Teel’s Reviews > 1984 > Status Update

...and, there it is, the unnecessary mention of nazis. Should I count it against the book, if it's only in the appendix? Probably; the appendix is written as though to a resident of the book's universe. Sigh.

The only way this book can turn out internally consistent is if everything with O'Brien, the torture, the long conversations, all of it, never happened - if Winston imagined the entire thing. Either way, I hate it.

I often find myself unaware of plot holes, but some of the inconsistencies (primarily in what Winston wrote/didn't in his diary) of these interrogations totally disrupt what little immersion this book has left.

Painful. True: "The masses never revolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed."

Getting into the nitty-gritty of the book-within-a-book, the pure ideas unadulterated by the frustration of being a novel, I find the reading, finally, to come easily and engagingly. Not looking forward to going back to Winston.

Some brilliant, important, relevant, startling ideas here, mired in mediocre-to-unreadable prose. Still going quite slowly. Struggling a little less since switching to the eBook from paper.

A slow, slogging read, going half my normal speed. Worse, it seems to be one of the rare & dreadful books which puts me to sleep. I should be wide awake; it's my mid-day, but 1984 is entirely soporific.

Will start reading this (for the first time) tonight. Expectations are exceedingly low.