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Nineteen Eighty-Four

George Orwell

Start date: September 1, 2017

Finish date: September 15, 2017

Discussion: Classics Corner

Discussion leader: Lyn

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Jul 09, 2009 Pang rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I just loved this book! I couldn't hardly stay away from it during the last 100 pages or so. It was captivating, fascinating, and thought-poking. I don't think you have to be a conspiracy theorist to like this book. It, however, does make you think about our government; not just the US, but government in general. Politics is all about power, specifically who has the power. One of a government's purposes is to provide law and order, and, I believe, that gives way to some form of controls. As in t I just loved this book! I couldn't hardly stay away from it during the last 100 pages or so. It was captivating, fascinating, and thought-poking. I don't think you have to be a conspiracy theorist to like this book. It, however, does make you think about our government; not just the US, but government in general. Politics is all about power, specifically who has the power. One of a government's purposes is to provide law and order, and, I believe, that gives way to some form of controls. As in the case of 1984, the society has four ministries: Truth, Peace, Love, and Plenty. We can see the parallel between these ministries and real-life functions of the government. Information is filtered through the government in "as-needed" manners. Nobody knows for sure what is considered to be "real," not even the government itself. Or information is delayed, so that by the time it's released it wouldn't matter as much. Orwell cursed the capitalists, but he acknowledged that socialism wasn't the way. Government lied about what goods were being made. And goods being made were not what the society needed (e.g., they needed razor, but that wasn't being manufactured; bootlaces were.) Oh, I can go on! : )
I was rooting for Winston toward the end of the book. I didn't want him to break down. I couldn't help but felt sad for him. He wasn't able to feel love... wasn't able to experience regrets or grief (over his mother):

Today there were fear, hatred, and pain, but no dignity of emotion, no deep or complex sorrows.

He fell in love with Julia. It was real to him. He was happy. And I think that he tried so hard to cling on to that love... It was like he put her and his love for her on a pedestal. In the end Big Brother succeeded, and he broke down. It was truly sad to me.

"Sometimes," she said, "they threaten you with something--something you can't stand up to, can't even think about. And then you say, 'Don't do it to me, do it to somebody else, do it to so-and-so.' And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a track and that you just said it to make them stop and didn't really mean it. But that isn't true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there's no other way of saving yourself, and you're quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don't give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself."

His love was ideology. I felt like that was how many government turn one group against another... whether in a civil war or even in a caste system. Sometimes you start out with the best intention, but somewhere along the road you're just broken down.
It was fascinating to read the two chapters from the book. The ideas that Orwell casted were just so awe-inspiring. I went back and reread the two chapters! I'm not implying that I agree with what he said in the book, but I appreciate this complex thoughts and ideas.
It's one heck of a book! ...more

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