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Summary: All things to all readers?
Review: Reading all the reviews has been fascinating! A great and deep book is somewhat like a Rorschach inkblot, allowing the reader to place their own personality and ideas atop it.1984 is part of the world's literary culture, something that is of value beyond the quality of the story and the writing. It's a satire, not a prophecy or prediction or a sci-fi novel. "Satire has, as its prime purpose, not to comment or wound so much as to reform. It seeks to mock, or invert, or exaggerate with the intention, that by doing, idiocies may be corrected." (Stephen Murray-Smith) The fact that dictatorships, of a wide range of colors, are currently in something of a decline suggests that Orwell's efforts at reform are slowly working. There are many deep parts of the book. Orwell explores the psychological role of language and control of thought by language, something which seems to be an on-going experiment in the USA today. Despair, hopelessness, human frailty, human resilience, love, betrayal; Orwell deals with so many themes in this rich work. Yes, it is deeply disturbing, as good satire should be. Yes, we can see the parallels in our own societies and lives. That is as it should be. 1984 is not an action book, as action and excitement are anathema to control. Satire can be very hard and not very funny, and can take us time and a sense of history and society to grasp properly. It is good that the book is read in schools. You may not fully understand it at the time. Return to it over the years. It is a warning to our cultures and societies about possibilities, but you must understand something of societies and cultures to understand the book and its warnings fully. Let it be a guide to you, not a prescription.
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Summary: Not for the simple minded and/or immature
Review: A certain mental maturity is needed to appreciate this book. It is useless to prescribe it to silly bobby-socksers whose minds and interests can't go beyond TV shows about spoiled teenagers and/or Most-Popular-Boy-on-Whatyamacallit-School-Team. Go back to your Barbies, nitwits: you'll never be able TO READ.
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Summary: More like Propaganda
Review: Orwell seems to be trying to warn us against a highly unrealitic future, one that is the result of Totalitarianist rule. The book is a lot like Animal FArm. People have loved this book because it gives expression to nutcase conspiracy theories and a deep mistrust in the government. Also it leads people to believe that Democracy is the Ultimate Form Of Government. Communism in its idealistic form is a utopianistic social doctrine, NOT a totalitarianist government. It is perhaps unrealistic at the moment, but that does not mena democracy is the One and ONLY solution and the best. Democracy has problems as well- underrepresentation of minority groups, mob hysteria leading to irrational judgements(think the Maine and the Alamo and Vietnam) and finally suave politicians whose only purpose is to brag..brag...brag... until after election time. Communism never mandates surveillance or tyrranny. The Big Brother in this book is nothing more than the Hidden Enemy of a paranoid schizophrenic, and the whole book is highly propaganda-saturated and alarmist.
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Summary: SSSSSCARY!
Review: The book was scary! It woke me up about the governments absolute power. It is a scary, story about the geovernment controlling its entire population. Telescreens follow and record every movement, speaking to you if you are doing something wrong. It will scare you every word you read. I would recomend reading it, if you would like nightmares, about the government controlling you. Every foot step, "Big Brother is Watching You". WAR IS PEACE, FEEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGH. The thought police enforce the crimes that Big Brother makes. If you are involved in a thought crime, you will first disappear from the population, and you will never be heard of again. They government brings you to their jail, and it involves severe gang beatings, and tortures. Everybody works for the government, but their job descriptions are faint. On what exactly the do, Winston(main character) gets a list of names, and is told to delete them off the computer, but he does not know what for. He deletes everyones name and erases their past. The beginning gets off to a slow start, but it is well worth the ending. It wraps the whole book up. Giving the total image of the governments power.
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Summary: A warning of events to come
Review: 1984, written in the late 1940's, is a shocking look at a possible future. This future is one where independant thought is outlawed and "Big Brother" rules over the people of Oceania with an iron fist. One man stands up against this totalitarian government. Can he topple Big Brother, or will he be one who falls? This book really makes the reader THINK while they read. Today, with our ever-expanding government, this future is not a far-fetched possibility. Do not take this book so much as an entertaining novel, but rather as a warning of events to come.
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Summary: BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU
Review: THIS BOOKS WHICH WAS WRITTEN IN 1956 SHOWS HOW THE AUTHOR IMAGINED THE WORLD IN 1984. The story takes place in a strange world where you have to leave your TV on all the time.where you have to use the double mind to forget that the country is at war against one country one day and an other country another day.This world is a vision of what could be the world in 1984. Of course, we are quite far removed from that, but with webcams everywhere we can think we are not quite so far as it seems from this.That is why this book is so interesting because it is both near and far from us.
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Summary: This is a Scary Place!
Review: Orwell's classic book on thought control, mind control, body control and just about any kind of control you could think of, is a powerful book that many people hold in regards to as being prophetic. Time has passed and other realizations occur, however, this book still stands as a monument, not only in fiction, but in our understanding and use of technology as either entertainment or mass media awareness, ergo; programming. With Erich Fromm writing an afterword, which he cites many examples that displays different types of utopias/thought controlled societies, discussing the psychological aspects of a society that is shaped in such a way, reminiscing from his own book Escape From Freedom. A classic book in every way, and may best be appreciated with Huxley's Brave New World (confer Neil Postman's 'Amusing Ourselves To Death'). Highly reccomended in any study of literature.
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Summary: 1984 might be yet to come...
Review: I first read "1984" in Russian samizdat back in the USSR, and thought that the importance of this book will not survive the collapse of communism. Boy, was I wrong... The similarity between Orwell's Ministry of Thruth and the mainstream US mass media is really striking.
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Summary: Prophetic and Frightening
Review: Orwell was a prophet. He introduced such words into our vocabulary as 'newspeak' and 'thoughtcrime' which have forever changed the way we look at government. No one who hasn't read 1984 can truly call themselves politically literate.
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Summary: A must read
Review: This is one of the few books I think everyone should read at one point or another of their life. I read this book about 7 years back and I think it does an amazing job of narrating the harrowing experience of people under an oppressive regime.
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