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Summary: A look at our future, from our past
Review: When Orwell originally wrote 1984, it was to be called 1948. This was because he'd figured that by 1948 the world would be split into "superstates", and all a form of some totalitarianism or other. And a terrifyingly new kind of totalitarianism. One that utilizes technology to invade the privacy of every one of it's citizens. Orwell gave us the term "big brother is watching". And this is done by cameras that are placed everywhere. Knowing it to be impossible for someone to watch you 24 hours a day is small comfort when you never know when you're being watched. It bothers me that Orwell is not considered to be one of the great authors of the 20th century, as he was so adept at breaking down complex societies, and goverments into contexts that most everyone can understand. Both in 1984, and Animal Farm. 1984 is the story about an average man who finds more and more that the life he's leading, and the government he works for is wrong. Horribly wrong. The society he lives in is sick. In time he discovers, through a forbidden book, that the decades long war they've been fighting against the other superstates is actually a fabrication based on the concept that war can sustain an entire economy, because everything that a society produces is destroyed. And that stoking the fears and hatreds towards the other superstates can create a nucleus that a society can form it's self around. We are versed on double-think, and double-speak; where one can spout, and believe government rhetoric, all the while knowing the truth right in front of their face. The book is endlessly fascinating, well written, and deeply provocative. It is, after all, a classic.
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Summary: One of the most powerful book I have read
Review: George Orwell's 1984 is a riveting story of science-fiction where everyone is constantly watched and every move analysed. It is also, and more, a sociological book about totalitarism. It asks the question?: What if the government could read your mind? How could they control your life? What do they need to do to control your life? How to they get you to think like they do? The answer to all is by controlling the media. You control the information the public gets, then you can control their opinion. It is a book about power and how bad it can get. It also talks aboutthe different classes in the society, how they act toward each other. Even if the book was written quite some time ago, the answers it provides are still quite accurate, and that's what makes it such a powerful book.
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Summary: A portrait of the menacing, looming threat of corpitarinism
Review: It's 1984, we're behind schedule. -Louis Freech Chief Off. CIA. Our freedoms are being stripped from us by the vaccum caused by the cultural void stemming from the increasingly intimate relationship that big-business and big-government share. This is no nation "for the people, by the people." Justice cannot be bought under this system, but you can always buy your way out of the system. No-one ever says anything, until they take away your ability to say anything!
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Summary: A great book of English literature
Review: I would recommend this book to a reader who is looking for a highly intelligent story. 1984 invisions a future where superpower governments oppress the masses, killing off individual thought. Constantly watched by cameras, people living in these superpowers are essentialy slaves. The story is gripping and well written. 1984 is very similar to Brave New World, these two "utopias" are both trying to eradicate individuality. Brave New World tries to smother the individual with material pleasures, whereas 1984 uses oppression and false truths to achieve these ends. The books focus on characters who rebel against these governments. Their struggle for individuality ends in disaster, but their struggles provide an interesting insight into the human soul.
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Summary: Orwell's last, grimmest, funniest book
Review: I think I first read "1984" when I was about 10, twenty-odd years ago. I still have my old copy of it, a now highly tatty and heavily-taped-up Penguin edition. I remember wondering if it would come true in four years time and being a bit worried about it. The thing about "1984" is that it's such a weird bouillabaisse of critical analysis, dystopian fantasy and Orwell's own personal obsessions. All of these things bounce off each other in the most tangled and confusing ways. There's no doubt that many of the features of the book, such as the Two Minutes Hate, have proved to be chillingly funny prophecies, when you compare them to contemporary media phenomena such as the preposterous reversal of Saddam Hussein's public image in the West when he made the big mistake of invading a friendly country (from stern Friend of Democracy to swarthy Satan in a matter of weeks, thanks to a lot of hard work by the American press). Newspeak, also, has a certain currency, when we think of such phrases as "friendly fire" and "precision bombing". But it has to be said that, if you're looking for a clear and rational book about What, as Marvin Gaye would have said, is Goin' On, then you have to conclude that Orwell's genius for fantasy overrode his intelligence. This book is suffused with Orwell's own personal attitudes to a degree not often recognised. The utter inability of Winston Smith to find any real hope in the proles has been belied by the persistence into the 21st century of popular dissent. I'm talking about things like the WTO riots and the use made of the internet (a technology developed chiefly by the Pentagon, remember) as a tool for political critique and activist organisation. I'm even talking about the Romanian revolution, in which one of the most downtrodden peoples in Europe rose up and deposed - by which I mean, arrested and shot - one of the worst dictators of the century. Orwell's fatalistic sense of the _totality_ of evil is what's bad about the book, if you're looking for clear answers and good thoughts, but on the other hand, if you read the book not as a dire warning but as a satire, it's what's _good_ about it. The pompous lectures of O'Brien read more like the ramblings of a Sade character than as an authentic account of what it is to want power at the turn of these centuries. The evidence is that most of the really powerful and dangerous people in the world are not like O'Brien, in that they aren't in it for the dubious pleasure of "stamping on the human face forever". They're in it for money, sex and the thrill of feeling important. This makes them vulnerable. This means they can be stopped. The other thing that we tend to notice about "1984" is the pervasive nostalgia of the book. Orwell was not just born in to the middle-class; one some pretty deep level, and despite his truly heroic efforts to change, he was marked by its values and attitudes to the end of his life, and while this gave him great strength, it also narrowed and sharpened his imagination. The points of value in this book are the old notebook, the half-forgotten nursery rhymes, the piece of coral in the ancient paperweight. Nothing new is good. Things fall apart as soon as bought (the Victory cigarette). This narrowness of imagination can seem to spoil the book, but _only_ as long as we expect it to be some sort of honest effort to imagine life in the future. I sometimes wonder if Orwell meant people to take "1984" as seriously as they do. I think it's a brilliant, very blackly comic fantasy, something Swift might have written if he'd lived to see the concentration camps (and don't forget that Orwell wrote eloquently and wittily about Swift; check out the essays and war broadcasts). I'm still glad I read it 20 years ago, and I still read it today. As a book about the importance of a life without dirt, bad cigarettes, horrible food and awful TV, it can't be beat. As a ground plan for Media Studies, it's superb. As a prophecy? Hmmm. No. It's a satire. Take it as gospel and you'll be crushed under its wheels; take it as a dark joke, and you can gain strength from it.
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Summary: 1984- just rename it 2030. It's a prophetic warning...
Review: A wake up call!! This eerily prophetic book should serve as warning to all of the horrors of collectivist totalitarianism and of the seductive snares that lead us there. This books best value is a warning against collectivist totalitarianism. It is all the more scary, because of the stark parallel between the trilateral blocs of Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia and our world with the European Union and it's developing superstate counterparts, the American Union and Asian Union.
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Summary: Shouldn't Be Taken For Granted
Review: I first read Orwell's masterpiece for seventh grade summer reading in 1983 (got in right under the gun!). It remains one of the key books of my intellectual development. 1984 was the first book to get me to think about the importance of the freedom of the individual, the dangers of mob psychology and the evils of totalitarianism. Winston Smith is a member of the Party, as is everyone else who isn't a "prole," and like everyone else, he lives "from birth to death under the eye of the Thought Police." Orwell builds up a gray and chilling world where "no emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred." This is what Orwell imagined in 1949 would be the logical extension of communism. And look where we are, fully sixteen years after the year 1984, with the video camera technology that can do effectively the same thing as the Party's telescreens. Imagine life with a TV that could watch you while you watched it--a TV that could bellow at you to do your calisthenics in the morning or face arrest! That's what Big Brother is all about, the absolute lack of privacy to enforce the absolute conformity of action and thought--something to contemplate before tuning in one of those cheesy "real-life" TV-ratings-grabbers. In Orwell's 1984, there was nothing to laugh about. Orwell's writing style is intentionally as stark as the world he creates. The narrator does a lot of telling as well as showing, but this does not slow the pace. I heartily recommend 1984 for anyone over eleven who appreciates his or her freedom and individuality. You may appreciate it far more once you have finished this book.
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Summary: So prophetically accurate, it's scary
Review: Orwell's book, "1984" has been banned. It's actuallyone of the top 100 banned books of all time. Interesting, a book whose principal villian is Big Brother, a figment who controls society through an organization called the Thought Police, would be banned by none other than: government organizations here in the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave. Or is it, "Land of the Chained, Home of the Coward," I never can tell. Anyway, before I praise the book, I must tell you which organization led the way in banning Orwell's classic: The John Birch Society...An organization of people so far right-wing that they make George W. Bush look like Joseph Stalin. And what side of the political spectrum is supposed to hold the belief in less government and individual autonomy? Oops. So, the real value in this book is this: Orwell is telling us to fight against organizations with these "divine" attributes: omnipotence, omniscience, and omni-benevolence. In English: all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good. Why is Orwell saying, "fight these things?" Well, what were the government's ministeries called in this book? They were the Ministry of Love, whose business was hate (that's all-loving); the Ministry of Truth, whose business was lies (that's all-knowing), the Ministry of Peace, whose business was war (that's all powerful) I believe there was another one, but it is not important. The point here is the message from the book. Orwell wrote this book not only as a warning against totalitarian government, but also against totalitarian religion. He was a socialist and an atheist. When the government says it knows what's best because it's the government and the government is all-knowing, then we've got problems. When the Fundamentalist says that he knows what's best for you because he knows God's word, which is written by God, and God is all-knowing, so if anyone knows what's best it's God, and the Fundamentalist knows what God wants, etc. You can follow the circular reasoning. This book has no other value other than to warn. As an update, Orwell's nightmare may occur some day, hopefully never. But look at these hopefully coincidental highlights: UN troops are called "peacekeepers;" there are three major powers in the world: The US, the EC, and China; fundamentalism is seeing a resurgence world-wide, while liberal religions that allow room for people with another faith, or no faith, are dying; the US government is spending trillions of dollars on a "War on Drugs," this war can never be won and is being used as an excuse to destroy basic freedoms (police can now almost act with impunity as long as the alleged crime is somehow related to drugs). I could go on, but I have written enough, and the parallels are obvious already. George Orwell must be spinning in his grave.
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Summary: One of the world's best books
Review: I adore George Orwell's works! He is a master of the satire, and can convey humanity's greatest fears in his masterful storytelling. 1984 was no exception. it could be called a "what if" book, to show the state of the world had such and such occurred, a world where freedom is lost and hope, and love, and all that is left is power, for power's sake. In this desperate setting, Winston falls in love with Julia, both of them members of the party which occupies itself with total control. surrounded by posters, telescreens, all reminding that Big Brother is wathing, the two hold onto their love. When they are captured, however, Winston is victim to terrible tortures, ending in his renouncing his love, having been forever altered in mind and body, a pure minion of the party without emotion for the remainder of his life.
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Summary: A twisted, dark, and influential masterpiece.
Review: I have trouble believing you're even looking at this page if you're not planning on (or required to) read Orwell's shocking and gut-wrenching classic, but if for some reason you are, and you haven't read this, you should. Among the most disturbing novels I've read in my life, Orwell's' 1984 is a "prophetic, nightmarish vision" of the world which we might have found ourselves in had we not been vigilant in defending our personal rights. In this world, freedom of expression is a moot point, since freedom of thought has already been eliminated -- officials in a mysterious government organization known only as "The Party" have reduced the language of society to an abbreviated dialogue called Newspeak, which decimates the vocabulary of the people, and makes the communication, expression, or formation of many ideas impossible. Using tactics of artificial wars and group hate sessions to keep the public united, the Party has perfected this complete censorship of society to an art -- even the news is processed by the Party, allowing them to change the past, present, and future as needed with a few taps on the keyboard. Records are meaningless unless they come from Party hands, and Party members are free to revise records as needed. The nightmare that Orwell presents is a world in which there is no truth to be found, because there is no subjective view allowed to the individual. His vision is strengthened in impact by his particularly strong writing and descriptive style -- one particular scene focusing on mental torture (using rats!), and the use of fear as a persuasive mechanism, is among the most disturbing I have ever read, and will ever read. If I enjoyed this novel, it was only in the most morbid, shivering, appreciative sense, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world, all the same. This book, in my mind, far surpasses the supposedly comparable Brave New World.
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