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Nineteen Eighty-Four: (1984)

George Orwell

4.14 · Rating details · 250 ratings · 8 reviews

In the year 1984, civilisation has been damaged by war, civil conflict, and revolution. Airstrip One (formerly known as Great Britain) is a province of Oceania, one of the three totalitarian super-states that rule the world. It is ruled by the "Party" under the ideology of "Ingsoc" (a shortening of "English Socialism") and the mysterious leader Big Brother, who has an inte ...more

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Kindle Edition, 427 pages

Published December 17th 2019

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Apr 23, 2020 Lou rated it it was amazing

Dear reader, if you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading another book.

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Jan 22, 2020 Andrew Guthrie rated it liked it

Yeah sure . . . I'll give this classic three stars . . . just to take all the critical prognostication down a notch . . . I got on an Orwell binge after I noted that every stripe of contemporary political opinion was appropriating him for "their side" . . . I read "Burmese Days", "Road to Wigan Pier", "Homage to Catalonia" . . . and then I figured I had to read "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (I had yet to read it!) . . . and despite the introduction (in the edition I read by Julian Symons) stating that Yeah sure . . . I'll give this classic three stars . . . just to take all the critical prognostication down a notch . . . I got on an Orwell binge after I noted that every stripe of contemporary political opinion was appropriating him for "their side" . . . I read "Burmese Days", "Road to Wigan Pier", "Homage to Catalonia" . . . and then I figured I had to read "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (I had yet to read it!) . . . and despite the introduction (in the edition I read by Julian Symons) stating that Orwell was a weak novelist until his two most famous novels ("Nineteen Eighty-Four" and "Animal Farm") I think "Burmese Day" is of tighter construction . . . I believe what touched the political nerve (as it stands) is the catch-phrases Orwell introduced in "Nineteen Eighty-Four": Big Brother, doublespeak, and the like . . . but it's a bit disheveled, for instance having an appendix about "newspeak" after the conclusion, after we find out what happens with Winston, after being arrested, imprisoned and brainwashed. I just skimmed that appendix while finding the previous descriptions of Winston's tortures horrifyingly riveting . . . so two things: the novel is fundamentally, and should be classified as, science-fiction, and, what's obscured by all the brouhaha about Big Brother, is that "Nineteen Eighty-Four" is also a kind of a love story, and how intimate relationships separate one (or peel off lovers) from society at large . . . by being a kind of science-fiction it gets certain ideas about the future totally wrong, and in that way should not be read as any kind of prognostication or template. On the other hand, certain of the book's themes are utterly depressing in light of specific contemporary (make your own choice) politicians maintaining power for the sake of power through outright fabrications and state-enforced deception. As far as background, and what was really on Orwell's mind (as far as which "side" gets to claim him), I found it very helpful to read "Homage to Catalonia" before "Nineteen Eighty-Four". Not only do we find Orwell reading cheap detective novels to wile away the tedium of standing guard during internecine warfare (in Barcelona) but "Nineteen Eighty-Four" was clearly influenced by the Stalinist orthodoxy that was enforced on the Spanish left at the expense of the trade union anarchists (who Orwell aligned himself with). ...more

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Jan 22, 2020 Mrs P Moss rated it it was ok

I had read this at school many years ago :decided to re-read . I found it quite amazing how close what had seemed unlikely when I first read 1984 (in 1970s) so much is here !!!
Especially the parts where the past is being changed :this seems to be happening a lot lately “ :fake news etc

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Dec 31, 2019 Susan Alcala rated it it was ok

Shelves: finished-in-2019

I only read this book because I promised a student I would. It’s simply not my cup of tea. Love Orwell. Hate this book.

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Feb 13, 2020 Eric Kalnins rated it it was amazing

Brilliant ... what more needs to be said?

18.17

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May 24, 2020 Sarah Roper rated it did not like it

Hard read

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About George Orwell

George Orwell

32,959 followers

Eric Arthur Blair, better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language, and a belief in democratic socialism.

In addition to his literary career Orwell served as a police officer with the Indian Imperial Eric Arthur Blair, better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language, and a belief in democratic socialism.

In addition to his literary career Orwell served as a police officer with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma from 1922-1927 and fought with the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War from 1936-1937. Orwell was severely wounded when he was shot through his throat. Later the organization that he had joined when he joined the Republican cause, The Workers Party of Marxist Unification (POUM), was painted by the pro-Soviet Communists as a Trotskyist organization (Trotsky was Joseph Stalin's enemy) and disbanded. Orwell and his wife were accused of "rabid Trotskyism" and tried in absentia in Barcelona, along with other leaders of the POUM, in 1938. However by then they had escaped from Spain and returned to England.

Between 1941 and 1943, Orwell worked on propaganda for the BBC. In 1943, he became literary editor of the Tribune, a weekly left-wing magazine. He was a prolific polemical journalist, article writer, literary critic, reviewer, poet, and writer of fiction, and, considered perhaps the twentieth century's best chronicler of English culture.

Orwell is best known for the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949) and the satirical novella Animal Farm (1945) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author. His 1938 book Homage to Catalonia, an account of his experiences as a volunteer on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War, together with numerous essays on politics, literature, language, and culture, have been widely acclaimed.

Orwell's influence on contemporary culture, popular and political, continues decades after his death. Several of his neologisms, along with the term "Orwellian" — now a byword for any oppressive or manipulative social phenomenon opposed to a free society — have entered the vernacular. ...more