1984

Rating:
Summary: A near miss as the best book ever written
Review: I found "1984" to be Orwell's finest novel as many others have. The problem that most readers have with the book is that they consider it "too boring" and "lacking in action". What they are missing is that the main point of this book isn't to provide violence and action, of which it has it's fair share, but instead to entice us to think about the human mind, our existance, the way we govern ourselves, the power struggle, and most of all our limitations as human beings. When one really examines this book and ponders its philosphies, to me, makes it exciting and interesting. This is my second favorite book after "A Clockwork Orange" by Burgess, which I also highly recommend. No piece of literature is for everyone but I do suggest "1984" as a book that will appeal to the masses and help people change their attitude and feelings towards the world in hopes that they might change this planet and prevent any such scenario provided in this book from actually happening.

Rating:
Summary: Striking thirteen ...
Review: One of the great books of the 20th century - it is amazing how much of Orwell has entered the language : Big Brother, Thought Police etc. The story is a bleak one - "Imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever!". Orwell intended it as a warning, not as a prophecy. As a warning, it worked - 1984 was read by every Russian dissident, about the only English book (besides Animal Farm) that can make that claim. Yet, the abuse of language described by Orwell, the way thought can be controlled by inculcating poverty of language, in a certain sense describes much of today's media - "dumbing down" actually limits the possible human response - look at the jeers and cheers on 'the Jerry Springer' as pathetic subjects explode their inarticulate rage. The nearest thing to the '5 Minute Hate' that I have ever seen. Yet, Orwell possibly made the warning too bleak (he was dying of TB as he wrote, it was his last book). You feel that while Julia and Winston Smith do ultimately betray each other, yet it was done under duress of torture, and there could possibly be forgiveness in their hearts afterwards, not the disillusion of the book. The power of human love could defeat the Party, perhaps. A book that repays several readings.

Rating:
Summary: Very Provoking
Review: To some up this book, it is a novel written about the future (1984) written in 1949. It is based on a fictional new world order that arose from the history of the world and especially world war I & II. It is a deep look into what could happen if government gains too much control of our everyday lives. The suprising thing is that you can draw parrallels with many of the features of our modern lives. If youve heard the terms "big brother" and "thought police", this is where they came from. I recommend this one it'll make you think twice about our lives of emails, cameras, political correctness...etc.

Rating:
Summary: 1984 (Summer Reading - Period 3 - Miss Bobertz - English 3)
Review: 1984 is a book about a controlling government taking too much power over it's people. This book totally reminds me of my favorite movie series, Star Wars. The dictatorship is close to the communism in present-day Cuba where the people have no say in any matter. The government known as Big Brother has developed a language, Newspeak, for the people of Oceania. The language prohibits people from acting against Big Brother. All citizens are under intensive constant watch including the main character Winston Smith. All thoughts, actions, and words are recorded by telescreens at all times. These telescreens are watching for anything out of the ordinary. Winston is constantly thinking rebellious thoughts while knowing the government is "ungood". The common English word "bad" translates into Newspeak as "ungood". The setting holds three superstates Oceania, Eastasia, and Eurasia who all have simmilar governments looking to gain ultimate power over the other two.

As the book goes on Winston finds a co-worker and future lover Julia who thinks the same way as him. The two share thoughts and present them to O'Brien, a third worker who is believed to be in charge of "Brotherhood". Brotherhood is the rebel group who disagrees with Big Brother. Two weeks later we find out the secrets of Big Brother. Doublethink is the known method used by Big Brother to have a single person think to opposite thoughts and believe both. O'Brien tells us about doublethink with "Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else," says O'Brien. " . . . In the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be truth is truth."

Orwell obviously was a strong believer in the warnings of a "controlling American government"

The book makes me think to myself could this all happen if the government became everything it has become throughout 1984.

Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking
Review: Set in the imaginary totalitarian state of Oceania, whose population is controlled in word, deed and thought of the Party, the menacing but unseen Big Brother, the Thought Police and all - pervading propaganda. The main character Winston Smith, tries to stand up for the truth and humanity but is broken by the system. 1984 is an anti-utopian novel that examines the dangers of totalitarian rule and the loss of individual freedom, which is arguably a satire on Stalin's USSR. It seems that governments will never learn the lessons from history...

Rating:
Summary: A must read!!!
Review: As a sophomore in highschool, I read this book as a requirement as outside reading. I couldn't put it down! The concepts it talked about kept me thinking for hours, and I still think about them now! Since then, I have read the book two more times, and still find new topics to discuss about government, privacy, and social orders. If you like literature, history, and society, you must read this book!

Rating:
Summary: Very good book.
Review: Very good book, and certainly deep in terms of political ideas, but a little slow in the middle, and the ending is too pessimistic. "We" by Evgenii Zamiatin (which was written first) is similar and though it has its own weeknesses is probably a better book overall. Nevertheless 1984 is a thought provoking book and well worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: What a great book.
Review: To all those kids out there who say, "aw man, not Orwell, this is so boring, I hate it, blah blah blah" Grow up. I'm only a freshman and I loved this book. Orwell has to be my favorite author of all time. Animal Farm and 1984 are two of the best books I have ever read in my life.

Rating:
Summary: High School students, beware...
Review: A lot of schools assign this book to kids for their English classes. I wanted to point out that in a lot of ways, a person of that age can get more out of this book than someone of a more advanced age... High school is one of the times in life when conformity, and the perceived importance of fitting in, can be at their most intense, and their most frightening, as social forces. This book takes those ideas, those forces, and magnifies them by a thousand times. Think about how scary it would be if you literally had no libraries. And not only your town would have no libraries, but the WHOLE WORLD had all its records re-written every few years, so the adult version of the popular kids ("The Party" in this book) could tell everyone what to think, who to hate, who to like... I think this is a really terrific book to think over. In a funny way, a reader of that age might even want to compare it to Stephen King's "Carrie" -- in Stephen King's book, a lot of the background to the story is all about conformity, and how the good kids hate it, and some of the bad kids seem to use it as a sort of funnel for hatred, to funnel all that bad energy toward a few kids, to hurt them. I think in this book, Winston Smith could be seen as a parallel to Carrie (the character Carrie, not the book), only, unlike Carrie, he ends up breaking down in the end. This is not a fun, happy story, but I think a lot of kids would really respect themselves a lot more if they make themselves actually think about the story.

Rating:
Summary: The only thing more scary is Amazon's new privacy policy
Review: It is a classic for a reason. If after reading it you are not frightened by what you are seeing on television then just read Amazon's new privacy policy. Big Brother does not need cameras and agents and room 101, you are gonna tell him everything he wants to know to get a better deal online.