1984

Rating:
Summary: A misunderstood book
Review: George Orwell was a dedicated communist, but not in the Stalinist sense. Here he takes not just Stalinism to task, but also all societies that manipulate their citizens. If you don't think that western capitalism does not observe and manipulate you, think again. It is doing exactly that, but not using the technologies that Orwell conjured up in the 1940's. Read Vance Packard 'The people shapers' for an analysis of the scientific use of market research for getting into our heads and manipulating and exploting our basic needs and desires. Why else do politicians all mostly run the same lines and have their spin doctors in control of their pronouncements.

Rating:
Summary: Wow! Incredible book!
Review: One of the most unbelieveable books I've ever read! This shows what will happen if we keep allowing our dependence on government to grow and keep electing DEMONcRATS.

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Summary: History of The Comunist World
Review: No amount of positive reviewing will do justice to the importance and beauty of this book - you have to read if for yourself. What I really want to review are the reviews of some reviewers from Wstern countries. They like the book, but their reviews are of the kind 'This is a book about a hypothetical totalitarian dictatorshp, ..., etc.' What is wrong, is the word 'hypothetical' This book could have been titled 'Bits of the History of the Communist World (albeit a little allegorical)'

I don't know what people born in the West understand in this book. Not much perhaps. The very fact that Orwell is the ONLY Westerner I know of to have written an accurate description (though a bit allegorical) of communism in practice, suggests that most Westerners couldn't understand what was happening in the communist world. I suggest that they read it for what it is: History cast into an allegorical novel.

Now an example or two. There was a famous picture in history textbooks in communist countries. Lenin in a podium holding a speech, his hand streched to the masses listening. On his left you could see Stalin. Everyone of my age has seen this picture. What most people haven't seen, though, is an older version of it: Lenin holding a speech, and on his left, Trotsky. (Winston's job right)

Now my country (Albania) was great friends with USSR, until 1961, that is. Albania broke up with USSR (considering USSR a traitor of real socialism), to advance real socialism together with China. Not for ever of course - in 1978 China became a traitor of real socialism, too, having in fact never been really socialist. There was a famous picture in Albanian history textbooks. The Albanian B.B. (Enver Hoxha) was denouncing the betrayal of real socialism by the Soviet leadership. I have seen all three versions of this painting: In the first one, Enver Hoxha had Chou EnLai on one side and Mehmet Shehu (Albanian Prime Minister) on the other. This was valid between 1961 and 1978. When China betrayed socialism in 1978, Chou Enlai disappeared from the painting, and someone else took his stead. This second version lasted until 1981. That's because in 1981 Mehmet Shehu became a traitor, and 'was suicided'. So he disappeared from the painting, too. This is the last version of it. By the way, the painting stood in the Albanian National Art Gallery. Many people must have seen all three versions of it in original.

I could wrie a book longer than 1984, describing how accurate 1984 is.

Read 1984 as a history of the communist world; it is valid even for the four decades after Orwell's death.

Aleksander Coho

Rating:
Summary: It still may happen
Review: A disquieting novel, lucid and magnificent about totalitarianism. Winston Smith, an employee of the Minister of Truth, rebels against the dehumanized and mechanized world of 1984. He, a free thinker, hates the Party and Big Brother, as does Julia. She contacts him and they start a clandestine affair, in a world where passion is forbidden and sex is viewed with repulsion. O'Brien, another character, tells them that there is a secret society named "The Brotherhood", which fights against the Party. You will be chilled to know what happens next.

More than a novel, this book is a clear and horrible warning about totalitarianism and man's overwhelming lust for power, as well as about the misleading uses of technology. A terrifying view of what a society without history, memory, pleasure, love and family may become. It is not pure fiction: in 1984, the Soviet empire was beginning to be deconstructed, but for many years the story portrayed by Orwell had been basically real. There is no guarantee that it won't happen again. New technologies can be a blessing, a tool for the spread of freedom and information (e.g. we can exchange opinions in sites like this one), but they can also be terrible threats to privacy. There is no need to become paranoid after reading this book, but we would do well to be conscious of what might happen in the future (partly, because it has happened in the past). More relevant than ever, this book should be read and talked about. It can only be comforting to know that it is selling very well these days. So read it and think about it: you'll find traces of Orwell's society in the country you live in, no matter which one.

Rating:
Summary: A landmark book
Review: This book changed my life. I have talked to other people and they agree with me: once you read Orwell, you're not the same person anymore. Does conspiracy really exist?

Rating:
Summary: Hits a bit too close to home.
Review: It would be hyperbolic to say the world of Nineteen Eighty Four has arrived. But there are too many elements of today's society that evoke parts of the book. We hear a lot today about "Hate Crimes". A more accurate term for that concept is the one coined by Orwell -- "Thought Crimes". In fact, calling Thought Crimes by a different name in order to make the idea more palatable is simply a creative use of Newspeak/DoubleThink. I don't think I have to give examples of Big Brother -- you can supply your own. My point is that we may yet be a long way from a totalitarian state, but we have at least taken small steps in that direction -- and perhaps we should be concerned at how little we are resisting that movement.

Rating:
Summary: The Most Frightening Book I've Ever Read
Review: This book vividly portrays the most extreme end of socialism's slippery slope. The book is terrifying to read because the eery science fiction-like society which Orwell describes is not so inconceivable. I lived in Russia a few years ago and was struck by the cold impersonal drabness of everything. In the blank, hollow, empty eyes of many of Russia's elderly I saw how tyranny had literally erased personality. The spark of humanity which puts light in the eyes had been doused, and all that was left was a shell of a human being who was no longer a person, but merely a function with no independent thought. George Orwell's 1984 has existed to a large degree in totalitarian regimes of the past, and its radical egalitarian roots exist in society today. They seem to be an integral part of human nature's dark side.

Two things in this book were especially profound for me. First was Orwell's exposition of the social conflicts between the highs, the middles, and the lows, which Winston Smith read about in Goldstein's book. George Orwell understood totalitarianism well enough to see that equality is not socialism's end, but merely the propagandistic means for replacing the highs. Self-serving tyrants inevitably usurp socialism's ideals and use them to become the highs themselves, indulging themselves in privilege at the expense of the rest of society. After reading Goldstein's book, Winston understood the how, and O'Brien explained to him the why when he declared, chillingly, that power was an end in and of itself.

The second thing which struck me as profound was Orwell's exposition of Newspeak, the official language of Oceania which robbed people of their ability to think by robbing them of their ability to express thoughts in words. Rudimentary examples of doublethink, crimethink, and the thought police can be seen in various political groups within our society today.

This book is brilliant and prophetic, a must read for all those socialist utopians who have forgotten the dark realities of human nature.

Rating:
Summary: 1984 is 7 years past but is this future possible?
Review: WOW! The images in this book will stay with you for a long time. Depressing and Uplifting at the same time, this book is a must read, especially if you want to avoid our own future turning into the picture that Orwell paints here. This book is read in high schools all over the nation for a reason: it speaks about the human heart - both the darkness there and the and the longing for freedom.

Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: My class could do this for an extra credit grad and I am glad about that. This book is frightening realistic. The technology in this is possibly and some of its here, the government has come and gone in a lesser degree, and the issues faced are here. If someone with enough brains and had a hated enemy of the people, this government may come. The story is very believable and is a must read for casual and serious readers alike.

Rating:
Summary: A lesson to be remembered...and learned from!
Review: 1984 is a book that is meant to show what can happen from total government control and of the corruption that money and power can bring.

It was created in the time of the horrific World Wars, when the shameful attempt at genocide occurred for many unfortunate peoples, and is still occurring in different ways around the world. 1984 was also created to bring to light what terrible things could happen if freedom was no longer allowed and completely controlled.

If you read the novel, which I definitely recommend, you'll discover a dystopia based on what could have happened from the Wars, and (ironically) what is happening now, to make the world a totally controlled place, a one-personality brainwashed culture. In Orwell's world, the things you see, hear, or do are ONLY what They want...