1984

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Summary: 1984-George Orwell's realistic nightmare based on experience
Review: George Orwell's 1984 is not only the best book he wrote, but also without any doubt the best apocalyptical novel ever written and probably also the best book written in the 20ieth century, that is the most important one. George Orwell once wrote that if one was to summarize his complete work, or find one topic in all of his books, novels, essays and short stories, it would be his fight against totalitarian systems. So 1984 wasn't only the last book he ever wrote, but also his impressive final work on the topic that had influenced all his work. Why is it so genius? Mainly because it is a universal work. Of course it describes perfectly well real totalitarian systems that existed, like Stalin's or Hitler's, and it is basically a book against totalitarian systems, but it is also more. It describes a society, but also the minds of the people living in it, it describes the way mankind could be, it is a universal book about human evil. Ideas like doublethink or newspeak seem frightening familiar to us, we know the trends that lead to what has become out of society in 1984. The probably most shocking thing about 1984 is that it is perfectly realistic and logical in its structure. It is a perfect dictatorship, with High Tech and omniposcient. The main difference between the system in 1984 and, for example, Hitler's dictatorship is that the government in 1984 can do something no other dictatorship in reality ever could: Totally reign over man's mind. What Socrates once said today still is true: The thoughts are free. Even people resisting the nationalsocialistic regime and being caught and tortured still had their thoughts, they could make them say anything, but they could not make them really believe it. In 1984, even thoughts are slaved, it takes a long time to change Winston's mind, and it is not easy, but they finally succeed, finally Winston's mind is changed, impressively demonstrated by the famous final sentence of the book. The shocking thing is that even this seems to be possible to the reader, no one can claim that it's not logical. It is interesting to know that Orwell really believed that the future would look like 1984. Sure, he was dying while writing 1984 and had ergo no hope left, but nevertheless it is too easy to claim that he was too pessimistic, anyway. 1984 also is based on his own experience, the confrontation with inhumanity and human misery in his whole life, the experience of the slums in Paris and London, the Spanish Civil War, English hippocritical people, the Nazis and the Holocaust, etc. One really can see the ideas presented in 1984 developing in his work, "Politics and the English language" is nothing else but a description of newspeak, and in "Looking back on the Spanish Civil War", he already talks about the concept of the nonexistence of truth in a totalitarian system, even using the same example (2+2=5). It is also too easy to say that 1984 is over, that Orwell was wrong, and what he predicted will never actually happen. 1984 is a warning, a horrible and shocking warning which must not be ignored by anyone.

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Summary: Great Symbolic and Incredibly Smart Book
Review: Stephen Bradley: I first read this book and now Im 15 and I still haven't read another book. Every time I read it again I find another piece of clever symbolism. I would recommend this book to anyone! I am incredibly awed by the clever uses of English and symbolic meanings. For example I have been told that Gin was thought to be the downfall of the British Working Class. It would be a shallow understanding of the book to claim it as an anti-socalist book as Orwell (Eric Blair) obviously cared about the working class and was only against pretentous totalatarian states. I invite any like minded people to discuss the book with me. I apolagise for carless grammar and spelling (Im only 15 :) )

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Summary: 1984-a horrible reality
Review: Orwell wrote about his own time, 1948. He found the reality of what was going on so disturbing that he refused to acknowledge this time: he swapped the 4 and 8, hence its title.

Orwell explores a depressing humanity, listless with meaninglessness.

The crux is at the end where Winston is talking to O'Brien and says he knows that he will fail...that there's something in the universe, something that he will never overcome. O'Brien asks if Winston believes in God. Winston says no. Thus there is nothing that exists that the party does not control.

This is Orwell's nightmare; a world without God.

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Summary: Starts really slow. Ends with a BANG!!!
Review: Think about a world where thinking unorthodox thoughts about the government is a crime, punishable by torture and death. Everywhere you go you are in the presence of a telescreen, or a two way television, where people can see you, instead of you just seeing them. Microphones are placed everywhere, catching every single word you speak.

This is the world of 1984. A novel by George Orwell, a novel not about what life might be, but of what it is becoming. Published in 1949, the book offers political satirist George Orwell's nightmare vision of a totalitarian, bureaucratic world and one man's attempt to find himself. A communist government, called Oceania are at constant war with two other similar governments, Eastasia, and Eurasia. Eternal warfare is the price of bleak prosperity.

The story is about a man named Winston Smith. He lives in a time when the love of somebody is illegal, not just the act, but the feelings and nature toward one another. When Winston meets Julia, a romance sparks. But they can only see each other secretly, away from the telescreens and microphones. They soon join the underground opposition of the party, called the brotherhood. One day, the Thought Police(Some police that can read your thoughts and stuff if you have bad thoughts, they catch you) catch them in their hideout, an upper story room on top of an old antique shop.

In my opinion, this novel is a very scary and timely book. The fact that this book can be non-fiction can scare the living daylights out of you. The book is fairly complicated, and the beginning is quite slow. This book is not necessarily meant to create a scare, but to warn people about what might happen in one. The last four words can create a very serious case of depression or it may leave you something to think about afterwards. I know it happened to me. Most definitely I would recommend this book, but I have to warn you that it cannot be treated like an old rag, something that you can just toss aside when you don't want it. It will take you really close to psychosis, and then toss you into a suffocating kind of depression. This is not a novel you will neglect, and it is not a book you can read without wondering about everything you think and do. You'll never hear the phrase "Big Brother is watching you" again without chills going all over you body, giving you shivers, and fear filling every little space of your body.

This book can also be quite confusing to some, and boring at the same time. I am only in the 8th grade, and many of the government aspects of the book were quite hard to catch. The last 45 pages or so of this book though, was very interesting. It reminded me of a parent hitting a child if they were bad. They keep on hitting them until they learn what is right in the parent's point of view. If you are looking for a book in which you can sit down and relax, then don't try this book.

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Summary: A Must-Read!
Review: Orwell's portrayal of a distopic future is extremely powerful. Perhaps what makes it so gripping is the haunting plausability of it all - you'd like to think "this is a book, it's fiction," but it could all too easily come true. As a college student, this has had far more impact on my beliefs than any textbook or lecture. If you've read and enjoyed Huxley's "A Brave New World" (also very good), you'll like this one, too!

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Summary: Wake up, ethnocentric Americans!!
Review: Before I review the book, I must get this off my chest: ORWELL WAS BRITISH! He was NOT writing a warning about the government to future generations of Americans, he was NOT trying to warn us about black helicopters or the cameras on the street corner or anything like that. And in a time when a woman can be raped in public in broad daylight and get no help because people are too scared (this has really happened), perhaps a LITTLE surveillance is a good idea. It will never reach the horrific magnitude in 1984 because Americans are too paranoid (if hypocritical) too let that happen. Does anyone out there seriously think that a culture that fights to legalise automatic weapons because of "Constitutional Rights" would ever let Big Brother show his face?

Now the book:
1984 is undeniably a masterpiece. It skillfully and pointedly demonstrates the evils of Stalinist communism. It is not a prediction of what the American government would turn into; that is a ridiculously ethnocentric supposition. Rather it is a then-timely warning about Joseph Stalin written during the height of the Red Scare in America. Big Brother IS Stalin. He even looks like Stalin. The war that was the origin of the three governments in 1984 was the nuclear war that America and Russia were poised to fight all throughout the Cold War. Perhaps more to the point, 1984 is a fairly accurate representation of the prevailing atmosphere of communist Russia. People actually lived like this. Children as spies? Yes. Hate week? Under different titles, yes. Thought police? Without the technolgy in 1984 (though nearly so), yes. As a warning for today, 1984 admonishes against war, senseless hate, and extreme concentration of power. In America the concentration of power is pretty much impossible (watch Clinton try to pass a bill), but the other two seem to be the latest fashions.

1984 was not meant to create paranoia; it was about the dangers of paranoia. This book needs to be read and taught, but it needs to be taught accurately.

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Summary: Orwell Explores Domination of the Mind
Review: 1984 is undoubtedly one of the most devestating books ever written in English. When Orwell writes Big Brother into power he gives him absolute reign over the population. Now, citizens must not only mouth approval of the status quo, but also truly approve in heart and mind. The novel not only faces the realities of governmental imposition on the economy, media, and personal lives of its citizens, addressing such real-life and very current issues as censorship, control of the press, and sexual freedom, but it also speaks of the oppression of the conscious, rational mind over the creative vision of the artist. The subjugation of the masses serves as a large scale representation of the battle between the artist and society, and ultimately, the artist and himself. Winston spends much of the book working to uncover the truth. He seeks to separate the actual truth (if such does exist) from the invented while he sits at his job churning out pages of manufactured history. In his home he sits, bent and fearful, just outside of Big Brother's gaze writing his thoughts at the end of the day, trying to hold on to some hint of the world as he percieves it. Even his romance with Julia is an attempt to claim some hold on the world as he lies in bed with her and asks whether it is possible that anyone else has ever felt as he does. While Winston is the artist, Juliea is the muse. She represents the artist longing to complete himself, the male and the female joining in fruitful creation. She acts as his audience and his artistic peer. I cannot recommend this book enough, as a classic, as a terrifying view of government gone wrong, and ultimately as the struggle of an artist to find a free exchange of thoughts and ideas between himself and the world and his conscious and unconsious mind.

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Summary: Orwell's 1984
Review: Orwell's unbeleivably captivating and horrific view of a totalitarian society never fails to make a reader reflect upon the riddles of our society. The story of a grand experiment, a utopia gone horribly wrong, '84 has never been as potent, or as frightening, as it is now, as we approach an ever higher level of understanding through technology. The novel revolves around Winston Smith, a typical Party member torn between his personality, his emotion, and the omniprescence of Big Brother and his thought police. Constantly trying to stay as far as possible from the party's cruel influence, Winston learns of the truth behind the propaganda, and learns how the incredible power came upon the first leaders of the party. By controlling thought, the party has become intangible, and undefeatable. From the first sentance to the last four horrifying words, 1984 is a novel to be reckoned with, and one that is difficult to recover from. WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

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Summary: I've never thought about the affects of a book quite so much
Review: Personally, I enjoy novels in which I can relax. 1984 let me do anything but that. Not only is the book overly detailed, but quite borring. Unless it's assigned, I wouldn't suggest it.

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Summary: A terrible future
Review: 1984 wasn't like 1984, but if the future will be like this sometime I don't want any part of it.In the world of 1984, a communist-ish government called Oceana is in charge of the Americas, Austrailia and the British Islands, at constant war with three other similar governments. (You'll read more about that in the book--it's pretty fascinating.) Thinking unorthodox thoughts about the government and the way things are is a crime, punishable by torture and death. Everywhere you go you are in the presence of a telescreen, a sort of two-way TV where they can see you instead of you just seeing them. The English language is in the process of being modified so that unortodox thoughts are not possible.

Other than that, the government seems pretty fair...:)

Definitely one of my favorite books. Read it now, if you haven't already, but I wouldn't reccomend it to the young'ins (6th grade and below)...there's...uhh...stuff they wouldn't understand.