Rating: 
Summary: A Political Prophecy that should be read by all
Review: When I first read 1984 I thought most of the stuff in it was absurd; the thought police, the cameras in each and every street corner and house. But as I read on, I found out that Orwell was using these as instruments to convey a much deeper message about what would become of society, and this message itself about a world that is thought controlled with no tolerance for deviation was much more important than what I considered their more absurd concepts such as the thought police. I really would suggest most people to read this book; the main protaganists Winston and Julia lead a rebellion against an unjust society that I am sure you all will find in your hearts very compelling.
Rating:
Summary: My Favorite Book
Review: Enter a world where there is no past. Where the past is the present. Follow Winston as he thinks THOUGHT- CRIME, works on fake documents, and plots to shut down the system. Big Brother's eyes follow Winston Everywhere he goes. If you want to see wether Winston accomplishes his mission, you must read the book. After you read this book go check out the 1984 Movie. But don't see the Movie unless you've read the book or else you will have no idea what is going on in the movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Even after 3 reads, still a superficial book.
Review: "1984" is hailed as the greatest novel of all time. I disagree. Had this been written at a different time, it would have been hailed differently. The fact remains, however, that this was the Cold War and everyone hated Communism. Thus anything that was against it, no matter how false or trivial, was inflated beyond belief. This wasn't limited to 1984; it was present in the case of Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn wrote a well-written anti-Soviet novel, therefore Solzhenitsyn was hailed as a hero of democracy, even though his subsequent books were mediocre. I do not believe that 1984 is a travesty because it lacks action. I believe that this book is a travesty because it is false.People say that this novel had an exquisitely crafted plot which readers such as myself are too daft to comprehend. They may be right. However, Orwell did not craft this exquisite plot. It was gleaned from Zamyatin's _We_, for starters. Secondly, this was the topic of the day. _Everyone_ was writing about how bad and evil communism was. _Everyone_ was taking pain to diffuse the utopian philosophies of the previous century. The societies of 1984 and Brave New World are very similar. 1984 and Animal Farm are the same book with the names changed. As I stated originally, the characters of the two novels are identical. Napoleon is Big Brother, or perhaps O'Brien, Boxer is Winston, Snowball is Goldstein, Squealer is Mr. Charrington, etc. Orwell plagiarized himself, Zamyatin, and countless other authors who wrote about the exact same thing. Orwell was not meaning to denegrate the theory of communism, becuase he was not familiar with the theory of communism. He was meaning to denegrate Russia and socialism and show them exactly the way the West portrayed them. It makes no difference that he was at some point a member of the Communist Party. If you read Richard Wright's _Black Boy_, you will see several Americans who were in the American Communist Party, yet didn't know the ideals they claimed to represent. They were in it for the fun. Ditto George Orwell. People say that Orwell had to understand a theory that was developed in his own country. I say: pfft. Firstly, many middle-class Americans today believe that excerpts from the Declaration of Independence are Communist propaganda meant to subvert American minds in the Cold War. (You know, the parts that say "all men are created equal"?) Secondly, communism was not developed in England and Karl Marx did not have sole rights to it. The ideas behind it were conceived in the epoch of Enlightenment by French philosophers. I do not say Orwell is retaliating against anything. That implies he had something against it. I believe he was simply playing upon the mood of the day to please the public. Say what they want to hear and add some sex in there to make it interesting and it will sell. People view him as God's prophet; I view him as a boring, unoriginal one-hit wonder who wanted to make a buck rehashing much-talked-of, much-written-of themes.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome, Scary, Realistic
Review: This book is amazing. The author manages to make you believe in this terrifying futuristic setting while at the same time makes each character real and very human. His explanations of this horrific society make them seem far too real. Even the ending, though not what you would want, you must grudgingly admit is realistic. Once you enter 1984 you will always see 1999 differently
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant & chilling
Review: Even more scary when you realize that Orwell is not just talking about the potential of a totalitarian regime: he's exaggerating an already-existing reality. A truly great book, and doesn't take long to read (I took just a few hours).
Rating:
Summary: MUST-READ
Review: Caters to the paranoia inside you. Everyone should read this book
Rating:
Summary: disturbing and relevant
Review: I'm surprised that Noam Chomsky hasn't been mentioned in any of the 299 previous reviews. Nineteen Eighty-Four is not just a supreme work of art: it is politically relevant, because the phenomena identified by Orwell (doublethink, newspeak, etc.) are, in various forms, actively used today in even the freest societies. Chomsky gives very detailed descriptions of this. "I've repeatedly found," he says, "that when the audience is mostly poor and less educated, I can skip lots of the background ... because it's already obvious and taken for granted by everyone." Curious?
Rating:
Summary: Orwell's masterpiece
Review: "Does Big Brother exist?" "Yes." "In the same way I exist?" "You do not exist, Winston." Beauty can sometimes take strange forms. Beneath the decaying architecture and verminous rats of Ninteen Eighty-For's gangrenous surface there is a glorious centre, one which screams out profoundly that it is a master of all it says and that George Orwell is the master of his cxreation. The book was completed, ironically, in Ninteen Fourty-Eight when Orwell had seen the future. He had fought in the Spanish Civil War and had lived through the Second World War. The future, as he saw it, was a brutal labrynth of pain and torture, where the only way to escape the pain of everyday life was to become oblivious to it: to succumb without reervation. Orwell casts us into a paralell universe where events post 1945 turned out quite differently. Among the shambolic ruins of the ninteenth-century buildings there exists the Party: a totalitarian entity which monitors its citizens with greater zeal than it fights its wars. The Party controls the vast super state of Oceania, permanently at war with its corresponding entities, Eastasia or alternately Eurasia. Winston Smith is the fragile everyman, a man who has somehow kept his sanity and some degree of individuality. He rebels against the regime by falling in love with a woman who thinks along similar lines. His rebellion is touching yet we know what it ultimately entails. But there is an underlying sense of poetry to the great book as those who read Lord of The Rings will testify to feeling a sense of history. The novel makes no excuses for its treatment of the charcters. People are brutalised, subverted, their minds twisted into bizzare forms of life and then ultimately destroyed. Yet through all the turns it takes, Ninteen Eighty-Four leaves a deep impression on us and its message echoes throughout our society. Beauty is such a strange thing. "There can be no love, except love for the party. If you want an image of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face...forever."
Rating:
Summary: The greatest novel of the 20th century
Review: Simply put, I beleive 1984 to be the greatest piece of writing of the 20th century.
Rating:
Summary: The greatest work of the 20th Century
Review: What can one say about this book that has not been said before...it is one of the most powerful works one can ever read, which is forever fresh and remains relevant no matter what era it is read in.
| 
