Bigsoph’s answer to “Why do people rate this book so high? Surely I am missing something.” > Likes and Comments

Maybe I was expecting something more sophisticated than this ham-fisted crapsack world?

Let me guess, you are the type of person who watches Hitchcock and complains about the cliches when, in fact, the trope that leads to the cliche begins there? Orwell was the man who started the image of the utterly oppressive dystopia (come on, the term Orwellian?)
I make no apologies for 1984. It was a product of the life and times of Mr. Blair, it is concise and was set as a warning. Some even say it prevented such a world by its powerful message.
Let me recommend a book that will seem even more hamfisted and crapsack: We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families
It is the real world experience of Rwanda. I have read 1984 several times and enjoy it. I am unable to finish We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families because it depresses me too much

Thanks for guessing at the type of person I am. You guess wrong. I am aware that Orwell came up with a new idea in this book, I simply think the execution is less than stellar. The characters are so bland they are virtually superfluous. The plot is redundant as well. All interest is contained in the "Goldstein" book, the rest could have been left out. The book succeeds as a discussion starter, but it fails as a novel.

The characters (the outer party members, at any rate) are bland because that's the product the totalitarian society produces. Anything more than that invokes Thoughtcrime and are summarily dealt with. The plot is mainly viewed though the eyes of possibly the last person with a thinking brain, and it's amazing that we gleam as much thought as it did. I wouldn't ask other people to like this book as much as I did, but I do think we could be able to reach this kind of understanding of what the book provides...and then choose to like or dislike it overall.

"...understanding of what the book *actually* provides"

I do understand that, but nevertheless I resented having to spend 300 pages in the company of these people.

*nods* I guess I won't be attempting to argue what is to like or not like (I won't do that even if I knew you in real life) with this book and its universe. I had unpleasant experiences with books that almost everyone I knew liked as well.

it was made a movie, but it cannot capture the essence of the book and the attempt to identify with the character

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087803/

I have to agree. In any case it wasn't long enough to capture everything; it needed to be Godfather-length imho. However it does have its strengths. What's really curious is that this film hasn't been remade since, well, 1984. Weird pulpy books get made into films every year, but who cares about George Orwell? He's only one of the sharpest political intellects of the 20th century. *shrugs*

David, it's because you cannot put this book into a 3D movie with all the Transformers spec effects :)

Ha ha you have a point there.

I did see IMDB rumors that Tim Burton and/or David Fincher had once been attatched to direct a new version of 1984.

I think this would do better as an indie project, though.

Just because people don't like the same thing as you, doesn't mean they didn't understand it or they have bad taste.

Also, Orwell wasn't the first to come up with this book. There are actually investigations into plagiarism. Not that I think that either way, but no one came up with anything totally original and mind-blowing on their own.

no, people nowadays view happy endings as ersatz

Bigsoph
"they would likely cast Will Smith as Winston and have him overthrow the government and rescue Julia"

dwl that was awesome

because it reminds us that we should never love politicians too much