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Summary: Another great book by Orwell...
Review: This is THE most depressing book I have ever read. It's just so hopeless. It actually made me CRY at the end. It's a really good insight into collectivism and totalitarianism. Just an all around good book.
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Summary: Frightening when we see how this is what some plan for us
Review: More relevant than ever over 50 years after it was written.It is more frightening than any Steven King novel because this is where we are heading if we are not vigilant. Too many on the left are still hellbent in plunging us into a worldwide Orwellian nightmare. Just observe their obsessive Orwellism, where aggressors are defenders and defenders are aggressors, where justice is injustice and injustice is justice, where war is peace and peace is war, where freedom fighters are terrorists and terrorists are freedom fighters, and with its total lack of interest in facts and truth. Despite the chilling socio-political warning the book still shows us an endearingly poignant portrayal of humanity and love struggling to survive in totalitarian society which will not stop at anything to stamp out all that is good and compassionate. Next time you hear anyone refer to anything disparagingly as 'borgeois' think of the alternative to love,honour,fair play and all the noble things that some brand 'bourgeois' and therefore plan to destroy
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Summary: Absolutely not for optimists and fairly tale seekers.
Review: If you are looking for a story in which the 'good' always gets their way in slayering the 'evil', then this book is not for you. With some knowledge of Orwell's critism, political beliefs, views on society, and hatre towards totalism, from having to have read some of his political essays, it seems like Orwell was expressing his outcry towards the world through this chilling, hatefull novel, astonishingly. Kudos to Mr. Orwell for sending his vision out in a 'story' form, in which is more efficient in getting out to the people. I pray that his fear would become the fear of every person in the world, and work together to stay away from it. Turn "Freedom is Slavery" into Freedom is Liberty, and all shall deserve it.
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Summary: This is where we're headed folks
Review: The ideas in this book are ones that are as appropriate now as when Orwell first wrote them. In this time (2001), we have our "Two Minutes Hate" with Osama bin Laden. Many of the principles that Orwell writes about (e.g., thought control) are done in a quite blatant way in the book. In the real world of the 20th/21st century they're done, only much more subtly. That way, we don't know they being perpetrated on us. Here's how 1984 applies to current events: WAR IS PEACE The new "War on Terrorism" is being sold as a guarantor or our safety. While this war is being waged, we're to accept permanent war as a fact of life. As the unavoidable slaughter of innocents unfolds overseas, we are told to go back to "living our lives." FREEDOM IS SLAVERY "Freedom itself was attacked," Bush said. He's right, though here's the twist: Americans are about to lose many of their most cherished freedoms in a frenzy of paranoid legislation. The government wants to tap our phones, read our email and seize our credit card records without court order. Further, it wants authority to detain and deport immigrants without cause or trial. To save freedom, we have to destroy it. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH America's "new war" against terrorism will be fought with unprecedented secrecy, including press restrictions not seen for years, the Pentagon has advised. When you read this book, you'll be better able to see the signs around you. The world portrayed by Orwell may well come to pass by the end of this century.
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Summary: Too bad it's coming true...
Review: thanks to right wing Republicans and Christians in this country.
Great book! He was truly a visionary, how he predicted this coming.
Good bye civil liberties!
Rating: 
Summary: Where to begin?
Review: I wouldn't know. I don't even know how to rate this book, 1 star for the spectacularly morose and hopeless ending, or 5 stars because of the wondrous writing and story-telling ability of Mr. Orwell. I've always read books to hear a story, sort of a movie for the mind if you will. In those books I pick one or more characters that I can understand and develop sympathies with, as I did almost immediately with Winston in this book. As the setting opens, I saw this bleak, horrible future where there is no hope, where all thoughts are literally monitored by the Thought Police, where individuality is crime. And as Winston trudges through life I followed along, pulling for him, hoping for the guy, always in the back of my mind that it *will* get better for him and all the others, only if a way is found to make that happen. I recognized Big Brother as evil, and I wanted and still want to see him overthrown in my mind...the setting of the book practically demands his/thier downfall. And then Orwell gives you hope, as Winston and newly acquired lover Julia join a resistance movement to attempt to undermine the current regime and set in place one that will better itself and more importantly it's citizens. I hoped for these people, I suffered with them. Orwell's writing is magnificent in that he makes you care about the characters he writes about as if you know them personally, which is why what he does at the end of this book is nothing short of criminal. Even after thier capture by the Thought Police and thier torture and incarceration I couldn't help but think that somehow Winston would manage to escape and help throw down the shackles of Big Brother, but in the end all hope is ripped away. I still shake my head sadly when recalling this book feeling as though I've been cheated by the experience, with only the warning that socialism and communism do not work. Ironic that Orwell himself was a socialist, and that the ultimate bane to the world he describes is and always will be capitalism. Recommended only for someone who will take this book and digest it as a worst case scenario for human life, and learn from it.
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Summary: The most terrifying book I've read so far.
Review: "1984" is a wonderfuly written book, but I woudn't recomend it as a before bed read. I ended up reading the last chapters while laying in bed. Big mistake! I would also not recomend this book to people under 13, or even 14. I'm 13, and I almost wish I had waited a couple years before reading it. In the climax of the story, I started crying from fear, and I'm constanly having to reasure myself that the world is not like that, and never will be. Don't get me wrong, I loved the book, and I encourage anyone who doesn't mind aquiring a slight sense of paranoia, to read it.
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Summary: A Dark World
Review: This book was nothing like I thought it was going to be. George Orwell saw how dim the world could be and he took it a step further into the future. The main character Winston Smith represents a world trying to reach for freedom and more than just a existence. He struggles with not conforming to Big Brother and in the end he fails. This book makes me think of what could have been but has not in America. I would recommend this book to anyone who needs another look at the freedom that we have.
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Summary: The best book I've ever read
Review: Sad, beautiful, nauseating, incredible, believable. All in one text. A masterpiece of the twentieth century. If you haven't read it yet, you owe this to yourself!
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Summary: Grim and Well-Written; Are We Headed There?
Review: I've read this book twice: as an adolescent as required reading in a literature class, and as an adult. It was creepy but unbelievable (to me) the first time. Now, I'm not so sure. George Orwell's masterpiece holds two important themes: political parties controlling what people say, do, and even think; everyone watching, monitoring, or spying on everyone else. I think that we are still far away from the first aspect. It was attempted in the former Soviet Union, and is still being tried in Communist China and Cuba, but those experiments have failed in many ways. After more than seventy years of outlawing religion in the Soviet Union, it quickly resurfaced after the fall of communist control; suppression does not equal erasure. What would have happened if it had continued another seventy years? Who knows. But thought control is MUCH harder than behavior control (which isn't easy either). As to the second theme of everyone watching everyone else, we are slowly drifting in that direction. In didn't happen by 1984, as Orwell feared, and our drift in that direction is more for safety reasons than for reasons of political control, but the slow crawl is there. Before the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01, there was a big debate about the police in various cities using surveillance on the public to catch wanted criminals. Many people were outraged. My feelings were mixed, because of the potential for violation of civil liberties AND the potential to catch dangerous criminals. Where was the lesser harm? Now, following the terrorist attacks, we are pushed, by necessity, one step closer to Big Brotherism. If you don't think so, visit your local airport, if you can get in. Is this bad? I don't know. Is it necessary? Yes. Risk of further crime and terrorism is weighed against safety. Again, where is the lesser harm? It's not an easy question, but we will have to answer it. Sociopolitical implications aside, George Orwell's "1984" is a well-written, imaginative, deep book about serious and thought-provoking issues. I can't call it "enjoyable", but it definitely is valuable and well-done and pertinent.
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