NINETEEN EIGHTY FOUR!
Oh so important. "Winston and His Diary" and "Everything Fades Into Mist" are especially core. How do I describe the core? The soul, yes, but there is more to it. The feeling of looking out into the grey place, or the sunny but blurred and distant place, experiencing the weight of something more and somewhere else, remembering the dugout, the before world, the better world. Carrying everything, needing the weight in order to "understand something." An innate melancholy which seasons all other sensations. A benign melancholy that is worth holding on to. Memories of a younger self, of all the firsts.
In 2020, "Julia and Winston" got me thinking way too deeply into a timeline. I hope to draw something about it someday. It makes sense to be wary of the person who does not value their own life. If you have nothing to live for, you might as well drag others down with you.