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li33ieg: 1984, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451: 3 essential titles that remind us of the need to keep our individual souls pure.
Ludi_Ling: Really, the one cannot be mentioned without the other. Actually, apart from the dystopian subject matter, they are very different stories, but serve as a great counterpoint to one another.
Anonymous user: It's essential to read Huxley's and Orwell's books together. Both present the ultimate version of the totalitarian state, but there the similarities end. While Orwell argues in favour of hate and fear, Huxley suggests that pleasure and drugs would be far more effective as controlling forces. Who was the more prescient prophet? That's what every reader should decide for him- or herself.… (more)
readafew: Both books are about keeping the people in control and ignorant.
hipdeep: 1984 is scary like a horror movie. Fahrenheit 451 is scary like the news. So - do you want to see something really scary?
BookshelfMonstrosity: A man's romance-inspired defiance of menacing, repressive governments in bleak futures are the themes of these compelling novels. Control of language and monitors that both broadcast to and spy on people are key motifs. Both are dramatic, haunting, and thought-provoking.… (more)
ivan.frade: Both books talk about revolution and the people, individual rights vs. common wellness. "darkness at noon" is pretty similar to 1984, without the especulation/science-fiction ingredient.
Anonymous user: Huxley and Zamyatin are practically the canon recommendations for this work, so much so that they hardly need to be mentioned, let alone mentioned again.. Therefore, let me instead recommend a lesser-known work that likewise influenced Orwell's work: Burdekin's dystopian future-history, Swastika Night… (more)
4.5 but i'll round up! i last read this in high school, so it has been a while. i appreciated it much more this time around because i'm no longer 16 years old. ( )
This is a book as old as I am (1949). It’s one of the many important books that I had not read but felt I should have read, although there are aspects of it that I’ve managed to vaguely absorb (big brother, newspeak).
I found this novel repellent, with Winston an unattractive protagonist. The skin-deep love story in a dystopian world of institutionalised torture and disappearance is neither sexy nor enticing. There is an underlying sado-masochistic delight that I found distasteful. Winston’s attraction to Julia arises from sadistic fantasy and his submission to O’Brien’s sadistic torture has a masochistic inevitability to it. As O’Brien himself says,
We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. (p. 276)
Predictive novels are usually more about the present than the future and Nineteen Eighty-Four is no exception. So, it is not surprising that 1984 has been and gone without realisation, Mind you, Trump’s alternative facts or his method of fabricating fact-through-assertion and Xiang Ping’s reinvention of the Party in China make one wonder.
The emphasis Orwell places on control of language is most detailed in the Appendix but it’s also curiously unconvincing. Is this because language is a wilder beast than institutions are capable of controlling? Nevertheless, the way such insidious terms like human resources, efficiency dividend, let him go, have entered the language, point to more subtle mechanisms of control.
I found this book deeply flawed and unpleasant to read. ( )
Terrifying. On the surface, it seems like pure fiction and unrealistic, but even just a basic level of deeper thinking let's you see how real this future could become, how quickly our society could develop into this. Even more so now than when it was first written. With the Internet, smart phones and all the smart products around us, we essentially are being watched and listened to at all times, it is not a far leap to see how this could turn into a way to force compliance to societal or government demands. I think it is also terrifying to see how easily the party members accept it all, with little thought of upsetting the norms. It is easy to imagine groups today being swept into group hates and desire to see others punished, in many ways, we are already there. But today there are many more small groups of focused hate for many different people and subjects, if the hate became unified against only a few subjects, 1984 could easily become reality ( )
I had a hard time getting through this book, and ultimately didn't finish it. I got to around page 100 until I stopped reading it. I just couldn't get into Winstons POV and the way the book is written. Maybe in the future I will give it a new try, but as of now, it will most likely gather dust on my bookshelf. ( )
In conclusion, 1984 is not the pinnacle of dystopian novels. The insufficiency of Orwell’s writing, the blandness of the characters and the inappropriate content make this book just plain bad.
added by vibesandall | editThe Trailblazer, Camryn Lee(Oct 10, 2023)
"We get Arthur Calder-Marshall’s attack, in Reynolds News, on Orwell’s book and character"
added by vibesandall | editReynolds News, Arthur Calder-Marshall(Jun 22, 2019)
You don’t need to be Will Self to find fault with Orwell’s novel...It must surely be possible that the book can be both mediocre and brilliant, deeply flawed and enduringly great?
added by vibesandall | editThe Guardian, Sam Jordison(Nov 18, 2014)
George Orwell's handling of his main female character in 1984 is clichéd, clumsy, and not a little sexist.
added by vibesandall | editThe Atlantic, Noah Berlatsky(Jan 28, 2014)
The actress's claims have horrified Orwell devotees, but if the book's romantic plot isn't convincing, it's only because the dystopian classic itself is flawed.
added by vibesandall | editThe Atlantic, Noah Berlatsky(Jan 22, 2014)
George Orwell opens his stunning novel '1948' novel by telling the reader that the “clocks were striking thirteen”. If this isn’t an opening line for the ages, I don’t know what is.
How Winston and Julia rebelled, fell in love and paid the penalty in the terroristic world of tomorrow is the thread on which Britain’s George Orwell has spun his latest and finest work of fiction. In Animal Farm, Orwell parodied the Communist system in terms of barnyard satire; but in 1984 ... there is not a smile or a jest that does not add bitterness to Orwell’s utterly depressing vision of what the world may be in 35 years’ time.
Though the indignation of Nineteen Eighty-Four is singeing, the book does suffer from a division of purpose. Is it an account of present hysteria, is it a satire on propaganda, or a world that sees itself entirely in inhuman terms? Is Mr Orwell saying, not that there is no hope, but that there is no hope for man in the political conception of man?
added by vibesandall | editThe New Statesman, V.S. Pritchett(Jun 18, 1949)
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.
added by vibesandall | editSunday Times (UK), Edward Shanks(1949)
Make no mistake this book has nothing whatsoever to do with literature.. enlivened by occasional salacious passages, like currants in a very dry plum duff.
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.
Quotations
"BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU."
"WAR IS PEACE. SLAVERY IS FREEDOM. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH."
Freedom is the freedom to know that two plus two make four.
Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.
In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two plus two might make five, but when one was designing a fun or an airplane they had to make four.
Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime is death.
The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.
We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.
If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.
Power is in inflicting pain and humiliations. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.... We are creating a world of fear and treachery and torment ... a world which will grow not less but MORE merciless.... In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement.... There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always—do not forget this, Winston—always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.
She had become a physical necessity, something that he not only wanted but felt that he had a right to.
The whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought ... every year fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. ... What was required was short clipped words of unmistakable meaning which ... roused the minimum of echoes in the speaker's mind. ... The smaller the area of choice, the smaller the temptation to take thought.
Winston fitted a nib into the penholder and sucked it to get the grease off. The pen was an archaic instrument, seldom used even for signatures, and he had procured one, furtively and with some difficulty, simply because of a feeling that the beautiful creamy paper deserved to be written on with a real nib instead of being scratched with an ink-pencil. Actually he was not used to writing by hand. Apart from very short notes, it was usual to dictate everything into the speak-write, which was of course impossible for his present purpose.
Such things he saw could not happen today. Today there were fear, hatred, and pain, but no dignity of emotion or deep and complex sorrows.
And if all the others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records contained the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth.
Until they become conscious, they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
Winston, in addition to his regular work, spent long periods every day in going through back files of the Times and altering and embellishing news items which were to be quoted in speeches.
At present nothing is possible except to extend the area of sanity little by little.
In so far as he had time to remember it, he was not troubled by the fact that every word he murmured into the speakwrite, every stroke of his ink pencil, was a deliberate lie.
War prisoners apart, the average citizen of Oceania never sets eyes on a citizen of either Eurasia or Eastasia, and he is forbidden the knowledge of foreign languages. If he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about them are lies.
Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary.
"How does one man assert power over another, Winston?"
Winston thought. "By making him suffer," he said.
Countless other words such as honor, justice, morality, internationalism, democracy, science, and religion had simply ceased to exist.
...a Party member called upon to make a political or ethical judgment should be able to spray forth the correct opinions as automatically as a machine gun spraying forth bullets.
Books like Orwell's are powerful warnings, and it would be most unfortunate if the reader smugly interpreted 1984 as another description of Stalinist barbarism, and if he does not see that it means us, too. (Erich Fromm)
Portrays life in a future time when a totalitarian government watches over all citizens and directs all activities.
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George Orwell describes a grey, totalitarian future ruled by Big Brother and his wide network of agents, including the Thought Police - a world where news is fabricated according to the authorities' wishes and people live lukewarm lives by rote. Winston Smith, a hero who lacks heroic attributes, merely wants truth and decency. But he realises there is no hope for him in a society where privacy is non-existent and individuals with unconventional thoughts are brainwashed or executed. Even though the year 1949 has passed, George Orwell's nightmare picture of the world we were creating remains the great modern classic portrait of a negative Utopia.