message. Predictably it ends by saying 1984 is far more relevant to the US (and west) than it is to Russia. "1984 can not be dismissed as Stalinist barbarism, for we in the West are equally guilty." Brilliant, even more so when you consider the worthless professor wrote this masterpiece in what was probably the American golden age. There is no excuse for such misleading "features". Seriously, was this published by an ivy league lobotomy tank? This is the version that would probably end up in the hands of students. What an abomination.
With this edition as the standard its less tragic that 1984 is on a fraction of the reading lists as say (insert any black author's name here). The greatest censorship of this book is that it is more difficult than most required readings. Maybe that's why the so called experts seem to have not even read 1984. So until Hollywood makes the movie (HA!) [staring the great Anthony Hopkins as Winston, Liam Neeson as O'Brien and a mustached Ronald Reagan as Big Brother] students can get excellent marks by reading these two "features" and reciting the university intellectual sanctioned message. Such a doctrine would probably be much more wordy, grand and self glorifying than what appears to be their underlying message... IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
Rating: 
Summary: Connecting the 1984 dots, to American Politics, and "race"
Review: The starting point and first dot is Orwell's 1984 how language is used to control large populations. The second dot connects Big Brothers tactics to modern politics and business. Hmm, Big Brother could have written the American 2001Patriot act himself. The Last but not lease dot is connecting the 1984 dots to Americas "race" problem.
Do you know who and what land area they were fighting over in 1984? Most experts think that Orwell was writing about totalitarian government. He was, but that was not all he was writing about. Big Brother and Oceania were trying to get control of a particular land, and its people, and resources. Where was this land? If you read the book, I bet you do not remember. You read the answer, it was at the end of the book. When you read it, your bio-computer (Brain) had a Brain Crash. Because what Orwell reveals in the end is so well connected to modern times and what is actually happening, today it is too scary to contemplate for most Americans.
Yes and today we have the Patriot Act, and Neighbors who become part of the "disappeared". Hmmmm!
You need these particular dots, You need to reread these classics, Orwell is not as theoretical as you think.
For more details, get DoubleSpeak in Black and White here on Amazon
Rating:
Summary: A Must
Review: Orwell's 1984 is one of the sharpest, cruelest and smartest books ever written. It critisezes the communist idiology, the way it was practiced in the former USSR. Although in those days few people outside Russia knew the horrors of life under Stalin's regume, Orwell draws the most correct picture of this life. Once a communist himself, he is not afraid to talk harshly of the ideas he once supported.
But the book isn't about the Soviet regime in particulare, it's about dictatorships of any kind, that's what makes him very relevant today. An interesting plot and a tasteful touch of sarcasm.
Rating:
Summary: The Lingering Nightnare
Review: I read this book in 1954 when 1984 was thirty years in the future.
The book scared the hell out of me. But I kept re-reading it. The other day, I sat down and opened this book again.
It still scares the hell out of me.
Democracy and the free market are such sweet pastries. Freedom of thought is like the first zip of coffee with the first bite of the chocolate donut.
This novel is cold and chilling. It has no warm fuzzies to soften the blow. This is serious stuff. George Orwell rang the alarm and it is still ringing.
This is a nightmare lingering in the midnight moving shadows where your eyes don't want to go.
1984 still lies creeping in the future, sleeping in the cold puddles in the dark nights just outside your window.
Rating:
Summary: Engrossing, horrific read
Review: Wow is the first phrase that came to my mind after finishing this book. It is one of the best I have ever read and certainly my favorite read over the last year. I am sure everyone knows the plot by now so I will not rehash. But I knew the general plot beforehand i.e. "Big Brother" and the thought police, and I was STILL overwhelmed by 1984. Orwell's writing makes you keep coming back for more, always eager to find out how the current situation will turn out, and what will happen next. Besides the sketch of a tyrannical government using mass propaganda to literally brainwash its citizens, Orwell also shows how powerless the ordinary citizen becomes, how much trouble must be gone through to engage in illegal conduct, and how brutal the aftermath of getting caught is. And the love story, which I expected to be the weakest part of the book, is actually fascinating and heartbreaking. A Must-Read if there ever was one!
Rating:
Summary: A strange page-turner
Review: This book is about a society that doesn't exist. This society is evil and strict. In this world you have no privacy. Thinking is a crime. There is no freedom whatsoever.
Winston Smith is the main character. He is the readers eye into this world. Luckily for you, he's a very interesting chap. This guy has a diary! That's not illegal, but it's punishable by death. Nothing is illegal. The government is called the Inner Party. These shady guys operate the whole society. The use strange techniques like doublethink. They can change the past.
Big Brother is a major theme in this book. He's the scary face watching over everything. There are 4 ministries. The Ministry of Love deals with Hate. The Ministry of Peace deals with War. The Ministry of Plenty deals with the economy. The Ministry of Truth deals with news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts. These are all coined Minitrue, Minipax, Miniluv, and Miniplenty.
This is a heart-wrenching book. It's very suspenseful. It's also unbelievable in some respects. Telescreens? Can you imagine being watched all the time? In the future it's possible. The unbelievable thing is that the government keeps changing the past. Smith is in this department. All he does is constantly change facts to suit Big Brother's agenda.
The end of the book is frightening. If you haven't read 1984 and read everything above, I already gave you the main gist. Does that mean my little review substitutes the book? Of course not. There are many juicy parts I saved for you potential readers. The end is a really cool ending. There's also a little naughtiness, if you know what I mean.
Anyway, 1984 is a book that I had to read for school. I was assigned a hundred pages. I thought that was a lot. It turned out that I finished the book ahead of schedule. Enough about me, I want you all to read this book. I think it's a book you shouldn't pass up. It may be the world in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Strikingly real in an eerie sort of way
Review: Our society and culture are shaped by ideas that have occurred decades, centuries, and even eons before we were conceived. Our perception of history affects the way we see our surroundings and that same perception contains much gravity in the way of our thoughts and actions. We tend to outwardly proclaim our love for idealogical freedom and take pride in our nation. But what if none of it was real? What if our perception of reality and all that has ever happened was controlled not for the sake of our own good, but for the sake of power.
1984 was written during a time when communism was on the rise with an inherent fear that the ideologies of the said political point of reference would overcome the freedoms upheld by the American public. George Orwell, an English author born in India, fought against the armies and individuals who would push forth such ideologies. What he saw arising was a possible future in which governments controlled every detail of your life to the point of even telling you who you could marry and where you can eat. We can see the downfall of the utopian communist mindset now, but are we indifferent to the lessons learned through what Orwell has communicated?
This is a great book when we open our minds to the understanding that, in my opinion, transcends the breadth of the book. What reality will you trust? When you look at who we think we are as Citizens of the United States of America (if you are as such), do you realize that a probable 2/3's of the world hates us? When we see history, can we see it through the eyes of the Vietnamese soldier, of whose land we invade? Are we able to peer through the thoughts of the Native American who remembers through oral tradition the first encounter with the Europeans as his people are being destroyed by the same people group? I'm not trying to increase a personal hatred or sentiment of discord with what our country is. What I am trying to relay here is that History is not always what it seems to us through first glance, I think that more than anything it is what Orwell wants us to understand. Is our freedom worth the investigation it takes to find the truth? I think so, and I think that reading this book can give us an insight as to why. Very entertaining. Very dark. Very thoughtful. I give it five stars because it's a well written book with a seeming purpose that goes beyond reading it.
Rating:
Summary: One Of My Favorite Books EVER!!!
Review: Let me tell you about one of my favorite books ever. The book is George Orwell's "1984." It had been sitting on my bookshelf for several years but until recently I had deemed it too "boring" to read. It was only this summer, having nothing else to read in its stead that I began a full-hearted attempt to read this book.
How wrong I was about its supposed dullness. By the first few pages I was hooked, trapped in the year 1984 as Winston Smith. I was unable to escape the ever-watchful eye of the telescreens that were in every room, watching every move I made, studying my face for any emotion that might flicker across it: unhappiness, anger, or anxiety. Never once during the whole book did I ever feel truly safe, as one might feel during a weekend or a vacation. That feeling that there is nothing to do but simply... relax, let loose all of your worries. Throughout the whole book I felt as though my nerves might break from the terrible strain of keeping my face devoid of any revealing emotion or feeling.
That's half of the book; the feeling of hopelessness and depression that George Orwell masterfully weaves into his writing. The other half is the doomed world that his story takes place in. Never once throughout the whole book did I ever think to myself, "Well that could never happen," or, "That's rather hard to believe." The world that George Orwell masterfully created was completely, utterly, and... depressingly realistic.
Even a few days after reading the book I felt the world to be small and bleak. I have a dream of becoming a great and revolutionary director, such as Francis Ford Coppola or Steven Spielberg. Yet how could anything I might accomplish, any change I might make to the world of film, matter if George Orwell's nightmare prophesy, or something similar to it, became a reality?
Now, I consider this my one of my favorite books of all time. I would give it 500 stars if I could. It is my personal opinion that every person running for President should be required to read this book, to do whatever is possible to make the sure that the world of 1984 never comes into existence.
Any people who liked this book (you rock!) might also enjoy, "A Canticle for Leibowitz," "Watership Down," "Starship Troopers," "Bridge of Birds," "Hyperion," "Neverwhere," His Dark Materials trilogy, and works by Howard Philips Lovecraft. There is no connection between 1984 and the books I just mentioned; these are simply some of my personal favorites and if you share my taste in books (way to go!) I would like to suggest them to you.
Rating:
Summary: 1984
Review: ORWELL'S PESSIMISTIC LOOK AT THE FUTURE IS A GLIMPSE OF THE WORLD THAT HE FORESAW AS A RESULT OF GLOBAL COMMUNISM. ORWELL WAS LARGELY CRITICIZED FOR BOTH ANIMAL FARM AND 1984 SINCE AT THE TIME THEY WERE WRITTEN THEY WERE PERCEIVED AS A RAGE AGAINST STALINIST RUSSIA, WHICH WAS AN ALLY OF GREAT BRITIAN. AT THE TIME.
HIMSELF A SOCIALIST, IN '1984' ORWELL PRESENTS A PICTURE OF SOCIALISM GONE AMOK. THE WORLD IS COMOPSED OF THREE SUPERPOWERS-EURASIA,EASTASIA, AND OCEANA. THE BOOKS HERO, WINSTON SMITH, IS A MID LEVEL BUREAUCRAT WHOSE JOB IT IS TO REWRITE THE PAST. WINSTON LIVES IN LONDON WHICH IS PART OF OCEANA: OSTENSIBLY THE BRITISH ISLES AND NORTH AMERICA. THE SUPERPOWERS ARE CONSTANTLY AT WAR WITH EACH OTHER AND THE CITIZENS OF OCEANA ARE BRAIN WASHED TO THE POINT THAT THE LEADERS CAN CHANGE THE ENEMY WITHOUT THE CITIZENS EVEN NOTICING.
WINSTON SEEMS TO REMEMBER A DIFFERENT PAST THAN THE ONE THAT HAS BEEN HAMMERED INTO HIS AND EVERYONE ELSES' MIND BY BIG BROTHER. WINSTON HAS COME TO HATE BIG BROTHER BUT HE IS TERRIFIED WITH HIS OWN THOUGHTS. THE 'THOUGHT POLICE' ARE EVERYWHERE AND CAN READ A PERSONS MIND. DISCOVERY BY THE THOUGHT POLICE WILL RESULT IN CERTAIN TORTURE AND DEATH.
STILL WINSTON CAN NOT HELP WHAT HE THINKS AND HE TAKES ON A LOVER, AN ACT TOTALLY FORBIDDEN. HE ALSO SUBLETS A ROOM LOCATED IN A SHOP IN THE WORKING CLASS SECTION OF LONDON. EVENTUALLY WINSTON AND HIS LOVER ARE BETRAYED BY THE SHOPKEEPER, WHO IT TURNS OUT IS ONE OF THE THOUGHT POLICE. WINSTON IS TORTURED BOTH MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY AND IS LEFT TOTALLY BROKEN AND DEFEATED. WINSTON IS HOWEVER FINALLY BROKEN TO A POINT THAT HE BECOMES THE TOTALLY DEVOTED CITIZEN THAT BIG BROTHER DEMANDS.
ORWELL WAS TRULY ONE OF THE GREAT THINKERS OF HIS TIME AND, HAD HE NOT DIED SO YOUNG, ONE WONDERS WHAT OTHER GREAT LITERARY ACHIEVMENTS HE WOULD HAVE PRODUCED. ONE ALSO WONDERS WHAT INFLEUNCE HIS VOICE MAY HAVE HAD DURING THE COLD WAR.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: This is my first time writing a review, and i'm not going to bother writing a synopsis because other people before me have taken the liberty in doing so. Whats the point in a synopsis? Read the book and absorb it, try and see the parallels. For those of you who might view this book as some communist/socialist manifesto it actually really isnt. The book spoke bluntely to me, further solidifying in my mind what is happening in our present time and the path we are paving towards the future
