Sakulin answers “Why do people rate this book so high? ...”

Wilma asked this question about 1984:

Why do people rate this book so high? Surely I am missing something.

Sakulin Beware, there are trolls here too who will insult you for not liking what they like. 1984 is considered a classic, a critique of the world in which we…moreBeware, there are trolls here too who will insult you for not liking what they like. 1984 is considered a classic, a critique of the world in which we live, a gloomy prediction of the future. I found it tedious and obliged to skip over the relentless torture described in the second half of the book. There are no likeable characters in the book and everybody is described as ugly.

I read to escape and for entertainment and 1984 is not intended to entertain. I can see the parallels between Orwell's society and our own but they are not as dire as Orwell predicts. He wrote this book in 1949, I believe, but the actual year 1984 was nothing like he envisioned not even in Russia and China. Now, in 2021, seventeen years after 1984, Orwell is way off the mark. 1984 is nothing like 2021. Predictions of the future either in books or film are almost always false and rarely optimistic.

If you enjoy gloom read this book. I found it a little like roadkill. (less)

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