Customer Reviews

1984 Nineteen Eighty-Four

5 star:		(370)
4 star:		(61)
3 star:		(24)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Belonging to a Book Club ensures that you read books you wouldn't otherwise read. Sometimes you get a real turkey other times you get a masterpiece and, wow! this book is a masterpiece.

Set in 1984 in Oceania, this book tells the story of one man's journey to find the truth and ultimately freedom in a very brutal totalitarian regime under the ever watchful eye of Big Brother and the thoughtpolice.

If you are looking for a book which has a good story, brilliantly, beautifully written, suspense, and is thought provoking, this is the book to read. Some people say that to write one master piece in your life time is luck, but to write two (Animal Farm) is pure genius.

George Orwell didn't just write a book he wrote a legacy for future generations. Anyone who is concerned about the erosion of free speech and the freedom to be heard should read this book.

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.

Once you start reading the first page you can not put this book down. The vivid storytelliTng of a tightly surveilled society with no room for indivdualism is actually really scary. All events of the world are distorted into a perverted edition which serves the government the best and human needs such as love or privacy are forbidden.

If you can, skip the introduction to 1984.
Forget the film.
Forget that it might be comment on society 50 years ago and that it might apply to Soviet / Sino governments which hardly exist any more.
The themes which Orwell tackles are completely releavant.
So just dive straight in and read about a brilliant, scary, compelling and stark possible-future society.

1984 is an amazingly good read. It's easy to get in to and the characters grip you straight away. The language is pretty straightforward and it's a compact story -- so it's not a marathon 800-page monster like many modern novels can be. The dilemma of Winston Smith is so involving that I've found myself reading the whole book in one or two sessions (and I know exactly what happens!), just because I can't bear to put it down.

So just read it for the pleasure of reading a really great speculative novel, which comments on human society, and human relationships. Yes, it has dated somewhat but that's true of every book. The nightmare which surrounds the main characters isn't affected by the passage of time, and Room 101 is still very, very scary (you'll also discover just how many popular phrases came from this book. Plenty!)

Then, afterwards, you can get really scared about how much of it has come true and how close our society is to that of Orwell's imagination...

And if you were forced to read 1984 or Animal Farm at school, it's worth re-reading it as an adult to appreciate it without someone leaning over your shoulder and telling you what you should be thinking.

1984 is one of those rare books that genuinely changes your outlook on life and the way in which you perceive society as a whole.

There's so much that could be said about Orwell's masterpiece, but I don't think I could word it quite as well as he did. His radical take on "neo-feudalism" and the class system is something that is becoming ever more relevant today, particularly in England - where 1984 is set, and based on.

Can you believe that this book was written scarcely three years after the war?

I think everyone should read 1984 at least once. It puts things into perspective.

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...

`1984' is Orwell's post-modern classic, concerning what the world may look like in 1984, 40 years after the book was written. In Orwell's dystopia, the UK, as part of Oceania, is ruled by the despotic Big Brother. Big Brother has total control of all the media, and therefore controls all the information reaching the populace. The people, divided into the ruling Inner Party, the middle class Outer Party and the under-educated Proles, have total loyalty to Big Brother, in both thought and deed, and the righteousness of his actions, and the cause of Oceania, is unquestioned. Hints of rebellion, even in people's thoughts, are viciously crushed, and executions are commonplace. Against this background, Winston Smith begins to have doubts. He wants to engage in a love affair (as opposed to the passionless, state-sanctioned marriage) and have the ability to question Big Brother. Smith's attempts at subversion bring him face to face with the workings of the party, and a brutal introduction to the realities of life in Oceania.

Orwell's book chronicles a scary trajectory in which the twentieth century was headed in the 1940s, and at times it is no less relevant today. Although Orwell was writing partially about the totalitarian regimes of Hitler and Stalin, the observation of governments controlling the masses by controlling the flow of information through the media is possibly more pertinent today than ever before. Sometimes our society looks very different from Oceania, but some aspects are scarily similar, and Orwell's book is a timeless reminder about the dangers of giving anyone too much power. Few writers (perhaps only Shakespeare) have introduced so many new phrases to the English language. Two current TV programmes (`Big Brother' and `Room 101') take both their names and concepts from the pages of `1984'. This is perhaps an indication of both the richness of ideas and their ongoing relevance of `1984', and also an indication that everyone should read this book, to see how much of the world around them they can see in its pages.

Tbis novel is a masterpiece. It is one of the greatest political novels ever written, showing a picture of totalitarianism and the struggle to keep control. It is little wonder so much of the terminology of the novel is now part of our language as the horror of the society portrayed has seeped into our culture.
In case that sounds dull, this book is actually a can't-put-down page turner. The central love story is moving and tragic; the character of Winston a spark of genius, he is brave and cowardly, certain and confused, hero and anti-hero. At the risk of sounding like the Thought Police I'll finish by adding the comment that everyone should read this book. Powerful.

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.

The book at first appears to be a sick fantasy of a world gone mad, until you read a little deeper and realise that it is actually potentially our world some time in the future - only the names have been changed.
The world that Orwell describes is constantly at war, although the people never really know who is the enemy. They are in a constant state of high alert, and therefore the people have given up all their rights to privacy - Big Brother watches them at all times through their television screens, searching for potential resistance within the population.
The main character, Winston, appears to be an anomoly in the system. He thinks that he is alone in his secret hatred of Big Brother until he meets and falls in love with Julia, and together they attempt to join the resistance in order to bring about the down fall of Big Brother.
Orwell creates tension and suspense from the first page and is relentless throughout.