1984

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.

Rating:
Summary: 1984 is the best book in the world
Review: THIS IS MY ALL TIME FAVORITE BOOK!!!! I was born in 1987, so reading about what someone thought the world was going to be like now in 1949 was very interesting. George Orwell is me favorite author and this is one of his best. If someone is considering buying this book- do! you'll be glad you did.

Rating:
Summary: Cleverly imaginative yet unbearingly boring
Review: As a summer reading assignment, I was assigned this book to read and appreciated Orwell's sense of imagination. I reccomend this novel to anyone who is interested in the world of make believe. People who appreciate descriptive writing will certainly enjoy reading this novel. However, this novel will probably not appeal to people who enjoy novels that tell stories. I found the novel extremely boring because it is all about Orwell's vision of an unstable society, it does not give the reader the desire to read on.

Rating:
Summary: monotony
Review: Attempting to read this book is worse than watching the grass grow. At least the grass will become something you enjoy. The title and plotline of the story intrigued me to read it. Don't get me wrong, if well-written, this storyline could be very interesting. But even after just ten pages, the only thought going through my mind was "When will this guy shut up and tell the story???" The plot comes in a distant second to the narrator's monotone, seemingly unending monologue. If I could withstand this, I believe I would have enjoyed it. But forgive me for not having that kind of patience for hundreds of pages.

Rating:
Summary: Nightmarish Society
Review: In a terrifying atmosphere of totalitarianism, Winston meets Julia, and a romance begins. What follows is a description of the triumph of human depravity. The government, which seeks power for its own sake, destorys any human relationship that can be interpreted as a conflict of loyalty. Everybody must be made to love Big Brother, even if the cost of this love is the loss of dignity, freedom, and common sense. Based on Stalinist Russia, Orwell's novel certainly has broader implications and is a warning against complacently accepting what is being presented to us as real by the powers that be.

The book starts slowly. Orwell tries to set an ominous mood for his readers. Unfortunately, Orwell is best when he does not try to write around too much and goes straight to the point. So I recommend that you press on, even if at the outset the book is not terribly exciting. You won't find many characters in this book, but those you do find are done pretty well by Orwell. The thrust of the book is, of course, social and political. It makes you think. For example, why can't something like this really happen, let's say in 2084? The answer to this, in my opinion, is not simple. Orwell gave us a warning. We would be fools not to heed it.

Rating:
Summary: Anyone who thinks this can't happen is not paying attention
Review: While George Orwell felt that the time of totalitarian rule and the state as unanswerable monolith would be the latter twentieth century, the twenty-first century actually represents a better time for a slightly different version of the timeline he would suggest.

The technological capability of monitoring almost every single household within a given area is here now, although most people voluntarily share themselves with the world via WebCam. It is not a far-fetched idea, in terms of cost or engineering, to monitor the civilian population of an entire country for illegal behavior. For a small fee, you can purchase your credit history and address from online companies who have no reason to have such information, and nothing bars them from sharing it with anyone who pays that fee.

Regardless of advances in fiber-optic communications, _1984_ is first and foremost a story about government that acts solely to perpetuate its own dominance, and this century offers as many opportunities for that as past centuries. Given enough pretext by a state of war or economic collapse, the individual has no real chance against an organized enemy with the power to oversee every aspect of his life. If print journalism and its less scrupulous cousin in television fails to call for an accounting of government actions outside the vision of the individual, then the government can move with impunity against the individual.

Is this paranoia? The modern and well-educated American society that won the Second World War allowed a alcoholic senator named Joseph McCarthy to destroy private lives with unsupported accusations, ending only with his accusation of Secretary of State and former Chief of Staff of the Army George Marshall, entirely too respected for the accusation to pass unanswered. It would not happen in this current political climate, but I suggest that it takes a lot less than you might believe to push government prerogative closer to totalitarian authority.

With all that said about its cautionary value, _1984_ is one of the most clearly written novels in the English language, and a model for anyone who wants to write with economy and power. It and its companion piece by Huxley, _Brave New World_, should be read by everyone interested in protecting themselves against the worst that social organization and technological progress can offer.

Rating:
Summary: Easily my favorite book
Review: This book caught my attention by the first paragraph. I had HUGE trouble putting it down. The only thing that got me to put it down was the fact that I wanted it to last! This is by far the best book I've ever read. George Orwell put great thought into every aspect of this book. The most amazing thing is the technology that he accurately predicted like the SpeakWrite (program in which you speak into a microphone, and it types up what you're saying).

If you like this book, you will probably like Clockwork Orange, and vise versa. They both have reminitions of Communism ruling the world (which was a great fear and quite controversial idea for that time), and they both have new languages, brutal police, and strong governments.

My only warning, is that this book contains parts that can depress the easily depressable (like myself). So read it, and enjoy!