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Summary: An amazing classic!
Review: I sat up until 6 am to finish this book. It's gloomy, depressing, yes, but also very good. Lots of surprises in the most unexpected places, a very original plot, and very good quality of writing. I have never read a book that makes you realise how lucky you are to be living in a society like this. I think it would've even made people in concentration camps feel good about themselves.I think after you fight your first shock of the depression that this book brings, you will realise how nice it is to live wherever you live. All in all, great book, a true masterpiece. Buy it. It's only $7 anyway.
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Summary: Powerful
Review: I finished this book yesterday evening, and haven't felt quite right since. Winston's plight is the most harrowing read I've ever experienced. I knew that he would be converted but I didn't want to believe it and the end was shocking. How Orwell managed to write this book is beyond me. I would recommend this book to everyone, it really opens your mind and is a thrilling read. Thank god for freedom!
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Summary: Chilling
Review: Reading this book was a thrilling experience... Especially "The Manifest"...
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Summary: political statement
Review: Nineteen Eighty-Four is not and never has been just a year. Nor is the world portrayed by George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four a place or even merely a set of political or social circumstances. Rather, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a state of mind, a way of being, an atmosphere in which the dark side of our nature lives and turns all around it darker still. It is a time or place which we create when we turn away from the light that is within us, within each individual self, to the empty darkness of group will and psychology; of "massmindedness". Thus do we create for ourselves to live in the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Orwell's "fiction" of a world in which, but for a lingering echo, individuality had all but passed into extinction, could have been set in any time or place where "massmindedness" is paramount and where the individual exists merely to serve the group. Throughout history, most religions have preached, most governments have practiced and most societies have been organized around such "massmindedness". It is only the calendar which might confuse and comfort us, which might convince us that Nineteen Eighty-Four was merely a gruesome story about a time and place that never was nor could ever be. But nothing is further from the truth. And the simple truth is that Nineteen Eighty-Four is NOW. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, there are no heroes, except as an idea, an ideal may be said to be a hero. All of its characters are exceedingly human, and this is what makes Nineteen Eighty-Four both timely and timeless, both powerful and profoundly pathetic. Nineteen Eighty-Four is often upsetting, sometimes disheartening, but, when its main lesson is learned, never depressing. It is fundamentally a story of hope, of a truth which can be discovered (although too late for all concerned); a truth which can be seen by us and taken as not only our ideal, but as the practical guide by which, to a greater or lesser extent, we can avoid the very pitfalls which consumed Winston and Julia and O'Brien and Big Brother, and liberate ourselves from the tyrany and ultimate destructiveness of the group and its massminded stranglehold on our minds, our hearts and our souls. Nineteen Eighty-Four is a simple story of faith wrongly placed. Winston Smith, its main character, searches to escape the suffocating and oppressive world manipulated by and for a ruling group, The Party. He believes that he is seeking a political, a social solution with which he can combat, can destroy the evil of group-think and the "massmindedness" in which he lives. Instead, he finds the most exquisitely human, individual "weapon" with which to pursue his salvation: love. But, as we humans are too often prone to do, Winston overlooks what is simple and obvious, what is at hand, and, even as do those he disdains, he puts his faith in another group, The Brotherhood. (It is not for Winston to realize that his answer lies in the idea and practice of "brotherhood", rather than in the imaginary purity of "The Brotherhood".) In the end, Winston is betrayed not by his enemies, but, in a real sense, by himself, by his failure to see the worth in the object of his own worship; the individual and the emotional life with which he or she can find their own peace and presence, even in a world gone apparently mad. Winston, with his male oriented solution, seeks one group to combat another group, while Julia, a woman, brings the possibility of true salvation to him (and them) in the idea and practice of individual love. Julia knows the truth, and what is worthwhile, but Winston (the very name of the great male war leader of Orwell's recent past) plunges on ahead, seeking a "political", "social" solution (not unlike the many male "leaders" of all time past). This may be a small (or maybe the greatest) point of the book. It is an instructive book; there is a good deal of What Every Young Person Ought to Know - not in 1984, but 1949. Mr Orwell's analysis of the lust for power is one of the less satisfactory contributions to our enlightenment, and he also leaves us in doubt as to how much he means by poor Smith's "faith" in the people (or "proles"). Smith is rather let down by the 1984 Common Man, and yet there is some insinuation that common humanity remains to be extinguished.
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Summary: THIS BOOK IS REALLY ABOUT USA TODAY!
Review: Do not make the mistake of thinking that Orwell was predicting what might come. He was already aware that Big Brother was here and not so well. Since the publishing of this fine book, BB has perfected his techniques. We are about to relinquish with little fight the last remnants of freedom and privacy our parents once had. I read front page articles of people saying that they don't mind the government opening and reading their mail! "I HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE." This is the mentality that leads straight to the gulug or in our case privately owned and operated prisons (the next big franchise business!) In the name of NATIONAL SECURITY we bend over and spread them with trembling fingers. americans no longer should be allowed to refer to themselves as the land of the free and the home of the brave. We are neither! If you want to read a book that is even easier to understand, that connects the dots for you, read How to Save America and the World by Joseph Francione. Or do nothing and wait for your your chains.
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Summary: Politically Dated...but Masterfully Written
Review: Everyone knows of double-speak, Room 101, and Big Brother. They have become a part of common knowledge, much as 1984 has become the flagship for the genre of the Dystopia. But what truly matters is how good of a read 1984 is, and how well Orwell fills the pages that you'll courageously flip through. Well, the word that best describes 1984 is: harrowing. Each sentences radiates a mood of despair: constant paranoia, unnecissary injustice, paradoxical regulations, torture, fear, etc. And of course, that mood Orwell creates will captivate you. You'll eat the pages; you'll cringe, you'll smirk at the ridiculousness of what you're reading, and you'll love it. Read this book not becuase of the political propaganda, or to understand the termanology that has become a part of our vocalbulary. Read this book because it is a well-written, entertaining read.
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Summary: A Little Far-Fetched
Review: I have read many reviews that consider this book a "warning" and seem to think that this is the direction that American society is heading. Personally, I find it a little hard to believe that the American society that so treasures its freedom of thought and actions, as well as its privacy, could ever evolve into the society described in this book. I did, however, enjoy the book and would recommend it, but not as a "warning". If anything, it would, perhaps, make the reader value his own freedom.
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Summary: So Believable
Review: After I read this book, I became paranoid for day, because I truly BELIEVED every word of the book! I was absolutely shocked. The setting of this book doesn't seem very far from where our history is now. With all of the technological advances happening now, especially with nanotechnology, the survalence on the people in America and elsewhere could very well get to this incredulous state.
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Summary: Great Book!!
Review: 1984 is one of the great Big Brother books to read. Pretty freaky how close to reality it actually is.
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Summary: One of the best books I have read!
Review: 1984 is indeed one of the best books I have read, its a books that got you thinking about the events happening around you and getting you to arrive to your own conclusions. I do not think that a long continnous read is desired for this book, its a book that should be read in smaller sections and then *absorbed*, rather then in a long contineous run which in the end the reader fails to grasp the smaller more important details of the book. In visiting literary post boards, and from people's reactions in school (high school that is), I have noticed many people fail to see the clear difference between Bigbrother-ism and communism.
Is Communism the same thing as Bigbrother-ism? To be frank, the answer would be an stern no. If you have paid enough attention to Emmanuel Goldstein's essay on "War is Peace" (chapter 3 of Goldstien's book) you should have noticed that the constant warfare is support by the government of the 3 powers (Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia) because without constant warfare a hierarchical society would cease to exist! The goal of communism is certainly not the existance of a hierachical socieity, but rather the elimnation of one. Stalinism, Maoism and perhaps even Leninism is not true communism, but a distorted version of communism, Stalinism, one can honestly say, is something that resmbles Bigbrother-ism. The constant warfare, as explained by Goldstein, is to prevent the build up of WEALTH in the general people. If WEALTH was evenly distrubuted, then POWER would be impossible to remain to a small privileged elite, therefore in order to have power, warfare is needed to take away wealth from the people and spent on military purposes. Therefore, one would be utterly mistaken to think of communism (the word "commune" as base) as the same thing as Bigbrother-ism. What Orwell offers us in 1984 is not something completely fantastic but very much likely to occur in the near future. Keeping secrets from the general masses, lies and propganda and the distoration of certain truths exists in all of the powerful "democratic" states. Orwell's Big brother simply goes a step beyond the conventional control and offers us a view of extreme control, in which only a small amount of people actually notices it. Rather, the general mass accepts it and whole-heartedly welcomes it (same as some of the general masses today), a very horrific thing to see. All in all, Orwell's book offers us a great, relavent story and desveres to be read by all who has an interest in our political future.
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