Rating: Summary: everybody should read it Review: I think this book represents the best expression of Orwell's work.A deep voyage throught the terryfying deeps of human nature.Scaring.
Rating: Summary: A very goog book, but not brilliant. Review: The best science-fiction book I've read (the only sci-fi I've read). It was actually quite good.
Rating: Summary: A Good Book but Not the Best!! Review: This book is essentially the same as "The Brave New World" but expressed in a totally different way. Somehow, I like the "The Brave New World" better. It gave me a totally different view.
Rating: Summary: A MUST READ Review: More frightening than any Stephen King story, 1984 prophecies a future where hell exists on earth in the form of a paranoid government's establishment of a negative utopian society where every one is watched, no one is safe, and the only hope that exists can lead to something worse than hell. If you think you can escape, you're wrong. Dead wrong. If anyone knows a similar novel, please email me.
Rating: Summary: George Orwell's 1984: A visionary masterpiece Review: Come on guy's...four and a half stars? What's that all about, this is 1984 we're talking about here! This book is THE scariest and most thought provoking tome around. From the first sentence of the book, "The bells struck thirteen as Winston Smith, yada yada yada" we're thrust into a completely different world, one so different and alien from our own, yet presented to the reader in such a painstaking, logical fashion as to raise questions about the state of our own modern society and the conventions of war and class structure. The society consists of two constantly warring nations: Atlantia and Oceana, embattled in a constant state of warfare which neither can afford to stop, their constant bickering and cosmetic bombings and attacks merely a mutually beneficial ploy to keep the masses in a constant state of shock, making them even more vulnerable to the intense psychological programming they undergo at the hands of the state. Big Brother, the party's exalted leader, is the unquestioned benefactor/leader of the people and is worshipped and feared. No one's lives are private. People are stripped of their individuality, kept placated and half drunk, and bombarded with government propaganda through the large, two-way telescreens in every party member's home. The sex drive is all but obliterated, through forced marriage and sex is only tolerated for procreational purposes. Even the language has been shortened, reduced in words by the govt. in an effort to shorten...look, I could go on and on here, I'm dying to just copy the whole book here so you can read it right now, but I've only got 1000 words. Look, it's Orwell's masterpiece, it's as relevant today as any book in the world, a scary reminder of the power govt. and the herd mentality of the average person, two variables that could result in the kind of scary, postapocalyptic world he invisioned, even though we have sucessfully made it well beyond 1984 on our calenders, Orwell's chillingly believable nightmare still rings out as a warning cry to the human race, made all too scary by the fact that many of the books conventions, for instance, the govt's ability to observe everyone by camera, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, are a realistic possibility now, with the advent of cheap videocamera technology. The story exists on another level in the love story told of Winston, the everyman antagonist and Julia, a pretty young woman who holds a strange hold on him and introduces him to love for the first time in his life. Their coupling is the supreme act against Big brother and the party, yet they continue to meet in secret and profess their love for one another. Love itself is a crime, and the couple on not only scared that the so-called "thought police" might catch them, but KNOW the inevitablility of the consequences regarding their act before it even takes place, with the first knowing glance of their eyes, the deed is done, convention be damed, they commit their Lovecrime and are, for a time, the only truly free people in all of Oceana. It's just a marvelous book, okay? Check it out, you'll like it, it's not even very long, what can it hurt. My favorite book.
Rating: Summary: Beautiful. Horrifyingly beautiful. Review: You feel a sense of doom from the beginning. Even as Winston and Julia are embracing each other in the field, or in the dusty room above Mr. Charrington's shop, you instinctively know that in the end they will have to lose. I was surprised when O'Brien came in and now I can't decide whether he is good or evil. Like the book said, O'Brien tortured Winston and eventually sent him to his death. But still...did he really mean it? Or was O'Brien yet another brainwashed victim of The Party? You should not read this book if you do not like unhappy endings.
Rating: Summary: Depressing but very moving story Review: This is undoubtably one of the most moving books I've ever read - it made me cry, and it's rare for me to weep on account of a book or film. The society it depicts is so horrific, and so - plausible. I'm not saying that this is necessarily the future, but it is definitely one of the more unpleasant ways the human race could conceivably take. In Winston Smith we have the representative of all of us - he isn't a genius, and he isn't a saint; and he doesn't want ot be a genius or a saint, he just wants to lead his life in the way he, and the rest of human society, was meant to do; in relative freedom in his actions and his thoughts. And the story of his personal struggle, his betrayal, his ultimate defeat is so timeless, so true that it, more than anything else in the book (although the whole novel is brilliant, eg. the political ideas expressed in it are so carefully thought out that we can truly believe in the potential for a party like, well, the Party), marks "1984" out as one of the most moving and human stories around.
Rating: Summary: scariest forshadow Review: a personification of the human spirit. after reading of the living death portrayed by the author, i realized that the man sentenced to life enprisonment has liberties unbound. to conceive the perils of this novel, is to enjoy life.
Rating: Summary: The Explanation of Man! This is the bible! Review: This is one of the greatest literary works of all times. This book tells of man's dreams, hopes, ambitions, and, most importantly of all, his true self. To those that believe a better world is bound to come, you are fools. This book says the true ending. I cannot figure out but two epitaphs for man: nuclear war or 1984. But why, you might ponder? Because this book depicts the most cruel, vicious, and realistic side of man: the side where communism and fascism are tied together so that the forces of darkness march through the earth (taken from "The Last Crusade"). This masterpiece is the bible of man. All that is in this book is plausible and much of it has happened although these real-life happenings where sugary compared to this book's omen. Goebbels's and Hitler's propaganda machine is depicted in this book, as is Stalin's, Hitler's and America's secret police. And in the book's 5 main slogans lies the truth of man. I call forth anyone that is willing to read this book and not be suprised and horrified. I dare someone to not see that this book is the future.
Rating: Summary: poor Review: This book's reputation as a classic reveals less about the book than it does about the shallowness and mediocrity of many book critics. It is crude, heavy-handed, superficial propaganda.
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