1984

Rating:
Summary: A reminder that "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance"
Review: Yes, technology can be the new hand maiden to Totalitarian government. Or we can choose to be free. To speak out. To allow different viewpoints. We can choose NOT to shout down others when they speak. Thomas Jefferson knew that "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance" and so did the author of "1984".

We can choose to read our history books and great novels. This is a great novel about a possible dystopia. Eric Blair was a great British journalist and the story he tells here rings more true than ever before.

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Summary: It Will Haunt You!
Review: In "1984", George Orwell proved his brilliance with this short novel. It portrays the life of a simple man, Winston Smith, in a totalitarian society. In Oceania, where Winston lives, the Party controls every aspect of every person's life and has the ability to erase the past and "vaporize" any member of the society who betrays the Party.

Winston Smith,or better known to the Party as "6079 Smith W.", is a seemingly average worker of the Ministry of Truth who begins to let his mind wander, an act punishable by death. He purchases a journal where he begins to express his true feeling towards the Party and Big Brother, the ultimate source of power. Even more dangerous that keeping a diary, Winston forms an on-going love affair which he cleverly hides well. All of these act, if caught, could potentially put him in Room 101, the most terrible punishment ever created.

As the plot thickens the reader feel a part of Winston's life. Although dense, this suspenseful page-turner keeps you on your toes. The three slogans that run Oceania, "WAR IS PEACE/ FREEDOM IS SLAVERY/ IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH" artistically portray the twisted and intense rules of the Party. Orwell warns his readers of the possibilities of the future government. 1984 subtly hints the government's power over the brotherhood and our society today.

George Orwell's "1984" is a thought provoking novel that will make you stop and reflect about your own life and the government's ultimate control over you. Once the ideas of "1984" get into your mind, they inevitably will always linger as life goes on. Honestly, this book will haunt you. Pick up a copy! Another book I need to recommend -- completely unrelated to Orwell, but very much on my mind since I purchased a "used" copy off Amazon is "The Losers' Club: Complete Restored Edition" by Richard Perez, an exceptional, lonesome (but also funny) little novel I can't stop thinking about.


Rating:
Summary: The Dead Who Have Not Yet Been Born
Review: Inspiring piece of worldly paranoia, that is truth, quoted well into the twenty first century as the future, and it is, not because mankind doesn't think it will ever go this way, but because we know full well we are, but somehow are allowing it to happen everyday. It is decentralization of power from the human being, in all aspects of one's life, to a higher power, a bigger cause, communism called the great Lucifer because all was given to the collective body and not to God, now God is the great Lucifer because we give ourselves to the collective body of something that we can not prove, so Science is the great Lucifer, producing weapons to kill the world a million times over, toxins to poison us a million times over, are all forms of giving to a collective body the nature of death? Is it the giving to a collective body that robs the soul of its power? Is it giving oneself wholly and utterly to something other than one's own self the conduit of decent into the investment of despair. 1984 sees men and women working their themselves to skin and bone to achieve a greater good that never emerges, the ultimate failings masked by a strict authoritative regime, BIG BROTHER, the power all seeing and ever controlling, rewriting history, editing the world around them, at war with this nation one minute and switching to another the next, neighbours up and vanish and protagonists invest in each other for but a fleeting glimpse of love only to be captured by the THOUGHT POLICE for engaging in illegal activity, men at the top of this society using torture and mind control to enforce a pathology of unquestionable and undeniable supremacy of all the power to the BIG BROTHER system, and that this is the system and that is why they are alive at all, at which point we question if it is worth living at all to which Orwell delivers a resounding, no, of course it is not worth living this life, why bother at all, and that this is a piece of work that must be understood by everyone and anyone who can read and is certainly mandatory reading for anyone in least bit interested in politics or political science.

Unfortunately however we tend to vote in military commanders, lawyers and extreme capitalists into government and then ask why it is all going down hill.

The problem is there is no terminology in the English language to describe the act of one human being killing their unborn future children by process of setting up a bad management system with a legal body incorporated into that system before they die. This prison kills, yet it is justified. 1984 is maybe that word, filicide being the closest English equivalent.

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Summary: Big Brother is Watching
Review: "War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength." A statement in 1949 intended for 1984, and reality for us today. Reality can be your own interpretation. In reality who really controls your life? According to George Orwell's classic novel 1984 the thought police and big brother were the ones to control our lives. Big brother is a power structure that regulates not only information, but individual thought and memory.

Big brother is not watching. He is singing and dancing. He is pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big brother is busy holding your attention every moment you are awake. He is making sure you are always distracted. He is making sure you are fully absorbed. He is making sure your imagination withers until it is as useful as your appendix. With everyone's imagination useless no one can be a possible threat to your world.

The book speaks about control and being a unitary party instead of individuals. It speaks out about the ways of people and their hunger for world domination. I believe that this is his best book written, although his topics are all about human nature and where it takes us in life. Everyone should read this book in order to open your eyes and think for yourself rather then think like the rest of the world.

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Summary: Absolute Power Corrupts
Review: This is a very interesting book that should be read along with the author's other book Animal Farm. I read the book and saw the VHS starring Hurt and Burton which is mostly a faithful representation of the book - and a good movie in color - but the movie is not for the faint of heart because of the torture and sex scenes.

The basic plot is essentially a love story about a man Winston Smith attempting to find himself and pursue a love interest while living in the fictional state of Oceania and working in the Ministry of Truth. The long and the short of it is that people can sometimes be very nasty to their fellow humans and we have such a situation - but set at some future date. Oceania appears to be a communist society or similar that has gone wrong in its pursuit of some Utopian ideals. The party is called INGSOC which is a short form for English socialism, and like many parties it is run by an "inner party" that holds the power. The book is set at some future date about 35 years from the date of publication of the book in the late 1940s to 1984; it is set in a bombed out London in 1984.

This English socialism has evolved into a tightly controlled and hero worshipping society run by the "party", i.e.: pictures of the leader ("B.B.") Big Brother are omnipresent and everyone wears similar blue overalls, calls each other "brother" not comrade, but thinks or talks the same, eats similar food, etc. Big brother has taken on a persona similar to Stalin or Mao and like those totalitarian communist societies, the misfits or independent thinkers or small business people are crushed. Propaganda is the norm and (again) like similar 20th century communist countries history is re-written almost daily to reflect the current whims of the leaders.

The citizens of Oceania talk in very guarded terms among themselves, always worryng about being turned in by a spy for an improper phrase or comment. They live in decaying quarters with a lack of heat and clothes, poor food, short on essentials such as razor blades but where a synthetic gin is limitless. The story is sinister in that the ruling party members use thought control and torture to manipulate the masses including our hero Winston.

This is a chilling story about how a society can take a wrong turn but the story for myself is more about the failings of human nature, the use of power and the corruption of a political system than it is about our future society that we are bound to see. On the contrary, there are many past and present parallels including Stalinist Russia.



Rating:
Summary: A classic
Review: I know that some of you might be high school readers looking to give a book report and scouring the reviews trying to find some nuggets on which to base your report. A lot of these reviews do look like book reports don't they? This book is hard to appreciate in high school. It has many layers and really stretches the reader (which is why they want you to read it in high school - to stretch). Anyway, I will add my two cents to the 1000+ reviews already here.

This book paints a dark picture of the future (even though 1984 is past us, it still paints our future) as we go torward more government control and intervention. The book forces us to ask serious questions - how far are we willing to go? What role does freedom play? What does freedom mean? Orwell's masterpiece - though Animal Farm is also a good one.

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Summary: An All-Time Classic
Review: "1984" is one of the defining works of fiction from the 20th Century. Written by George Orwell (the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair) in 1949, it has become the work referenced in other literature, film, and music for a future government which controls all of its citizens, and uses them to maintain its own position of power. Of course, it was not the first novel to present this idea, but it is perhaps one that presents the future that is the most bleak and without hope.

Other authors have created sterile futures built on technological advancements that have drained humanity from its citizens. Instead, Orwell's future has technology held in check or even regressing, while political power and control are the forces that imprison humanity in his future. It is easy to read fascism and communism into the government of `Big Brother', but one can see elements from "1984" in any type of government, they simply are more obvious in a totalitarian one.

This novel has been recognized many times by readers. In 1952 it ranked 17th on the Astounding/Analog All-Time Poll, and in 1956 it tied for 9th on the same poll. In 1975 it tied for 41st on the Locus Poll for All-Time novels, in 1975 it was 34th on the Locus Poll for All-Time SF Novels, and in 1998 it was 21st on the Locus Poll for SF Novels from before 1990. The most fitting recognition though, must be the Prometheus Hall of Fame award which it won in 1984.

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Summary: Eric Blair's masterful and prophetic warning to the future
Review: It is often disputed as to what Eric Blair, under the pen name of George Orwell, was trying to communicate through his now legendary masterpeice, 1984. Some say he was warning the world to the dangers of the Soviet Union and it's totalitarian policies. Some say he was warning governments from allowing power to be shifted over to obscure, bureaucratic oligarchies. Ultimately, I would not enforce any of the above or any other theories an anybody. It's a subjective matter, as is all. But, by the time you emerge from the world Mr. Blair creates around you, you will be certain of the worst a government is capable of. You will have cold shivers, your jaw will drop and you will sit in awe of the appauling, yet frightenly plausible, deeds the "Party" will go to in order to control the thoughts and memories of it's populace.

From simply a literary standpoint, Blair proves himself a writer of the highest caliber. His artful use of syntax draws a graphic image, as well as the ambiance of the book itself. His words flow together perfectly, each one complementing the last. The poignancy of his work does not lie in fast paced action, or "edge-of-your-seat" thrills, but in total immersion into his world and a glimpse of what could be.

Ultimately, this book is worth all the time in the dictionary you will have to spend in order to understand this book fully. It will change the way you look at the world and the way populations allow themselves to be governed. A vital book for anyone in our modern world.

Rating:
Summary: Unbelievable
Review: George Orwell does a marvelous job with displaying the negative effects of a so-called utopian society. The theme contains parellels to the negatives of fascist society and even many comparisions can be made towards American/Western society. The chilling story will have you utterly compelled from beginning to end with the unbelievable events that transpire. Plus, outside from the plot itself, the intent and meaning behind the book is fantasticly showcased.

Erich Fromm provides a great analysis of the comparision between the society of 1984 and fascit society and even Western/democratic/American society. Also, Orwell gives a indepth description of Newspeak (the created language of the people in 1984), which is rather fascinating.