Jamie Iredell
In One Note, Gabe Blackwell asks writers to talk about the book they are currently reading, and why. One Note 001: Jamie Iredell, George Orwell, 1984.
In One Note, I ask writers for just that: one note, a single paragraph, on what they’re reading right now.
Today’s note comes courtesy of Jamie Iredell.
I’m reading Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four. It’s one of those classics that I always wanted to read and never got around to, and a beat up copy has been disintegrating on a bookshelf for years. Often, I’ll use teaching as an excuse to read a classic that I’ve missed, so that’s what’s happening now. My English 101 students are reading and writing about it, so I am too. I’ve read a lot of Orwell’s nonfiction and always liked it. He’s got such strong convictions and often tosses personal paradoxes around. The prose style is the reserved clarity of the post-war era (think Steinbeck). So it’s kind of refreshing to go back to that after reading so much contemporary lit, where there’s a good amount of fireworks going off — not that I dislike flamboyant prose (I’d like for people to say that I do it myself). And it’s fun to read about a bleak dystopia. I like darkness. By the end of next week, though, ultimately, when my students and I have finished working with this book, I’ll be able to say “Yes, I’ve read that.”
Jamie Iredell has written two books: Prose. Poems. a Novel., and The Book of Freaks. He lives in Atlanta.
