I found an old, beat-up copy of George Orwell’s 1984 at a thrift store. It’d been years since I read this story/warning/prophecy of sorts. So, today I will talk to you about my thoughts on this dystopian classic…
“The best books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you knew already.”
1984 is a classic dystopian novel written in 1949. Orwell has crafted a novel that is hard to put down, though I admit to skimming through some of the deep details of the ideology of Big Brother and also the Brotherhood. These were the two opposing forces in a world made up of three powers: Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia.
The three slogans of Big Brother:
War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
This book consists of a mood and a warning.
My thoughts: The relationship of Winston and Julia, two people fighting against Big Brother in their own way, is captivating. I needed to know what happened, and there was a good buildup of tension throughout their story. Some of the future problems Orwell envisioned I find today, but in less subtle ways. He foresaw a future filled with telescreens and hidden microphones you couldn’t get away from. We have smartphones and televisions that I’m sure learn much more from us than we would be comfortable knowing.
The ending is different than what I thought, but not a total surprise. A point of interest. I couldn’t find this book on Amazon. Could they be part of Big Brother? Hmm…
1984 is definitely thought-provoking and worthy of your time if you like an edgy dystopian read.
“Nineteen Eighty-Four” revealed George Orwell as one of the twentieth century’s greatest mythmakers. While the totalitarian system that provoked him into writing it has since passed into oblivion, his harrowing cautionary tale of a man trapped in a political nightmare has had the opposite fate: its relevance and power to disturb our complacency seem to grow decade by decade. In Winston Smith’s desperate struggle to free himself from an all-encompassing, malevolent state, Orwell zeroed in on tendencies apparent in every modern society, and made vivid the universal predicament of the individual.
