Rating: 
Summary: Awesome work
Review: This was the first time I had tried the "futuristic" genre- and I loved it! 1984 really made think- it was in-depth without being totally confusing. The characters are realistic and Orwell does a great job of describing how the citizens are controlled in the republic of Oceania. If you ever get the opportunity, read 1984- you will not be disappointed!!!
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Summary: Julia
Review: A reversal of discourses.....After we ponder the anti-totalitarian implications of 1984 and get through the anti-utopian Orwellian thesis, we are left with characters: Winston Smith, O'Brien, Emmanuel Golstein and Julia. Julia is the focus of this review. By Postmodern standards (if that is not a contradiction in terms) Julia can very easily be seen as some sort of voiceless character whose creation seems (at least on the surface) to be dependent on Winston. However, if you hear the absent voice, you will see a multidimensional character, who unfortunately, in this work seems to be written up with one dimension. Julia's role can be reduced to rebellion. Her sexuality runs counter to the Party line of atomization and a twisted sense of beneficial chastity. She takes this rebellion one step further. Orwell is a neo-romantic. Despite the lack of overt leanings of the awe and love of nature, he embodies love in Julia. Her love runs counter to the Party line and I feel is Orwell's Sonia Marmeladov. For those of you not familiar with Crime and Punishment, Sonia is Raskolnikov's redemption, his redemption through suffering. While Raskolnikov finds God through Sonia, Winston is not so lucky. Love is presented as a juxtaposition against the hate inspired by the Party. Julia's eroticism is a major no-no as far as O'Brien is concerned and forms the Eve to Winston's Adam. Picture this, Orwell, the Romantic, offers love is more powerful than hate. The Party then, mobilizes to destroy this force and women like this are a threat. From this perspective, women are a greater threat to the Party then men could ever be. Despite what seems like hints of mysoginistic tendencies, Winston is redeemed - if but for a short time only. I agree that this does not really liberate and give women the voice due their discourse, our discourse - really - but I feel an examination of this type begins to give the absent voice a hearing in a new reading, a less Modern reading, a more enlightened reading. Until we can re-read all those books that we read 20 years ago and give characters like Sonia Marmeladov, Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary and Julia a second look, we will get stuck in a paradigm so ingrained by a male dominated discourse that we have fallen into through a lack of analysis - but that is slowly changing. 1984 offers us much more than an anti-totalitarian perspective - not to ignore that very important point. That 1984 warns us about alienation is timeless. However, to get a fuller read of 1984, try reversing the discourse. Nonetheless, for Orwell's timeless classic of paranoia - no one can deny it's place as a timeless classic. Miguel Llora
Rating: 
Summary: 1984
Review: Nineteen-eighty-four is a prime example of what the future may have looked like had the world had fallen to a reign of totalitarism; a world of total government control. If you enjoy lengthy narratives with details oozing out of the binding, or take a fancy to history and government, this is a must read. If you like books that make you think, this would be a good choice; however, if these subjects don't excite you, you may want to stay away from this one. The incredibly detailed writing clarifies and depicts each scene with stunning reality, but can slow the reading with the intriguing, yet tedious facts. The main themes are love, oppression, and hidden rebellion. It deals with the struggle of man against the indomitable machine of politics. Nineteen-eighty-four is set behind the perspective of the main character, Winston. Only what the he sees is what the reader sees. Given this, you see a great deal. If you harbor even the smallest interest in totalitarian government or communism, this is a good read. The book follows Winston through his daily life and describes its intertwining with the people around him, the "Brotherhood," and the "Party." Through hatred of the governmental restrictions and an illegal love interest, Wilson secretly plans the Party's demise as the plot progressively thickens. The insight and imagination that Orwell used to fabricate an entire world is outstanding. He has a marvelously terrifying viewpoint of Marxist policy, scary to the point of realism. However, as good as this book may seem, it is aimed at the mature reader, a fabulous choice for the high school and college students and great for adults too. So for all of you who have always heard the well-known phrase "Big Brother's watching you," and never knew what it meant, take the chance to figure out what it means by diving into 1984; you won't be disappointed.
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Summary: Chilling Masterpiece!
Review: An extraordinarily original and powerful novel, George Orwell's chilling masterpiece remains absolutely convincing, from the first sentence to the last four words. This book is a remarkable achievement. Sincerely, Diana Dell, author, "A Saigon Party: And Other Vietnam War Short Stories."
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Summary: Symbolism
Review: When I read this book at first it was very dense and a little complicated. But as I got farther into the book I realized I had actually started becoming part of the book. I realized that I knew what would happen before it happened. Oddly enough this mad the book even more interesting instead of boring. As I finished the book I tried to do what I always do; look for what the author was trying to tell me. Now it's obvious that he was warning against the effect of communism. Yet he was also exposing a human need that most of us don't recognize. Orwell was trying to tell us that all of us have a deep need for something to be under. The Party in this book was looking for someone to have them under control and to tell them what to believe in. They were looking for something material to represent to them the power they believed in. An example of this in actual life would be when people look to the priest's to tell them how to live their lives instead of looking straight to God. The reason they do this is because they cannot see, hear, touch, taste, or smell God. So they take a human being and idolize them as if they were the only link they had towards God. This is the human need that Orwell was trying to relate to us.
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Summary: one of those books...
Review: ...you should read every 10 years of your life The 1984 and Animal Farm are the best two books I've read recently...they consider totalitarism in the very readable language, and show the frightening future of the world (creating large blocks such as USA, Europe, USSR, and everlasting war between them). The 1984 also talks about basic principles of freedom ("It is freedom to say that 2+2 equal 4") and involves some other thematics such as birth of love and feelings in general in totalitarism which tends to be free of any kind of feelings. I fully recommend it to everyone!
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Summary: A classic
Review: I was forced to read this in school when I was younger and I didn't really "get it" nor was I even interested in "getting it". I think if you are over 20, you want to re-read this classic novel. It was much better, the second time around.
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Summary: A dark phophency that came ture!
Review: This book offers very compehensive views for people who want to learn about how life inside the IronCurtain is like. IMHO, it is so well written that reading it beats reading tons of magazne articles on this subject. As a former citizen who lived in a communist country, I can testify that almost everything that Mr. Orwell wrote in his '1984' is truth to the point. Reading this book brings back all those nightmares that I had experienced and witnessed there myself. The thing I really like about this book is that although it's a very detailed piece of work documenting on the evils of a communistic social system, but the large amount of information presented in it had not bogged down the pace of the book at all. In fact, this book is a relative easy and fast paced read, thanks to the good writing skill of the author, the good structure of its presentation, and that sparkling but doomed romance that Orwell had geniously imcorporated into the story. All in all, this is a very worthy book for everyone to read about.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent 1st half; Over thought 2nd half
Review: The first half of this book was excellent with a sound plot and a great setting. However, the huge essay from "The Book" would have served better outside of the story, as a companion book. The ending itself was wishy-washy with the character become a Big Brother enthusiast in only a few pages. Although, I didn't like the end, I must say it was a lot better than many books in this "future gone wrong" genre.
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Summary: for the good of the country
Review: Bonnie Ryder Mercy High School Students Mindy Sheehan Humankind has not been deliberately questioning its government for the past seventeen years, or fifty- two years, but, however, since the beginning of time. 1984 by George Orwell simply expresses the fears and anxieties felt by all people towards their government. At all times, society must worry whether government is too large and controlling or too small and unproductive. In 1984, however, the government is extremely small in how many have power but extremely large and authoritarian in its pervasive domination while actively and purposely promoting unproductivity. After reading this book together, my friend and I have a better understanding of how government can grow so large and bleed the soul out of a society. Yes, we can learn about factual historical events but by reading the extreme we have a better understanding of the norm. For instance, how much of today's media is censored and controlled? What information am I not getting? Fifty- two years ago when Orwell first published this book, the United States government had still not apologized for its treatment of Japanese Americans during WW II. It still denied that it had done anything wrong. Their actions were for the good of the country. The U.S.A. would never stoop to the same level as the Germans did with their interred (or would we). Orwell should have felt lucky to live in such an honorable time in history under the motherly wing of all- mighty protective, militaristic of the United States government. Even today history books very rarely even mention this portion of US history. All hail the mighty and glorious past, but do not forget; whoever controls the present controls the past, whoever controls the past controls the future. Again we ask, what of the past has been changed for us? What do we not know? Is Big Brother still watching? 1984 is appropriate for mature Juniors in high school and older. To read the book, one must have patience because most of it is a narrative. Despite the groaning, whining complaints which often accompany the news that a book is a narrative, the personal intimate thoughts are essential to the book. The reader must know how deeply the vein of ignorance runs. The reader must experience the complete metamorphosis which Winston, the main character, undertakes and his personal opinions about his surroundings. How much of our daily lives is spent thinking only to ourselves and analyzing personal thoughts and actions? Because Orwell wanted to create a realistic man, he needed to have intimate thoughts which the reader must understand in order to understand his actions. How many times do we wish that the world could just read our mind to understand us? The reader cannot be bored with the book if he reads every sentence with a grain of salt and tries to fully envelop himself into Orwell's world.
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