Nineteen Eighty-Four (Penguin Modern Classics)
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Product Description
Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the needs of the Party. Yet he inwardly rebels against the totalitarian world he lives in, which demands absolute obedience and controls him through the all-seeing telescreens and the watchful eye of Big Brother, symbolic head of the Party. In his longing for truth and liberty, Smith begins a secret love affair with a fellow-worker Julia, but soon discovers the true price of freedom is betrayal.
About the Author
Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell) was born in 1903 in India, where his father worked for the Civil Service. The family moved to England in 1907 and in 1917 Orwell entered Eton, where he contributed regularly to the various college magazines. From 1922 to 1927 he served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, an experience that inspired his first novel, Burmese Days (1934). Several years of poverty followed. He lived in Paris for two years before returning to England, where he worked successively as a private tutor, schoolteacher and bookshop assistant, and contributed reviews and articles to a number of periodicals. Down and Out in Paris and London was published in 1933. In 1936 he was commissioned by Victor Gollancz to visit areas of mass unemployment in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) is a powerful description of the poverty he saw there. At the end of 1936 Orwell went to Spain to fight for the Republicans and was wounded. Homage to Catalonia is his account of the civil war. He was admitted to a sanatorium in 1938 and from then on was never fully fit. He spent six months in Morocco and there wrote Coming Up for Air. During the Second World War he served in the Home Guard and worked for the BBC Eastern Service from 1941 to 1943. As literary editor of the Tribune he contributed a regular page of political and literary commentary, and he also wrote for the Observer and later for the Manchester Evening News. His unique political allegory, Animal Farm was published in 1945, and it was this novel, together with Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), which brought him world-wide fame.
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First Sentence
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Affecting and dark,
By
This review is from: 1984 Nineteen Eighty-Four (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)
In 1984, Orwell relates the depressing story of Winston Smith, a doomed citizen living in Airstrip One (formerly known as London), a poverty-ridden dystopia ruled over by The Party: a city where those who show signs of independent thought vanish in the night, where gigantic telescreens monitor Winston's every move, where he must scratch a living on what The Party provides, working a job rewriting old newspapers in The Party's favour while clinging to his sanity through tiny acts of secret rebellion.
The first of these acts is to purchase and write in a diary, and later to meet a female Party member in private (marriage is formally controlled by The Party, and is strictly for the sole purpose of reproduction). It is only when he finds true happiness and apparent haven from the eyes of the Thought Police that The Party choose to act, arresting him and subjecting him to a torture too cruel and lasting to imagine: one that destroys him in a more important way than death ever could. As harrowing as Winston's despair-ridden tale is, it's the sheer relevance of the world he inhabits that makes the book such a joy to read in the 21st century. With our highly-filtered and biased news reports, a network of CCTV cameras watching us in city centres, tax on our products feeding the government money and censoring laws and activists stifling free speech, comparisons to 1984 are inevitable. In the world of 1984, people are robbed of personal freedom, brainwashed, abducted, tortured, gradually starved, lied to and killed, and the truly terrifying result of The Party's efforts is that there exists no material proof of their crimes. The book illuminates the darkest eventuality of politics and government control, and makes it feel that bit too real for comfort. Orwell's writing has not aged noticeably - I had no problem reading it, and I'm all of seventeen, so most readers will fly through it. If anything, however, some may find the writing style too coarse or simple: Orwell never entirely escapes the analytical style so well-suited to his essays, and in places the book lacks emotion and descriptive flair. In particular, the female protagonist is painfully shallow, never extending very far beyond a "Hello, Dear!" persona. At one point, Orwell also diverts away from the main story and dedicates a large portion of writing to a book within the story, one that Winston is reading, which should be interesting but is annoyingly long-winded and detracts from the main story. Overall, though, 1984 is profound and chilling. It is a timeless tale of man vs state, and may be uplifting or depressing depending on the individual reader. At any rate, the countless parallels to modern culture make it interesting, and the arguments of logic between Winston and an Inner Party Member will give budding philosophers food for thought. Political enthusiasts will also find issues to chew over, and fans of popular culture may pick up on some unlikely links; musicians, authors and directors in years since have taken heaps of inspiration from the book: the iconic expression "a rebel from the waist down", made famous by a Marilyn Manson song, finds its roots here, alongside the concept of Big Brother and the inspiration of the video game Half-Life 2. Something for everybody.
34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best books that I have ever read.,
By A Customer
This review is from: 1984 Nineteen Eighty-Four (Paperback)
This book is truly outstanding, it is a timeless political satire that demands to be read to be fully appreciated. Nineteen Eighty Four is a chilling portrayal of totalitarianism with a Nietzsche philosophy --that there are no facts, only interpretations-- from the book we have: '"Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else," says O'Brien. " . . . In the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be truth is truth."'The concepts that Orwell deals are evident in our society today, only by reading the book will you truly understand Doublethink, Newspeak et cetera. After you read the book, it leaves a lasting impression, you will never look at the world the same way again. This book, along with Animal Farm, would serve as chapters for a political Bible. A must read and a true classic.
60 of 65 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the most interesting and chilling books ever,
By A Customer
This review is from: Nineteen Eighty-Four (Paperback)
This is a book that will grasp you from the start to the end. It is not just a book, it is a fantastic love tale,, it is a compedium of human traits and society, it is a grim phrophesy, a clever philisophical discussion, and so much more. Firstly the world it is set in is so realistic, yet weird and chilling at the ame time, the way the world is split into 3 super states constantly at war. The way there is adoration of BIG BROTHER and how the higher up the ranks of society you go, the more demented and cruel everyone is. And this is just the shallow outer edge of the book! its chilling in itself! But the REAL nightmare comes when you look deeper into the plot, the states of mind, the 2 minutes hate, and the talks with o brien. This is when you get a horrifying picture of what human society can create, and might well of done, had Orwells predictions come true. And yet through all the horrer comes this weird dream-like feeling, of a strange surreal world. On top of this you can look at the world today around us and HONESTLY say that some, even a lot, of the traits and systems in 1984 exist today. The societies of hate, the manipulation of truth in newspapers like the SUN. These factors all contribute to making one of the, if not THE, best book(s) ever written. READ IT AND HAVE A GOOD LONG LOOK AROUND YOU...
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