1984 in Never too Late to Read Classics

Dec 04, 2012 midnightfaerie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

This book floored me. My first review I threw up on goodreads a few years ago was from my high school experience of reading it. What a difference reading it as an adult makes! Not only does Orwell touch on so many ideas and topics that could leave book clubs discussing for ages, but he has a unique and fresh perspective on human kind's version of utopia and the direction our world is really headed. Some are under the mistaken impression that this book is about totalitarian regime's and Stalinist This book floored me. My first review I threw up on goodreads a few years ago was from my high school experience of reading it. What a difference reading it as an adult makes! Not only does Orwell touch on so many ideas and topics that could leave book clubs discussing for ages, but he has a unique and fresh perspective on human kind's version of utopia and the direction our world is really headed. Some are under the mistaken impression that this book is about totalitarian regime's and Stalinistic and Nazi type rulers. I don't think it is. I think he cautions us against "doublethink" which is prevelent even in today's society, so much so, that we don't even realize its existence. Doublethink is a term he coins in the book meaning holding two opposing beliefs at the same time, knowing they are both true. It requires us to consciously subdue the the fact, while convincing ourselves that the opposite is true. In the story it sounds ridiculous and unobtainable. You think, any sane or rational person would realize they're just deluding themselves. But really, don't we do it all the time?

Example: "I'm just going to have a little piece of this apple cake. It's made out of apples, so it's fruit. So really, it's healthy for me." To a friend you say: "I just don't know why I can't lose that weight, I eat healthy, really I do."

What about on a bigger scale? Don't Christians speak of loving your neighbor and thou shall not kill? Why then is war okay when it's justified by bringing peace? (This is not a political statement, I'm just using it as an example of what I think Orwell is getting at) Or if we call ourselves a free and liberal society, yet, isn't the heart of our system still based in a material world? I think Orwell is pointing out that this isn't a futuristic society he's imagining, it's here and now. It's all around us, and if that's true, where will we be as "freethinkers" in twenty years? Fifty years? One hundred years?

If we take a government, or even an ideology, and say we belong to that idea, we support it, and we come to believe those ideas as truth, then we feel free. Those ideas become who we are, and we feel free because there is no longer any distinction between fact and fiction. We have surrendered ourselves to that ideology as being the truth, and in turn it grants us freedom. Whether this is true or not, it's an interesting idea. No one likes to think that in believing in something, we have given up our individualism for the greater cause of that belief.

I have two main thoughts here:
1. George Orwell is brilliant.
and
2. Seriously, how can high school students know enough about life to understand and appreciate the nuances of this novel?

Perhaps it's just me, maybe I was more concerned with boys than with literature at that point in my life, even though I love to read. I saw 1984 as a dis against the privacy act, and I could almost swear that I remember the teacher even teaching that. As our world gets more technological, our privacy goes out the window. I have no problems with that. I thought the idea that "Big Brother is always watching" meant the idea of our government taking away our privacy as a whole and was limiting our freedom. I didn't buy it. A conservative Republican even from a young age, I thought, all these people that were so concerned with being watched were hiding something. (But maybe my membership in the Republican Party was just an ideology that allowed me to feel free since it unburdened me with the work of having to explain my political beliefs?)

Now, reading this book again, I can see there is so much more to this story. A powerful, compelling, and slightly disturbing story about a world where we give up our freedom to feel "free", Orwell's novel is a masterpiece ahead of its time, or maybe even after its time. A definite classic, it shows the many sides of human nature and how we rationalize our beliefs to ourselves. It has longevity, I have no doubt it will impact the reader many years from now. To me, it's an original concept and nothing like I've ever read. It has a huge following, is controversial, and will have a substantial and lasting impact on our literary world. Could this really happen? When I first read it, I thought that idea was absurd. Now? I'm not so sure. In the end, I loved this book and highly recommend it.

ClassicsDefined.com ...more

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Nov 07, 2017 Shirley (stampartiste) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-classics, challenge-back-to-the-classics-2018, challenge-bingo-2018, golden-girls-book-club

What more can be said of one of the greatest dystopian novels ever written? It is as somber and disturbing today as it probably was when it was written in 1949.

I first read 1984 in the 1970s when I was young, ignorant and impressionable. I remember how much this book disturbed me then, and the feelings it generated have stayed with me through the years. Now, being older and wiser, I was not hit with the same kind of intense fear of such a future envisioned by Orwell. I believe the changes in our What more can be said of one of the greatest dystopian novels ever written? It is as somber and disturbing today as it probably was when it was written in 1949.

I first read 1984 in the 1970s when I was young, ignorant and impressionable. I remember how much this book disturbed me then, and the feelings it generated have stayed with me through the years. Now, being older and wiser, I was not hit with the same kind of intense fear of such a future envisioned by Orwell. I believe the changes in our society over the past 50 years have conditioned us to accept more governmental control and less freedom of being, thought and expression. We have been conditioned that some words are bad and should never be used, some words have had their original meanings altered to make cultural changes more acceptable, and some words have been invented to promote the new ideologies. In so many ways, Newspeak has been here all along.

A few years ago, a famous person said that we're going to have to change our traditions, our history;.... At the time, I did not understand what was meant by this. How does one change history? Isn't history, by its very nature, dead and gone? How can you change the past? But Orwell showed in 1984 that groups or governments often have and will continue to alter history to promote ideologies.

When I first read this book in the 1970s, I was so disturbed by the indoctrination that Winston Smith was forced to undergo to "see the light" of the wonderful world of Big Brother and totalitarianism. But how far have we come when people are fired or sued or shunned for holding to beliefs that are not acceptable to outspoken groups who wish to have everyone conform to their beliefs? Are these people's lives also not destroyed?

I still find it astonishing that Orwell, a Democratic socialist, could have written such a disturbing book on the dangers of socialism and totalitarianism. He even understood the dangers inherent in socialism when he said, "It cannot be said too often – at any rate, it is not being said nearly often enough – that collectivism is not inherently democratic, but, on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamed of." (As I Please: 1943-1945).

I believe that 1984 should be required reading in all high school or college history class. ...more

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Feb 07, 2012 midnightfaerie rated it really liked it

Shelves: classics, rory-gilmore

This book floored me. My first review I threw up on goodreads a few years ago was from my high school experience of reading it. What a difference reading it as an adult makes! Not only does Orwell touch on so many ideas and topics that could leave book clubs discussing for ages, but he has a unique and fresh perspective on human kind's version of utopia and the direction our world is really headed. Some are under the mistaken impression that this book is about totalitarian regime's and Stalinist This book floored me. My first review I threw up on goodreads a few years ago was from my high school experience of reading it. What a difference reading it as an adult makes! Not only does Orwell touch on so many ideas and topics that could leave book clubs discussing for ages, but he has a unique and fresh perspective on human kind's version of utopia and the direction our world is really headed. Some are under the mistaken impression that this book is about totalitarian regime's and Stalinistic and Nazi type rulers. I don't think it is. I think he cautions us against "doublethink" which is prevelent even in today's society, so much so, that we don't even realize its existence. Doublethink is a term he coins in the book meaning holding two opposing beliefs at the same time, knowing they are both true. It requires us to consciously subdue the the fact, while convincing ourselves that the opposite is true. In the story it sounds ridiculous and unobtainable. You think, any sane or rational person would realize they're just deluding themselves. But really, don't we do it all the time?

Example: "I'm just going to have a little piece of this apple cake. It's made out of apples, so it's fruit. So really, it's healthy for me." To a friend you say: "I just don't know why I can't lose that weight, I eat healthy, really I do."

What about on a bigger scale? Don't Christians speak of loving your neighbor and thou shall not kill? Why then is war okay when it's justified by bringing peace? (This is not a political statement, I'm just using it as an example of what I think Orwell is getting at) Or if we call ourselves a free and liberal society, yet, isn't the heart of our system still based in a material world? I think Orwell is pointing out that this isn't a futuristic society he's imagining, it's here and now. It's all around us, and if that's true, where will we be as "freethinkers" in twenty years? Fifty years? One hundred years?

If we take a government, or even an ideology, and say we belong to that idea, we support it, and we come to believe those ideas as truth, then we feel free. Those ideas become who we are, and we feel free because there is no longer any distinction between fact and fiction. We have surrendered ourselves to that ideology as being the truth, and in turn it grants us freedom. Whether this is true or not, it's an interesting idea. No one likes to think that in believing in something, we have given up our individualism for the greater cause of that belief.

I have two main thoughts here:
1. George Orwell is brilliant.
and
2. Seriously, how can high school students know enough about life to understand and appreciate the nuances of this novel?

Perhaps it's just me, maybe I was more concerned with boys than with literature at that point in my life, even though I love to read. I saw 1984 as a dis against the privacy act, and I could almost swear that I remember the teacher even teaching that. As our world gets more technological, our privacy goes out the window. I have no problems with that. I thought the idea that "Big Brother is always watching" meant the idea of our government taking away our privacy as a whole and was limiting our freedom. I didn't buy it. A conservative Republican even from a young age, I thought, all these people that were so concerned with being watched were hiding something. (But maybe my membership in the Republican Party was just an ideology that allowed me to feel free since it unburdened me with the work of having to explain my political beliefs?)

Now, reading this book again, I can see there is so much more to this story. A powerful, compelling, and slightly disturbing story about a world where we give up our freedom to feel "free", Orwell's novel is a masterpiece ahead of its time, or maybe even after its time. A definite classic, it shows the many sides of human nature and how we rationalize our beliefs to ourselves. It has longevity, I have no doubt it will impact the reader many years from now. To me, it's an original concept and nothing like I've ever read. It has a huge following, is controversial, and will have a substantial and lasting impact on our literary world. Could this really happen? When I first read it, I thought that idea was absurd. Now? I'm not so sure. In the end, I loved this book and highly recommend it.

...more

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