1984 in Classics Without All the Class

Aug 02, 2016 Dioni rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 100-best-novels-written-in-english, bowie-top-100

First published at: http://www.meexia.com/bookie/2016/08/...

I might be one of the last people on earth that had not read 1984. I ony read Animal Farm a few years back. Absolutely loved it. Since then I've been reading a few of his essays here and there. I'm a huge fan of Orwell. I know he's not a terribly literary type of writer, and some people may disagree with his style of writing with a political purpose, but I'm inclined more to his side rather than the other extreme of "art for art's sake" First published at: http://www.meexia.com/bookie/2016/08/...

I might be one of the last people on earth that had not read 1984. I ony read Animal Farm a few years back. Absolutely loved it. Since then I've been reading a few of his essays here and there. I'm a huge fan of Orwell. I know he's not a terribly literary type of writer, and some people may disagree with his style of writing with a political purpose, but I'm inclined more to his side rather than the other extreme of "art for art's sake".

In his essay Why I Write (1946) - which I read a while back, but it really made an impression on me even though it's only a few pages long - he mentions 4 great motives for writing prose for any author. The last point is political purpose - "using the word 'political' in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other people's idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude."

From the get go I roughly knew what 1984 was about. A dystopian novel was my impression. And it is. But it is bolder and even more political than what I imagined - almost like a political essay dressed in a novel. The scary thing is, it's still as relevant today than it was when it's first published in 1949. North Korea definitely came to mind. In fact, just the weekend after I finished the book, I met someone from Angola who told many stories about how she and her family went through the communist regime - which lasts to this day. A lot of what she described was very similar with what is described in 1984.

From pop culture point of view, I'm glad to have read the origin of things like Big Brother, Room 101, and doublespeak. It's amazing how the book has penetrated many aspects of society and culture, and not just Western society, as I remember an occasion when an author from a communist regime at a literary event told the story of how 1984 was the book that everyone was smuggling between revolutionaries. It's like a secret code. A shorthand for the worst society humanity could possibly become. But it's not a mere distant possibility, not just a cautionary tale. Some elements are too familiar. They make you realise how easy it is for humanity to slip into this kind of regime - and in fact it does exist in some parts of the world, at different times perhaps, but it never totally goes away. We are still part of the 1984 world! The book is important in many ways, and there is still no other book like it.

Another quote to close this, again from Why I Write, at the very end: "I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally."

I feel like he allows me to have a political purpose in my own writing. Thank you Orwell.
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Aug 28, 2010 Lois rated it did not like it

I didn't like this the first time I read it for high school. and I didn't like it this time, either. I do think I got more out of it this time through. Certainly interesting and discussion-worthy. ...more

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