1984
Published March 21, 2005
So, the Party controls these two most basic of human instincts, and through this, their control extends logically to all aspects of party members' lives. Of course, it's not a simple matter; every home has a two-way viewscreen, which will be watched at the other end at some point. There's the constant rewriting of past and present news, books, and so on. There's the Thought Police. There's almost no freedom, and there's very little tolerance of individuality, as individuality is dangerous to The Party.
Then there are the "proles" - the non-Party members, making about 75% of the population, these people seem to have it worse off than Party members when we first read about them. But it doesn't take long to realize, they have somewhat more freedom than Party members. It's also somewhat ironic, that Party members are, by and large, prisoners of their own making.
1984 is certainly the most thought-provoking book I've read so far. There are some disconcerting similarities with the Party and...situations around the world right now. On the bright side, I think individuality is a good measure of how much freedom you have. As in, the level of diversity of people within a country is a pretty good indication of how totalitarian (or not) its government is. Here, I can only with any degree of certainty speak of this country, England. At the minute, we have a good level of diversity amongst the people living here (despite Charles Clarke's seeming determination to curb our freedoms). And i'm not too stupid to see that without any laws at all, we'd have total freedom - but with it, total chaos. I wouldn't mind watching that from a distance, but I doubt i could handle living it.
Doubtless, there'll be plenty of people out there who read/have read 1984 and have a completely different take on it...
*Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure ideal communism isn't meant to be totalitarian. But the communism we've seen in practice so far is hardly ideal
(This review was first posted on my blog).
- 1984
- Published: March 21, 2005
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- Section: Books
- Filed Under: Books: Humor, Books: Philosophy, Books: Politics and Affairs, Books: SF
- Writer: Jon Downs
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thanks! i've also got to punch out a review of Brazil, the DVD of which I got recently. According to imdb.com, its working title was "1984 1/2" and the similarities are about as striking as the differences...but I'll save that for that review
I'll second that emotion. Thanks for the review. 1984 is absolutely brilliant. I'd add Farenheit 451 to the list of "negative utopia" books that are a must read. 1984, Brave New World, and Farenheit take the idea of a bleak future and spin it in three different and brilliant ways.
PS don't forget to add amazon links to your postings.
PPS, yeah Brazil if freakin' great too.
i did put in ASINs, the problem is, Amazon seems to use different ones between the US and UK versions of their site for almost every item. Seeing as by default i go to the UK one, I sometimes forget to change the .co.uk to .com before I go get the ASINs.
Also, the formatting appears to have screwed up. it was Ok earlier. It's done this on my other post from today as well
yes, has to be from US Amazon
Jon, also, I know it's the right thing in the UK, but please put a space between paragraphs and make shorter paragraphs - pages on the Internet appear very cluttered if they aren't broken up into small chunks. Thanks and keep up the great work!
Even you really want to understand 1984, you should read about Orwell and his experiences, and his views on totalitarianism stemming from what he saw in pre-war Europe, and the Spanish Civil War.
I have read tiny snatches of some of his experiences that contributed to his writing of 1984. By no means exhaustive, but I know of some people who've only read about his experience of communism and draw the assumption that 1984 is purely about communism. I do intend to read some proper stuff about his life at some point, my only problem is I have so little time and so much to read.
I will also try, EC, to split my reviews up more...it *is* a big problem I suffer from. Comes from writing - I mean typing - stuff as and when I think of it, and using Notepad as opposed to e.g. Word. And laziness. Heh.
Maybe I *am* cut out to be a writer for a newspaper...lol
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Jon
This is one of my favorite books and thank you for your review. This book along with Brave New World by Aldous Huxley are fantastic examples of authors with incredible foresight with regard to the possible future or futures of our society.
From the NEWSPEAK language which is remniscent of today's political correctness to the "major newspaper" company changing their listed facts to adapt to current and changing events, the book delivers terror on a slow and creeping climb. Let's not forget about Big Brother and the "technological" advances of the telescreen which allows the Government to peek in on its citizens at any time. Go through the entire novel and match many of the key points and items in the book with our world today and you'll spend weeks.
The movie for 1984 with Burt Lancaster was very good and sucessfully captured the dreaded and hopeless atmosphere of the book and I highly recommend it to everyone.