1984

Rating:
Summary: 1984 Review
Review: ...1984 is about totalitarianism. It is about a society ruled by a dictator named Big Brother. The thought police carefully scrutinize everyone in the society. They arrest you if you show signs of rebellion or dangerous behavior. Everyone is under constant observation by devices called telescreens; devices that are like two way TVs. One of the points of their society is to make everybody the same. They are working to destroy all things that are individual about people. They also destroy all evidence about the past. They invent and change events so that they are made to look good. They have abolished marriage in the common meaning of the word. You may only get married if you do not have any interest in the person. The main Character, Winston, questions this society. He longs for a time in which people had freedom. He starts a journal, a crime punishable with death, about the things he feels is wrong with the society. He meets a woman named Julia and they begin a secret affair. They find hideaways in the woods and go there separately because if they are seen too often together the thought police will get curious and investigate. They get a room over an antique shop in a poor neighborhood and use that to meet in. Eventually they meet up with a man named O'Brien who asks them to join the brotherhood, an anti Big Brother organization. O'Brien turns out to be a member of the thought police in disguise and they are arrested. They are tortured and made to confess everything. When they are released, they have no strong feelings for each other anymore and are for the rule of Big Brother.
I think the significance of this story is to bring to attention the dangers of dictatorships. What Orwell did with his novel was create a hypothetical situation representing what could come if we are not careful. This book was written at a very tumultuous time in history where there were many emerging dictators. This book is Orwell's warning to society.

Rating:
Summary: A difficult and insightf look into a very possible future...
Review: This is perhaps one of the most difficult, and chilling books I have ever read. This book throws you into a possible future where people are name-less, and privacy is non-existant (sounds familiar somehow...)

If there is any book about utopia (or complete and utter oblivion in this case) you should read, it's this one. A classic, and a highly remarkable read. It is also a good idea to read "A Brave New World", that is, if you enjoy this book.

All I've got to say is this is a book that will leave you thinking forever. After reading it I questioned everything from provacy in our computer age... to the meaning of life, and a host of things as well. In the end I was left with a rather profound feeling. All I can say is, read it, the rest is up to you...

Rating:
Summary: The mind machine
Review: All right, I don't see there is anything new I can add to the endless list of reviews written on this thrilling, wonderful book. So, I will just make an attempt at scribbling some of my impressions.

Orwell builds a world where no single detail is left to randomness. From all the constructions the reader comes across in this book, the most astonishing ones are, (of course this is a personal view):

The dynamics of time: More than what the author has created as future, what impresses me most is what he has created as past. To start with, the treatment of past throughout this book is from a philosophical and logical point of view simply overwhelming. The idea underlying the novel is that the past is in your hands, you can do whatever you wish with the past, which implies that no matter what course of actions you take, you can always modify what you've done so far without the necessity of traveling in time. There is no room for history or memories here. Your personal history is what you want it to be at the very moment you are thinking of it; this is: you have as many personal histories as you choose, which also means that you have none. Orwell has shaped a time machine that doesn't presuppose any physical change in space or time for the entire process takes place in the mind. This leaves the main character in a helpless situation since his quest, is the quest of past. He craves for learning something from a world he would have liked to live in, but that he only knows by intuition. As he experiences the feeling of being cheated he grows anguished: he wants his intuition to become certain. If it happens, he will recover his past, his own existence.

Newspeak or the economics of language: language is a human construction to help us naming the world we live in. Words are born to serve expressive necessities. In a similar fashion, they disappear when they no longer symbolize something we want to communicate. In Orwell's world, on the contrary, language is a means to modify reality: when a word ceases to exist, the object it used to represent ceases to exist as well. Language is the tool used to shape the world as man wishes. It is not a means to express ideas. It is the idea itself, what has to fit words and not the other way around. If something can't be named, it simply doesn't exist. As Borges says: "Words create past". Then if words are suppressed, history is simply erased and becomes nothingness, creating a space that has to be refilled by something new.

The logics of doublethink or the art of canceling opposites out. The ability to justify everything in an impeccable logical way. (I wonder how many politicians today have taken hold of this "technique" to justify their actions even when they are aware of the contradictions they entail).

Actually, there is a lot more to say, but I'll stop here. Just go and read it.

Rating:
Summary: An insanely chilling, haunting masterpiece
Review: My senior class was made to read George Orwell's 1984 in our English class. I had heard about the book before but had never read it, and truthfully I didn't really want to read it, but considering it counted as a major portion of my grade, I read it anyway, and I liked it. Orwell envisioned a future world with totalitarian rule, almost Nazi-esque, where everything anyone does at anytime is watched by "Big Brother", the nickname for The Party which runs Oceania, the city the story takes place in. It is during the first part of the book when main character Winston Smith realizes that The Party is not as great as they claim they are with their propoganda, and starts to question his memories and past events if they really happened at all, or if they are just imaginary images implanted by The Party. Winston begins a dangerous affair with a girl named Julia who feels the same way he does, and the two try to rebel against the party. Orwell wrote with such vivid descriptions of this dark and desolate world, while keeping the feeling in your mind that this is no more than a satire of totalitarianism, but it really depends on how you interpret 1984. Warning of the future, or satire, whatever it is, 1984 is a haunting, chilling vision of the future that everyone should read, it is a true classic.

Rating:
Summary: A frightening tale of an enslaved, socialist future
Review: 1984 is frightening. 1984 is thought-provoking. 1984 is a literary masterpiece, warning society of a possible future that would more or less end meaning in life. There's little more I can say. Just read the book for yourself; it's what I call required reading.

Rating:
Summary: Now, more than ever, you should read this book!
Review: Pros: This book seemed to be a science-fiction book about the future, but in truth, it was a sci-fi symbolism of totalitarianism in Orwell's time. Yet, this book is so timely today! It reminded me of the way Bush and friends control our thoughts with smart words; GOOD Americans believe in the war and TRAITORS believe in other causes. We should always keep our own opinion and forget the always-swaying popular opinion. And that was just ONE of the many things I learned from this great book! I highly suggest this book.
Cons: It was a bit repetitive and it's a very heavy read.

Rating:
Summary: Greatest Novel of All Time?
Review: A case can certainly be made that 1984 is the greatest novel ever written. We know that the Modern Library infamously dubbed Ulysses the greatest novel of the last century even though most people find it completely unreadable. Too many critics and members of the intelligentsia equate impenetrability with greatness, probably thinking that the greatest novels must be aimed only at the gifted few.

1984 lacks snob appeal and it is shockingly readable. I guess this is why it gets dissed with the #13 ranking on that list. Of course, my own criteria are different. In my opinion, the greatest novels should at the very least be great reads. Nothing is more audacious or ambitious than setting out to write a page turner that happens to carry a thought-provoking and devastating message. Or, put another way, what's the point of burying your message in a book that no one can read? I've never read Ulysses, but I think I can say that 1984 is simply a better novel because part of what a novel must do is thread its message through a plot that the reader actually can and wants to follow.

1984 is a thriller. It is part sci-fi and part fantasy. But of course its is meant to convey the feel of an actual political system that dominated half the globe at the time of its writing. Unlike Animal Farm, which is kind of a roman a clef of the Russian Revolution, the events and characters of 1984 are not meant to correspond directly to events and persons in the Soviet Union in the late 40's. Big Brother is, of course, Stalin. But that comparison is easier to make in retrospect since no Soviet leader was nearly as Big Brother-like as Stalin. But I imagine that Big Brother is meant to evoke any totalitarian leader rather than a particular one. The fact that 1984 does not simply follow history is a major strength since it allows Orwell's imagination to run wild.

As you read 1984, you experience the oppression that a citizen in a totalitarian state must feel every day. Orwell conveys many of the brutal tactics of such a state: the neverending assault of propaganda, the isolation of individuals, the destruction of truth and memory. And all in service of a great plot.

Perhaps the reason that a book like Ulysses outranks 1984 is that 1984 is ultimately not about a big enough subject. Ulysses after all is about "consciousness," or something like that. While 1984 is a perfect evocation of the central political story of the 20th Century, maybe that's just not ambitious enough. But I submit that 1984 is about something much larger. It is about the power of language and the power to control others through language. Central to the plot, of course, is the regime's creation of newspeak and the goal of constantly reducing the number of words available to the citizenry. Simply, the book equates words with freedom, which is a pretty big idea.

Anyhow, when I first read 1984, I thought there were two flaws: First, I thought that the "reprinting" of Emmanuel Goldberg's manuscript was unecessary since it was really just a rehash of things Winston already knew and which were already confirmed to the reader. That part slows the pace of the novel. I still think that's a flaw. The other problem I had was that Orwell ultimately abandons the pitch-black humor that he injects throughout the first two thirds of the book. I no longer have a problem with that. Simply you can't have your cake and eat it. The ending is what it is and it works.

Another interesting thought about the ending is this. In retrospect we know the actual fate of the Soviet Union. We know that if a totalitarian system develops a few cracks it must ultimately collapse. But in 1949, the Soviet Union probably looked as impregnable and invincible as Oceania. Which would make this book that much more chilling if read when it first came out.

Finally, I'm not sure if 1984 is the greatest novel of all time. It may not even be my favorite. But certainly a case can be made for putting it at the top of the all-time list.

Rating:
Summary: Hauntingly relevant
Review: This was an important book when it was written, and amazingly it is still very relevant today. When it was written, the world was facing the threat of global communism. Wells does an excellent job of attacking the flaws of communism while also focusing on the ways it would be expanded in the future. When you look at the technology we have now, you realize that this book was somewhat prophetic.

This book was certainly not a call to action against communism however. It was more the product of frustration and hopelessness, and a warning to the reader. As such, the book is pretty depressing. The characters are trapped in their world and completely unable to change anything about it. Even when it looks like there may be hope, it is soon crushed by Big Brother. I don't want to ruin the book for anyone who is thinking of buying it, so I'll say no more. This is a great read for anyone who needs a reminder of how important and delicate our freedoms are.

Rating:
Summary: BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU
Review: i suggest that everyone read this book, if you really want to see what life is going to be like in the near future....this book is a great fortune teller. its ideas of dictatorship and totaltarianism were well ahead of his (george orwell) time. he deserves to have a statue of himself erected in every city in the world. if you dont read this fine work of literature you are seriously depriving yourself of an understanding of the world in a way you could otherwise not see..

Rating:
Summary: Not a prophecy, but a social study
Review: Surely one among the few best social allegories ever written, together with Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 and Catch 22, and the harshest and least humorous among them. Though inspired by the Soviet regime, the mechanisms described in the text are suitable for most democratic and non-democratic contemporary societies. More than a prophecy, the novel represents a study of current social dynamics.
Pressure for acceptance, mandate for substantial submission in spite of retention of a viewable independence, stratification of people by means of limited privileges are the pillars over which any sufficiently complex group relies upon. The thread develops from the particular situation of the chief character, Winston Smith, depicted against the environment created by the Party to his final struggle and breakdown, when he is forced to turn personal feelings from another person towards the Party, because "there is no love, except love of Big Brother, there is no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party". Even if the description of interrogatories and tortures is quite detailed and has been sternly represented in some film scenes, I have found two other issues as the most shocking in the novel: the speech of O'Brien (Smith's inquirer), in which he lines out the three stages, "learning, understanding and acceptance", that Winston is going to pass in order to cure his "mental derange and defective memory", and the picture of the fade remembrances of Winston's childhood, writing out the merciless way of how selfish a child could be, attached to Winston as an eternal sense of guilt, and which builds a parallel layer, more intimate and personal, about the subject of retaining memory of past events. Maybe Orwell has been too optimistic, because nowadays, as a consequence of media development, learning and understanding are no longer required: it is possible to obtain a direct acceptance.