Mike’s Reviews > 1984 > Status Update

I do agree with a lot of Orwell's politics, and that makes them very nice to read. But this novel just makes me wish I were reading his essays instead. There's hardly a single sentence that wasn't written explicitly to be political, and it makes for a cold, empty novel.

I had forgotten how much sex and outdated gender politics there are in this book. I kind of think one of the problems with the political commentary is that I'm never really sure how much I'm supposed to buy into what Winston is doing as legitimately rebellious, and how much of it is supposed to be just things that the Party is secretly cool with him doing because they're actually counterproductive.

Man, re-reading this book is making me realize just how much people miss the point. Like, the fact that the majority of the population is barely watched at all, and how actually central it is to the story that Winston is middle class and not one of the proles. This is different than I remember.

This book is like a well-made machine. It only sets out to do one very specific thing. It does that specific thing very well. It performs no other functions whatsoever. It's smooth and efficient. It is exquisitely crafted. It is completely inhuman, artificial, and lifeless.