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Summary: Literally Genius, Politically Mind-Provoking
Review: The way Orwell suck you into the book is one of the most effective ways I've experienced. His metaphysical imagination of the last decade is frightening and mind-blowing at the same time. It makes us think of the world in the book, and inevitably compare it with ours. 1984 stands as one of my all-time favourite. And to the 15-year-old reader from USA who said that it's mundane, I have a word of advice for you. If you can't imbibe the message in the book, then you're just immature. Mind you, I'm 16.
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Summary: Not a prophecy but a warning
Review: George Orwell's 1984 is really brilliant. It warns about how life can be when a totalitarian power is exerted over people. Orwell wrote this book when totalitarism was identified with comunism, fascism and national-socialism. But today we know that an apparently democratic government can use mass media, TV, doublethinking and ignorance to gain and increase its power. 1984 is not a prophecy but a warning about the evilness of power and its consequences over individuals and society.
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Summary: Ignorance is Strength, but for whom??
Review: First, I wanna say that this book is above anything else you will read during your lifetime. It is more inspiring than the scripture, and for many, more useful (no offense).
When I finished reading 1984 in my freshman year of college, I was completely depressed, devastated, yet infinitely enlightened. 1984 is not fiction by any standard; the techniques used by the totalitarian governments in the novel resemble those of today's Third World countries very much that you would think Orwell was a real prophet, or maybe just the mentor? Anyway, I come from a country with a totalitarian regime, and 1984 was like a slap on the face and a wake-up call: I suddenly realized why my country is in constant war, why we see the portrait of our own Big Brother everywhere, why my countrymen never taste the revenues of oil and how it is all achieved. Oh, in case you were wondering, I come from a country called Syria.
The novel cannot be fully appreciated by an American who lived all his or her life thinking that the biggest threat to their life was the Commies or Saddam Hussein using chemical weapons on them, or, not having milk to go with their cereal in the morning. Those who truly suffer their governments' greed and insanity will undoubtedly find some form of solace in reading Orwell's masterpiece. Alas, most of those live in countries where reading is not a luxury to be had freely, and where existence is a struggle. In short,the novel will transform you to a whole plane psychologically and intellectually. READ IT, for your own sake, for humanity's sake. Only then will you know why it is really a free (well, almost) cure to stupidity, ignorance, and apathy.
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Summary: 1984 is a brillant story about dictatorship.
Review: I believe that this book shows a great struggle between being an individual and being a follower of an unknown power. And it shows the horror of living in a totalitarian world.
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Summary: 1984 has come and gone...
Review: Orwell's "1984" is a classic piece of 20th century literature, no doubt. While I can see many things of which he speaks of in today's society (doublespeak, Big Brother, etc.), this book was not written as prophecy, as some might suggest. It should serve as a warning, nothing more.
Instead, I'll say that I read it as required reading in a high-school literature class and found Orwell's "Animal Farm" to be a less heavy-handed approach to storytelling. I enjoyed "1984" only slightly more than the later film based upon the novel <yawn>.
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Summary: 1984: holy writ
Review: Orwell has come as close to scripture as possible in this chilling, surreal, astounding book. For those of you who believe that power can be benign, just read this book, and you will NEVER fully trust any power structure again.
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Summary: Read it....
Review: I feel that Orwell tried to warn not just the people of his time, but future generations of the atrocities a form of government such as totalitarianism would create.Yeah, it (facism and nazism) was very rampant in '48, but as '98 approaches, many of the things mentioned in the book are seemingly apparent in today's society.I read this novel my senior year in high school, and I honestly have to say that no other book has ever gotten to me... not even Slaughterhouse 5. Now that I am in my first year in college I have to write a paper on this arbitrary fanatical form of government,I understand where Orwell was coming from when he said that " BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU!" Our government, which has sworn to protect the public, says that we the people have our constitutional rights as americans to have privacy and freedoms, yet our lovely government harasses law abiding citizens by invading thier privacies and shutting them up when trying to express their opinions. Don't get me wrong... I like this country, but it is gradually reducing itself into this sadist form of government that Orwell had desperately tried to warn us about. I guess this is about all I have to say about this.
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Summary: 1984-George Orwell's realistic nightmare based on experience
Review: George Orwell's 1984 is not only the best book he wrote, but also without any doubt the best apocalyptical novel ever written and probably also the best book written in the 20ieth century, that is the most important one. George Orwell once wrote that if one was to summarize his complete work, or find one topic in all of his books, novels, essays and short stories, it would be his fight against totalitarian systems. So 1984 wasn't only the last book he ever wrote, but also his impressive final work on the topic that had influenced all his work. Why is it so genius? Mainly because it is a universal work. Of course it describes perfectly well real totalitarian systems that existed, like Stalin's or Hitler's, and it is basically a book against totalitarian systems, but it is also more. It describes a society, but also the minds of the people living in it, it describes the way mankind could be, it is a universal book about human evil. Ideas like doublethink or newspeak seem frightening familiar to us, we know the trends that lead to what has become out of society in 1984. The probably most shocking thing about 1984 is that it is perfectly realistic and logical in its structure. It is a perfect dictatorship, with High Tech and omniposcient. The main difference between the system in 1984 and, for example, Hitler's dictatorship is that the government in 1984 can do something no other dictatorship in reality ever could: Totally reign over man's mind. What Socrates once said today still is true: The thoughts are free. Even people resisting the nationalsocialistic regime and being caught and tortured still had their thoughts, they could make them say anything, but they could not make them really believe it. In 1984, even thoughts are slaved, it takes a long time to change Winston's mind, and it is not easy, but they finally succeed, finally Winston's mind is changed, impressively demonstrated by the famous final sentence of the book. The shocking thing is that even this seems to be possible to the reader, no one can claim that it's not logical. It is interesting to know that Orwell really believed that the future would look like 1984. Sure, he was dying while writing 1984 and had ergo no hope left, but nevertheless it is too easy to claim that he was too pessimistic, anyway. 1984 also is based on his own experience, the confrontation with inhumanity and human misery in his whole life, the experience of the slums in Paris and London, the Spanish Civil War, English hippocritical people, the Nazis and the Holocaust, etc. One really can see the ideas presented in 1984 developing in his work, "Politics and the English language" is nothing else but a description of newspeak, and in "Looking back on the Spanish Civil War", he already talks about the concept of the nonexistence of truth in a totalitarian system, even using the same example (2+2=5). It is also too easy to say that 1984 is over, that Orwell was wrong, and what he predicted will never actually happen. 1984 is a warning, a horrible and shocking warning which must not be ignored by anyone.
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Summary: Great Symbolic and Incredibly Smart Book
Review: Stephen Bradley: I first read this book and now Im 15 and I still haven't read another book. Every time I read it again I find another piece of clever symbolism. I would recommend this book to anyone! I am incredibly awed by the clever uses of English and symbolic meanings. For example I have been told that Gin was thought to be the downfall of the British Working Class. It would be a shallow understanding of the book to claim it as an anti-socalist book as Orwell (Eric Blair) obviously cared about the working class and was only against pretentous totalatarian states. I invite any like minded people to discuss the book with me. I apolagise for carless grammar and spelling (Im only 15 :) )
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Summary: 1984-a horrible reality
Review: Orwell wrote about his own time, 1948. He found the reality of what was going on so disturbing that he refused to acknowledge this time: he swapped the 4 and 8, hence its title. Orwell explores a depressing humanity, listless with meaninglessness. The crux is at the end where Winston is talking to O'Brien and says he knows that he will fail...that there's something in the universe, something that he will never overcome. O'Brien asks if Winston believes in God. Winston says no. Thus there is nothing that exists that the party does not control. This is Orwell's nightmare; a world without God.
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