Hooray for TB?

The article linked above is rather interesting...brief and not very deep in its theory, but interesting. The theory is that if Orwell hadn't been so sick with TB that maybe 1984, his great opus of big government wouldn't have been so dark and oppressive. However, he was a kind of gloom-and-doom type before 1984, and his advetures in the Spanish Civil War may have played more of a part in the book.

Personally, I think a chipper, happy-go-lucky 1984 is depressing. Without the overwhelming sense of paranoia of Big Brother, and the sense of confusion with doublethink, 1984 wouldn't be a masterpiece of mid-century writing.