Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
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Book Reviews of Nineteen Eighty-Four
Book Review: 1984: Orwell's nightmare society.
Summary: 5 Stars
"Political language . . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind," George Orwell wrote in his essay, "Politics and the English Language." "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism, as I understand it," George Orwell wrote in 1946.
Best known for his haunting novel on totalitarianism, 1984 (1949), Orwell (b. Eric Arthur Blair; 1903-50) was a political and cultural visionary in his anti-Stalinist writings. In his novel, Orwell envisions a bleak society controlled by the state. His name ("Orwellian") has become synonymous with the government oppression depicted in 1984, and the euphemistic and misleading language employed by the government (e.g., "Ministry of Defence," "collateral damage," and "pacification") as a manipulative tool for its own political purposes.
"We shall crush you down to the point from which there is no coming back. Things will happen to you from which you could not recover, if you lived a thousand years. Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then fill you with ourselves" (pp. 264-5). More relevant now than ever, 1984 not only tells the profound story of man's search for love in a world devoid of truth ("IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH"), freedom ("FREEDOM IS SLAVERY"), and individuality, it also demonstrates totalitarian government's power to break the human spirit. There is no "happily ever after" for lovers like Winston Smith and Julia in an Orwellian society of Thought Police and Big Brother, and where "WAR IS PEACE." Orwell's 1984 offers readers an important message about these times.
G. Merritt
Book Review: A disturbingly vivid alternate reality!
Summary: 5 Stars
"Big Brother is watching!" This phrase has been so popularly used that the meaning is now synonymous with issues like "manipulation of truth", "violation of privacy", "conspiracy theory", etc. `1984' is a cleverly written political satire often induced with dark humour, exploring life in a would-be fascist-like totalitarian future where everyone was being monitored and compelled to keep in line ('thoughtcrime' is a crime!), where the individual could no longer differentiate between truths and lies (through the practice of `doublethink'), where history was being constantly re-written to suit the prevailing political agenda, where language had been simplified to the point of uselessness (through Newspeak), where war had to be kept ongoing to reduce economic surplus so that the population could be held under control, and where party ideology had absolute power over a society dominated by fear, suspicion and distrust.
We follow the story of Winston Smith, one who disagreed with the party and was secretly envisioning a different kind of life without being under the ever-watchful eye of Big Brother. His hatred for Big Brother and his attempt at joining the rebelling Brotherhood ultimately ended in tragedy and he was captured, tortured and brainwashed. Orwell's gloomy depiction of life in Oceania (his future version of London) is realistic and convincing. The last section of the book is especially thought provoking and really sends chill to the spine. Overall, Orwell's vision of the future in 1984 is intense and highly disturbing. Although we all know by now that our 1984 (dominated by the MTV/big-hair/yuppie culture) has occurred very differently and that the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s marked the final triumph of liberal-democracy over socialism/Marxism, Orwell's `1984' remains relevant today as a warning against a post-global age of resurging absolutism and religious fundamentalism. This book is highly recommended.
Book Review: War is Peace, feedom is slavery, and Owell is amazing
Summary: 5 Stars
1984 by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about the totalitarian regime of the Party, it's the story of Winston Smith and his intellectual rebellion of the Party, and consequent captivity, torture, and re-education. The Party and Big Brother totally control the people by psychological manipulation to dictate thoughts and actions.
Imagine a world where you are being constantly watched and you don't know it, and a common enemy is used as the object of fear and hatred for the party- a means of controlling the population of course. Imagine a world where the party wishes to have all human desire disappear, sex is a grotesque act committed only for two reasons; reproduction and duty to the Party. To desire anything was a thoughtcrime, you should only want Big Brother's love and acceptance, as O'Brien says,"There will be no loyalty, except loyalty to the Party."
You believe everything the Party says, it is always correct. They have lost the ability of independent thought, and memories are lost and never were. A new language is created "Newspeak," essentially the destruction of words. So thoughtcrime against the Party is impossible because there are no words that can correctly express emotions.
So, "freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four" and this freedom is never granted. Two plus Two is anything the Party wants it to be, and "war is peace" because war is used as a tool to control the people.
The novel takes the reader to a world that is so scary and vivid and almost possibly like ours.' It's a masterpiece and Orwell will take you to a world that will shake you because it is almost like our own, but thankfully and hopefully will never get as bad. Orwell tells you how important freedom really is, and that you might not even notice that you don't have it, and that two plus tw0 should always equal four or somethings not right.
Book Review: Tremendous book
Summary: 5 Stars
George Orwell's book 1984 was a tremendous, very enticing book. It shows a government under which no one can trust anyone. Everyone has to watch what is said to everyone because there is always a chance that the other person they are talking to is a spy.
It starts off with Winston questioning what is going on in the government. He is wanting to revolt against them. He realizes that all the people are changing the history everyday to go with what the government says.
He isn't careful of what he does and he gets caught. That goes back to always watching what the characters say around other people because if they aren't careful, they will get caught. That leads to George Orwell's purpose of this novel.
George Orwell was a very good writer. He had a reoccurring theme in this book and in Animal Farm, which was communism. In 1984, he showed his vision of how the world would be if communism took over. There would be no freedom, and one supreme ruler, or in the book, Big Brother.
Orwell accomplished his goal in this book. He was warning people against the negative aspects of communism. It may have been a little dramatic, but still there is not much freedom in communist countries. He showed that the government would have a hand in everything, even what people said in private.
This book has many strengths and a couple weaknesses in it. The first strength is that it is written very well. It is put together so that everything fits together perfectly. Another strength is that it is a very enticing book. Once the reader picks the book up he or she can't stop reading it until it's done. The one weakness it has is the ending. It somewhat just cuts the reader off at the ending. It basically says Winston gave up on loving Julia and he accepted the party. So, Orwell is saying that Winston gave up and accepted communism. Overall though, it was an excellent book.
Book Review: Disturbing and Relevent
Summary: 5 Stars
It may be said that great books comment on their times, and on the human experience, but masterpieces actually shape history. We may look at George Orwell's 1984 in two ways: first, his description of the terror of totalitarianism, which his generation witnessed firsthand in the form of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. Orwell does a masterful job of presenting such a world in its day-to-day reality, the unspoken weight of oppression found in police states, the everpresent fear that becomes natural after a while, the ease with which that fear eventually makes you just go along with it all.
But history has also shown us that totalitarianism eventually burns itself out, that it cannot be sustained in the long run. This is scant reassurance for its millions of victims, true, but maybe a bit of hope for the rest of us. The second point about 1984, and the thing that makes it a masterpiece, is the way that it has shaped our culture today, not through its description of totalitarianism itself but the way it describes the very real methods used by governments and ideologies to control us. Terms like "doublethink" are now a part of our daily discourse, describing not the subjects of totalitarian states like North Korea but the modern, wealthy democracies that claim to be free. And this is the most chilling message of Orwell's novel: you don't need to be in a totalitarian regime to be controlled by clever propaganda. You don't need to have the police cameras in your home. You only need the fear of them, or the belief that war is peace or that torture is justice or that history is a thing that the powerful are entitled to rewrite for their own ends. Because self-censorship is every bit as complete as the regular kind, and is actually preferred by those who would control us, since it's far cheaper and easier than putting an actual gun to your head.