lives of all people, and controls history itself. On the other hand, a shallow soulless consumerist society in which government is adrift powerless and no-one cares about anyone else, to the extent that most people could meet their end in the street without anyone helping, or seeking justice.

It is difficult to make other observations, as the worlds are so different and one book was a serious novel, and the other a light-hearted satire. They are simply not readily compared. The male hero in each is a miserable, down-trodden low-status employee, but that isn't much of an observation, as that type of (tried and tested) character is pretty common in literature.

Come to think of it, many of the characters in Jennifer Government were somewhat formulaic - the evil corporate baddie, the attractive female government agent Who Won't Give Up, the money-maker with a soul, the sweet sensitive girl who secretly loves but goes unnoticed, etc. Even Billy NRA, who is a truly hilarious character and the only one with any claim to originality, reminded me of Nicolas Cage's incompetent robber in Raising Arizona. If you have read Jennifer Government but have not seen Raising Arizona, get it on video and watch it. By halfway through, you will see what I mean.

But this does not really detract from the book. It was an entertaining corporate satire, that's all.