1984 in A Book Walks Into a Bar

Apr 16, 2018 Travis rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

When I first read Nineteen Eighty-Four as a teenager, I failed to appreciate how utterly terrifying this novel is. Obviously, it's much lauded as a work of political commentary, but Nineteen Eighty-Four is also a horrifying post-apocalyptic novel, with the world of Winston Smith being far more disturbing than any of the dystopian worlds envisioned by contemporary writers.

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a suffocating, psychologically draining, emotionally enervating, and physically exhausting novel. The When I first read Nineteen Eighty-Four as a teenager, I failed to appreciate how utterly terrifying this novel is. Obviously, it's much lauded as a work of political commentary, but Nineteen Eighty-Four is also a horrifying post-apocalyptic novel, with the world of Winston Smith being far more disturbing than any of the dystopian worlds envisioned by contemporary writers.

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a suffocating, psychologically draining, emotionally enervating, and physically exhausting novel. The grim, gray grunginess and cold clamminess of the London of Nineteen Eighty-Four made me feel dirty and uncomfortable as I was reading. The inescapable threat to body and mind posed by the Party induced a constant state of unease and paranoia in me as I read. Although I loved this novel, it made me feel so wretched as I was reading it that finishing it was a real relief. Nineteen Eighty-Four shows Orwell to be a master manipulator of the human psyche.

The dangers that Orwell highlights in Nineteen Eighty-Four are not restricted to totalitarian states. One can see Orwellian dangers in many groups and ideologies. Of course, many political organizations tend to promote the same type of zeal and unquestioning loyalty that the Party does in Nineteen Eighty-Four, but this fanaticism is also to be found in many religious sects, in some social groups, and even among loosely organized socio-political movements that seek a strict, pure orthodoxy (as seen among, for example, the culture warriors on both the political left and right). The critique that Orwell offers is thus still relevant today although the dangers of an authoritarian state like Oceania arising seem far less likely.

In addition to being a great novel of ideas, Nineteen Eighty-Four is exceptionally well written. Orwell's prose is perfectly suited to his subject matter. The language has a gritty realism that punches the reader in the face, that pummels the reader with its literary physicality. In reading this novel, the language imprisons the reader in Oceania. Orwell puts us so completely into the life and mind of Winston that we readers become Winston. Nineteen Eighty-Four feels, in many ways, like a non-fiction memoir; it feels as if it were written by someone who had escaped the oppression of Oceania.

I cannot praise this novel highly enough. I love Nineteen Eighty-Four for its ideas, the power of its language, and the story of Winston himself. One of the most tragic, horrifying elements of the story is Winston's ultimate fate: in the end, he comes to truly love Big Brother. The Party apparatus has done something far worse to Winston than to physically torture him or to murder him: it has kept him alive while destroying his soul. And that is utterly terrifying. ...more

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