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1984

George Orwell

Start date: January 23, 2015

Discussion: UTOPIA/DYSTOPIA - ORWELL

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UTOPIA/DYSTOPIA - ORWELL

1984 Part 3 : ENDING SPOILERS
By Traveller · 59 posts · 31 views

last updated Jan 01, 2016 04:07PM

1984 Part Two
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last updated Jan 01, 2016 09:28AM

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Jul 16, 2016 Michael Finocchiaro rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopian, novels, classics, fiction, english-20th-c, sci-fi, made-into-movie

This classic dystopian nightmare remains as relevant in the 21st C as it was when Orwell published it in 1948. The story of Outer Party member Winston Smith having his brief glimpse of truth and even love with Julia before being literally eaten alive by his erstwhile revolutionary but solidly IngSoc party operative O'Brien is heartbreaking. On one hand, the fact that Winston does get a brief instant of revelation and pleasure is a sort of victory, but it is so short-lived and so brutally repress This classic dystopian nightmare remains as relevant in the 21st C as it was when Orwell published it in 1948. The story of Outer Party member Winston Smith having his brief glimpse of truth and even love with Julia before being literally eaten alive by his erstwhile revolutionary but solidly IngSoc party operative O'Brien is heartbreaking. On one hand, the fact that Winston does get a brief instant of revelation and pleasure is a sort of victory, but it is so short-lived and so brutally repressed that it is disheartening.

The other protagonist is, of course, the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent Big Brother who glares out of every wall, who watches everyone's every move through the telescreens and who enforces strict adherence to the principles of doublethink and harsh repression of thoughtcrime via his ominous Thought Police. These figures have all become, since, figures of the popular imagination. Of course, in the 70plus years since the book was published, the Stalinist system and the East German system came very close to the totalitarian society that Orwell described. I think it can be argued that, although the division of the world into three competing but equal sides never happened, we are in a state of perpetual war (the one in Afghanistan run by the US has been running for nearly 18 years with no goal and no end in sight) and perhaps with webcams and the spyware that Edward Snowden warned us about, we have pretty much telescreens as well. My understanding is that in China, the screens in many places have been connected to AI systems with facial recognition and thus we are only a baby step away from Thought Police-style enforcement of the conformance of ideas.

One of Orwell's central questions in 1984 is how and why it is perpetuated by fellow human beings with such awful results (massive pollution, rampant hate, the total lack of love or positive passion, etc). O'Brien explains this during Winston's imprisonment: it is all about power which becomes both an ends and a means and, according to O'Brien, thus perfects all the previous systems of totalitarianism in its purity and simplicity.

As an American who detests Trump and Trumpism, the sections that struck me the hardest as relevant to today were:
1/ when Julia and Winston are in the hidden apartment and the differences between their philosophies (hers being a generation after that of Winston) where Julia says 'Who cares? It's all one bloody war after another, and one know the news is all lies anyway." (p. 161). This brings home to me how Fox&Friends works and how insidious it is with Trump attacking the veracity of the media. Unfortunately, this has worked completely and irrefutably for the 38%.
2/ In this same discussion, Talking to her, he realised how easy it was to present an appearance of orthodoxy while having no grasp whatever of what orthodoxy meant. In a way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did they no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird. (p. 163) The piece I italicized is important because it is a manifestation of how keeping people stupid, you can manipulate them to accept things like children in cages, 4-month old babies standing trial, and the non-stop lies coming out of the White House and the Senate.
3/ In the famous forbidden book which Winston reads before his struggle abruptly ends, the sinister layout of the system is described: Even the names of the four Ministries by which we are governed exhibit a sort of impudence in their deliberate reversal of the facts. The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with War, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink. For it is only by reconciling contraditions that no power can be retained indefinitely...If human equality is to be for ever averted - if the High, as we have called them, are to keep their places permanently - then the prevailing mental condition must be controlled insanity. (p. 225) I found this particularly terrifying, but it makes some sense out of how morally high-minded evangelists could continue to point to morally decrepit Trump (forced to pay a $2M fine for frauding people with his own charity).
4/ The image that O'Brien gives Winston of society before obliterating his free will is iconic and graphic: 'Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever.' (p. 280) This is precisely what I see behind the crispy rictus-like smiles and narrowed, angry eyes on photos from Trump rallies, that desire for an orgy of violence.

Winston, of course, is released from the Ministry of Love as a changed, subservient man. He is given a deadend job (that as described on page 307 resembles many many of today's corporate jobs) and loves Big Brother. Will the next generation of Americans (and Brazilians and Hungarians and Poles and Italians...) break this pattern which their far-right wing leaders are trying to impose on history? Or will they coalesce into faceless masses screaming hate into the eternal night? ...more

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Sep 28, 2015 Miquel Reina rated it it was amazing

Shelves: creativity, fantasy, top-books, thinking, pearl, science-fiction

What can I say about 1984?... Well, for me it's one of the best novels that have been ever written. Now that youth adult dystopian novels like The Hunger Games, Divergent or Maze Runner have become best sellers, I encourage to all its readers to discover this wonderful jewel from where all these novels have been inspired and of course also to the rest of readers!!

Spanish version:
¿Que puedo decir de 1984?... Para mí es una de las mejores novelas que jamás se hayan esctrito. Ahora que las novelas ...more

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Feb 06, 2016 Son Tung rated it really liked it

1984 - George Orwell was notalby mentioned by Christopher Hitchen many times in those public debate and discussion. People often call Hitchen's sharp wit, humorous and impenetrable arguments: Hitch Slap.

All of that humor, seriousness, vigorousness, intellectual humility & power can be recognized in great resemblence in 1984 and Animal Farm of George Orwell.

To a lesser degree, all the Thought-Police, Ministry of Love, Made Up History .. was to be found in Chinese, Vietnamese and notoriously the ...more

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Sep 03, 2016 Alexandra rated it it was amazing

It is complicated for me to review this book because I loved it and hated it at the same time. Nonetheless, I have to accept that George Orwell is a genius.
I love this book because it is well written, intriguing and full of issues that make you think really hard about the status of the man in society and what humanity is all about.
On the other hand the dystopia this book creates made every single neuron of mine jolt and revolt against the ideology of Big Brother.
I do understand that for some pet ...more

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Jan 12, 2017 Peter rated it it was ok

For a book that's so adamantly against propaganda, it's ironic that my school teaches this book for the purpose of indoctrination. ...more

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Jan 27, 2017 Ashley added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, 2016

If, perish the thought, my hypothesis (that I have expired on the operating table and the last month of our American History is but some awful anesthesia/death-induced hallucination) is proved incorrect, and if I must perforce acknowledge the icy reality whose (admittedly small) skeletal fingers continue to grip, continue to probe, then a third reading of this novel will be unavoidable. I expect to be made to wear the head-cage full of rats any day now, but I account it a small blessing Big Brot ...more

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