1984

Rating:
Summary: DON'T READ THIS BOOK
Review: i give this book one star i had to read it for class and i know it's suposed to be a "classic" but god itis awful. first of all its NOTHING like the future is probly going to turn out. second of all every one says the aurthor george orwell is so trippy and wierd but i think he's just trying to cover up for the fact that HE CAN'T WRITE. please george do us all a faver and stop writing books.

Rating:
Summary: Glad I was born in 1985
Review: The country? Oceania. The place? London, Airstrip One. The year? 1984... maybe. There's no way to tell anymore. It could be 1983 or 1982... or it could be 1 if Big Brother wants it to be. Or maybe 7777. It could be anything.

Welcome to the world of George Orwell's "1984." This is THE anti-totalitarianism novel, one the the three great negative-utopias (as cited in the Afterword) and it is a chilling premise for the world that Orwell feared would one day become reality.

Winston is a small, sniveling little excuse for a man, living in London at this time among other small, sniveling excuses for men. He works in the Ministry of Truth, a section of the Party that goes back and changes "mistypes" in the newspapers of Oceania, so that all of Big Brother's predictions accurately meet with what has happened.

Those who belong to the Party are 15% of the population of London, while the proles, a lower class, make up the rest, and are as free as animals. The people of the Party, however, live without hope. Every move they make, every change of expression on their faces, every word they speak, in public or in private, is carefully and scrutinizingly monitored by the Thought Police. Any hint of Thoughtcrime means unknown horror in the Ministry of Love.

I won't reveal any more detail. The less you know when entering this novel, the better. It's an incredible work of art and should be viewed without much prior knowledge of what is to come. The world of Oceania is a grim, hopeless world, where life ceases to exist as it should. I once thought "Why don't people try escaping to the United States if Europe has become this terrible place?" But it isn't just Europe. In fact, both Americas are a part of Oceania, and all are just as terrible. As opposed to "Brave New World," where happiness is virtue, "1984" encompasses a dark dimension, where fear, paranoia, and structural madness are normal.

The steps taken to ensure loyalty, the efforts to test the boundaries of patriotism, the practices of erasing existence, the deduction of sense, and the needlessness of everything forced upon the Party members is not only depressing, but shocking to the reader. Simply placing yourself within this type of society in your mind and imagining how it would be... well, you might be dead for bothering to close your eyes at that moment.

"1984" is a horrifying masterpiece, a grim outlook on a world that may only never exist because Orwell thought of it before it did and wrote this novel as an eerie message, not only agaisnt communism, but agaisnt what it may evolve into. Own this book. Big Brother is Watching.

-Escushion

Rating:
Summary: A great novel
Review: It feels a bit hard to add my thoughts about this much discussed masterpiece but I will do the best I can. 1984 tells us of a (not so) distant future where all our thoughts and actions are watched by fascist leaders. We follow our anti-hero Winston throiugh a journey of discovery and rebellion. To say more would spoil the fun of this book. This book is a thriller for the thinking mind. Do these leaders actually exist or is it all a sham? Will Winston succeed? It also raises questions towards our modern world in which there are cameras almost everywhere and in which we are constantly using newspeak don't u think? (hehe) A great pessimistic work. Though it is realist in the context of the dictatorship it describes. Also note the theme of the liberating woman which has been used many times in literature notably in "We" by Zamiatine (a precursor to Orwell ). I could say much more but I have a feeling everything I've already said has been said over and over again. So just read it and join the revolution of the masses.

Rating:
Summary: A great book, depressing, but great.
Review: A great book, depressing, but great. 1984 is very well-written, and it is unique. Unlike most books written in 1949 about 1984, it is not about people traveling by jet-packs. It explores a world controlled by the government in every aspect. Nothing, including your thoughts are your own. A world where the only love is the love of the government, and individuality does not exist. Minds are brain-washed and war is never-ending. A world where 2+2=5, a world where you can trust no one, not even yourself. 1984 changes the way you look at the world. A classic and a must-read.

Rating:
Summary: An amazing classic!
Review: I sat up until 6 am to finish this book. It's gloomy, depressing, yes, but also very good. Lots of surprises in the most unexpected places, a very original plot, and very good quality of writing. I have never read a book that makes you realise how lucky you are to be living in a society like this. I think it would've even made people in concentration camps feel good about themselves.

I think after you fight your first shock of the depression that this book brings, you will realise how nice it is to live wherever you live. All in all, great book, a true masterpiece. Buy it. It's only $7 anyway.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful
Review: I finished this book yesterday evening, and haven't felt quite right since. Winston's plight is the most harrowing read I've ever experienced. I knew that he would be converted but I didn't want to believe it and the end was shocking. How Orwell managed to write this book is beyond me. I would recommend this book to everyone, it really opens your mind and is a thrilling read. Thank god for freedom!

Rating:
Summary: Chilling
Review: Reading this book was a thrilling experience... Especially "The Manifest"...

Rating:
Summary: political statement
Review: Nineteen Eighty-Four is not and never has been just a year. Nor is the world portrayed by George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four a place or even merely a set of political or social circumstances. Rather, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a state of mind, a way of being, an atmosphere in which the dark side of our nature lives and turns all around it darker still. It is a time or place which we create when we turn away from the light that is within us, within each individual self, to the empty darkness of group will and psychology; of "massmindedness". Thus do we create for ourselves to live in the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Orwell's "fiction" of a world in which, but for a lingering echo, individuality had all but passed into extinction, could have been set in any time or place where "massmindedness" is paramount and where the individual exists merely to serve the group. Throughout history, most religions have preached, most governments have practiced and most societies have been organized around such "massmindedness". It is only the calendar which might confuse and comfort us, which might convince us that Nineteen Eighty-Four was merely a gruesome story about a time and place that never was nor could ever be. But nothing is further from the truth. And the simple truth is that Nineteen Eighty-Four is NOW.

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, there are no heroes, except as an idea, an ideal may be said to be a hero. All of its characters are exceedingly human, and this is what makes Nineteen Eighty-Four both timely and timeless, both powerful and profoundly pathetic. Nineteen Eighty-Four is often upsetting, sometimes disheartening, but, when its main lesson is learned, never depressing. It is fundamentally a story of hope, of a truth which can be discovered (although too late for all concerned); a truth which can be seen by us and taken as not only our ideal, but as the practical guide by which, to a greater or lesser extent, we can avoid the very pitfalls which consumed Winston and Julia and O'Brien and Big Brother, and liberate ourselves from the tyrany and ultimate destructiveness of the group and its massminded stranglehold on our minds, our hearts and our souls.

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a simple story of faith wrongly placed. Winston Smith, its main character, searches to escape the suffocating and oppressive world manipulated by and for a ruling group, The Party. He believes that he is seeking a political, a social solution with which he can combat, can destroy the evil of group-think and the "massmindedness" in which he lives. Instead, he finds the most exquisitely human, individual "weapon" with which to pursue his salvation: love. But, as we humans are too often prone to do, Winston overlooks what is simple and obvious, what is at hand, and, even as do those he disdains, he puts his faith in another group, The Brotherhood. (It is not for Winston to realize that his answer lies in the idea and practice of "brotherhood", rather than in the imaginary purity of "The Brotherhood".) In the end, Winston is betrayed not by his enemies, but, in a real sense, by himself, by his failure to see the worth in the object of his own worship; the individual and the emotional life with which he or she can find their own peace and presence, even in a world gone apparently mad.

Winston, with his male oriented solution, seeks one group to combat another group, while Julia, a woman, brings the possibility of true salvation to him (and them) in the idea and practice of individual love. Julia knows the truth, and what is worthwhile, but Winston (the very name of the great male war leader of Orwell's recent past) plunges on ahead, seeking a "political", "social" solution (not unlike the many male "leaders" of all time past). This may be a small (or maybe the greatest) point of the book.

It is an instructive book; there is a good deal of What Every Young Person Ought to Know - not in 1984, but 1949. Mr Orwell's analysis of the lust for power is one of the less satisfactory contributions to our enlightenment, and he also leaves us in doubt as to how much he means by poor Smith's "faith" in the people (or "proles"). Smith is rather let down by the 1984 Common Man, and yet there is some insinuation that common humanity remains to be extinguished.

Rating:
Summary: THIS BOOK IS REALLY ABOUT USA TODAY!
Review: Do not make the mistake of thinking that Orwell was predicting what might come. He was already aware that Big Brother was here and not so well. Since the publishing of this fine book, BB has perfected his techniques. We are about to relinquish with little fight the last remnants of freedom and privacy our parents once had.

I read front page articles of people saying that they don't mind the government opening and reading their mail! "I HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE." This is the mentality that leads straight to the gulug or in our case privately owned and operated prisons (the next big franchise business!)

In the name of NATIONAL SECURITY we bend over and spread them with trembling fingers. americans no longer should be allowed to refer to themselves as the land of the free and the home of the brave. We are neither!

If you want to read a book that is even easier to understand, that connects the dots for you, read How to Save America and the World by Joseph Francione. Or do nothing and wait for your your chains.

Rating:
Summary: Politically Dated...but Masterfully Written
Review: Everyone knows of double-speak, Room 101, and Big Brother. They have become a part of common knowledge, much as 1984 has become the flagship for the genre of the Dystopia.

But what truly matters is how good of a read 1984 is, and how well Orwell fills the pages that you'll courageously flip through. Well, the word that best describes 1984 is: harrowing. Each sentences radiates a mood of despair: constant paranoia, unnecissary injustice, paradoxical regulations, torture, fear, etc. And of course, that mood Orwell creates will captivate you. You'll eat the pages; you'll cringe, you'll smirk at the ridiculousness of what you're reading, and you'll love it.

Read this book not becuase of the political propaganda, or to understand the termanology that has become a part of our vocalbulary. Read this book because it is a well-written, entertaining read.