1984

Rating:
Summary: The King of the "Dystopias"
Review: I read Animal Farm in junior high and then picked up 1984 because Animal Farm was such an interesting read. Needless to say, I was not ready for the horror of 1984. Animal Farm tells the tragedy of a revolution against tyranny sliding into its own tyranny but it tells the story through the eyes of pigs and horses and dogs. 1984 not only tells the story through human eyes, but it tells a much more horrifying tale of the ease with which people with modern propaganda and technological tools can form a seemingly invincible totalitarian government with popular support.

Although this may sound a bit trite, Orwell also gives everyone reading 1984 a wake-up call about how easy it is to give away freedom and how easy it is for a government to use any decrease in people's vigilance regarding their own freedoms and turn the world into a nightmare.

One of the interesting parts of the book is the fact that the government in 1984 is creating a new language of drastically decreased vocabulary and increased technobabble that will stop people from being able to think and speak creatively or to find the words to rebel against totalitarian rule.

However, in writing the book, Orwell himself created an entirely new vocabulary to discuss overreaching and totalitarian government. Terms like "Big Brother," "thought police," "thought crime" and, to a lesser degree "double think" as well as the title of the book itself have become parts of our vocabulary in fighting against totalitarianism. Thus, in imagining a world in which the government is doing away with people's ability to speak out, Orwell helped spawn a whole vocabulary to help people protest.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful Book, A must read - again...
Review: 1984 has some of the most powerful images of totalitarian authority and lasting depictions of a world devoid of moral structure -- of any work from the 20th century. Yet, the greatest contribution of Orwell to our present day is his critique of language and it's effects via his fiction.

As O'Brian says to Winston "You're not very good at metaphysics." If you want to understand the philosophical ramifications of relativism this book is a great place to start or, if you read it in a literature class a while ago and currently have an interest in ethology, deontology, aretology, moral philosophy and ontology, a must read - again.

Morality can only be viewed as a positive, yet even now our language has begun to be distorted by subjective interpretations of our words. Example: Do we have a positive moral structure or a negative moral structure? -- There is only one *moral* structure. This book lays out the frame work of a society engineered on the basis of definition control. Vocabulary is perverted to serve the machine.

This is the world we can choose to create or destroy.

Rating:
Summary: Required Reading for every intelectual and all others!
Review: Walter Cronkite said that this story has .."a power that seems to grow rather than lessen with the passage of time."

This story is even more relevant today than it ever was. If you want to understand today's events and where we might be going- READ THIS BOOK! Any thinking person will see the relevance, all of those less cerebral should still take the time and either read or listen to the audio verion of this story.

I simply cannot emphasize enough how vital a part of your personal library this book should become.

Rating:
Summary: Stuff
Review: I agree with this review because I felt exactly the same way that he did. While I was reading the book I feared for all of humanity and the possible future. After I finished reading the book my heart also dropped. The review had a kind of half negative feel, which is how I felt. It was a great book but it just gave me a negative feeling the whole time I read it.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best novels ever written
Review: Big Brother is watching and I don't mean the reality tv series. This book is not only an interesting read, it also holds a deeper meaning. It is a window through which the possible dangers of communism/socialism in the extreme can be viewed. A comparison can also be made to Plato's idea of a utopia.
This book makes one question the validity of our own past and reality as we know it.

Rating:
Summary: Big Brother is STILL watching you.
Review: When I first read this book in high school, it effected me like no other book since. What Orwell was trying to get across was not solely the terror of despotism by the way that the spirit of man can be esily crushed by the very people we have voted into office. I highly recommend this book and dare the reader to find the similarities in our society and that of 1984.

Rating:
Summary: Dare you learn the truth?
Review: One of the most frightening and important books ever written! It is even more frightening when you realize the world Orwell imagined in his darkest nightmares is the world we live in today. You will never watch a NEWS broadcast or read a NEWS paper again without a serious doubt. Orwell was trying to tell us back then where we were heading, today is the proof we didn't listen. Every person should read this book once, before it doesn't exist anymore.....

Rating:
Summary: Thinking Book (Review written by Muad'Dib)
Review: This is a really wierd book. In the beginning it starts out like any country in a war, but later it delves deeper. The world being controlled by three super-powers that (if you read to Goldstein's book) would supposedly, and I agree, would gain absolutly nothing from all this. The are simply trying to use excess junk. Anyways, Orwell did an amazing job on this book, creating several radically new ideas for the time, including creating Newspeak, Big Brother (which was the basis for the show "Big Brother"), and, the worst, Thoughtcrime. Anyways, this is DEFINATELY not a childs book, so you should keep it out of the hands of anyone ignorant to the world. It makes you think of the present, and the future. If you like Orwell's books you'll LOVE Animal Farm.

Rating:
Summary: Scary and Eye-opening
Review: As I read this book I was struck by the similarities of events in this book, and our own society, and how we seem to be moving closer to this sort of existance. In a world where 'big brother' knows all and sees all through covert cameras, microphones, and secret police you can't even have freedom of thought. Freedom of speech has long since become something of the mythical past, people can't even fathom what it could be like.....but, just maybe someone can? Could there be an underground revoloution? And can they get away with the horrible thought: "Down with Big Brother"

This book is so relevant to our world today. Power corrupts, and absoulute power corrupts absoutely. This begs the question, how much power will we allow our own government to have over our lives, even when it's for our protection?

Rating:
Summary: 1984 spectacle
Review: 1984 Review

George Orwell's novel, 1984 is classic, thought provoking literature that everyone should read. 1984 relates to many of the radical ideas of the communist era. Orwell points out the fake reality portrayed by the government with his incorporation of such things as "victory cigarettes and victory gin." This story exhibits the reality of life in many small, exploited countries.

The exaggerated ideals 1984 expresses, represents the oppression felt by many in the world that is gilded by a thought of true freedom. The story is very descriptive and allows the reader to feel the true emotions that the main character, Winston Smith is feeling. Orwell shows that in our world everything is deceptive to reality. Conformity is the main concern for the masses working for the elite and even the name Winston Smith is symbolic for this lack of individualistic qualities. This book shows the militaristic tactics used by the government of "Big Brother" to inspire people to work and keep an interest in the common good. Every four years the government of Oceana started a fake war with one of the other two super powers to maintain the work ethic and inspiration of the slaving people in the middle class. Winston represents all people who rebel against the system and know that the illusions presented by the government of aristocrats are wrong. He represents the middle class which work as tools of the elite and the proletarians are the people who the government leaves to their own ignorance. 1984 holds a great amount of symbolism and connects fiction with the real world. This book is a must read for everyone and to me, quite possibly one of the greatest books ever written.