What do you think?
Rate this book
LIVE
Nominee for the 2024 Goodreads Choice Awards
1984
'It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.'
Winston Smith works for the Ministry of truth in London, chief city of Airstrip One. Big Brother stares out from every poster, the Thought Police uncover every act of betrayal. When Winston finds love with Julia, he discovers that life does not have to be dull and deadening, and awakens to new possibilities. Despite the police helicopters that hover and circle overhead, Winston and Julia begin to question the Party; they are drawn towards conspiracy. Yet Big Brother will not tolerate dissent - even in the mind. For those with original thoughts they invented Room 101 . . .
Nineteen Eighty-Four is George Orwell's terrifying vision of a totalitarian future in which everything and everyone is slave to a tyrannical regime.
Winston Smith works for the Ministry of truth in London, chief city of Airstrip One. Big Brother stares out from every poster, the Thought Police uncover every act of betrayal. When Winston finds love with Julia, he discovers that life does not have to be dull and deadening, and awakens to new possibilities. Despite the police helicopters that hover and circle overhead, Winston and Julia begin to question the Party; they are drawn towards conspiracy. Yet Big Brother will not tolerate dissent - even in the mind. For those with original thoughts they invented Room 101 . . .
Nineteen Eighty-Four is George Orwell's terrifying vision of a totalitarian future in which everything and everyone is slave to a tyrannical regime.
334 pages, Paperback
First published June 8, 1949
About the author
George Orwell
1,309 books45.9k followersEric Arthur Blair, better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language, and a belief in democratic socialism.
In addition to his literary career Orwell served as a police officer with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma from 1922-1927 and fought with the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War from 1936-1937. Orwell was severely wounded when he was shot through his throat. Later the organization that he had joined when he joined the Republican cause, The Workers Party of Marxist Unification (POUM), was painted by the pro-Soviet Communists as a Trotskyist organization (Trotsky was Joseph Stalin's enemy) and disbanded. Orwell and his wife were accused of "rabid Trotskyism" and tried in absentia in Barcelona, along with other leaders of the POUM, in 1938. However by then they had escaped from Spain and returned to England.
Between 1941 and 1943, Orwell worked on propaganda for the BBC. In 1943, he became literary editor of the Tribune, a weekly left-wing magazine. He was a prolific polemical journalist, article writer, literary critic, reviewer, poet, and writer of fiction, and, considered perhaps the twentieth century's best chronicler of English culture.
Orwell is best known for the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949) and the satirical novella Animal Farm (1945) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author. His 1938 book Homage to Catalonia, an account of his experiences as a volunteer on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War, together with numerous essays on politics, literature, language, and culture, have been widely acclaimed.
Orwell's influence on contemporary culture, popular and political, continues decades after his death. Several of his neologisms, along with the term "Orwellian" — now a byword for any oppressive or manipulative social phenomenon opposed to a free society — have entered the vernacular.
In addition to his literary career Orwell served as a police officer with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma from 1922-1927 and fought with the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War from 1936-1937. Orwell was severely wounded when he was shot through his throat. Later the organization that he had joined when he joined the Republican cause, The Workers Party of Marxist Unification (POUM), was painted by the pro-Soviet Communists as a Trotskyist organization (Trotsky was Joseph Stalin's enemy) and disbanded. Orwell and his wife were accused of "rabid Trotskyism" and tried in absentia in Barcelona, along with other leaders of the POUM, in 1938. However by then they had escaped from Spain and returned to England.
Between 1941 and 1943, Orwell worked on propaganda for the BBC. In 1943, he became literary editor of the Tribune, a weekly left-wing magazine. He was a prolific polemical journalist, article writer, literary critic, reviewer, poet, and writer of fiction, and, considered perhaps the twentieth century's best chronicler of English culture.
Orwell is best known for the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949) and the satirical novella Animal Farm (1945) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author. His 1938 book Homage to Catalonia, an account of his experiences as a volunteer on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War, together with numerous essays on politics, literature, language, and culture, have been widely acclaimed.
Orwell's influence on contemporary culture, popular and political, continues decades after his death. Several of his neologisms, along with the term "Orwellian" — now a byword for any oppressive or manipulative social phenomenon opposed to a free society — have entered the vernacular.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 126,563 reviews
February 19, 2017
It's written 1948? Clearly History has its twisted ways to repeat itself..
A Note that MUST be written in the cover of every edition..
لم اتوقع أن هذا التحذير "إن هذه الرواية تحذير وليست بدليل" بهذه الواقعية، مازالت الحكومات العربية تراقب الجميع لحماية أمن الحكام..بينما مازال أمن الأفراد هزيلا..منعدما
هي الرواية التي كتبت في 1948 بعبقرية، أرسي بها جورج أورويل قواعد روايات الديستوبيا بحق
وإن كانت مستوحاه من واقع محيط به ولكن التاريخ دائما يجد وسيلة ليتكرر ويزيد وينتشر ويتوغل
هي رواية مازالت صداها في روايات شبابية تصدر حتي الأن متأثرة بها..بل وقد تكون اكثر امتاعا منها
*تحذير هام قبل البدء*
كاتب الريفيو متأثرا ويعاني أعراض "ازدواجية التفكير" بشكل خطير
فأذا لم تقرأ الرواية بعد فستستشعر ان كاتب الريفيو "مجنونا"، أما اذا قد قرأتها فستتيقن انه حتما يعاني من الجنون
=======*****=======
عشقت هذه الروايه لدرجه الكراهيه
احببت جمال قبح العامه، وكرهت الحريه بشده..اقتنعت باننا يجب ان نخطئ وارتعبت جدا من الصواب
وقد كرهت بشده الاجزاء السياسيه و ضجرت من تلك المقاله السياسيه الطويله "في الجزء الثاني" والتي عزمت علي ان اقرأها قراءه سريعه ..ولكن قرأت مايقرب من 40 صفحه في ساعه ونصف!! لأني شعرت انها فعلا يجب ان تقرأ بتمعن, فهي من اهم المقالات السياسية الواقعية
كرهت تلك المشاهد الجنسيه البسيطه ولعلي استشطت غضبا اذا لم تحدث
وكم كرهت تلك النهايه التي شعرت انها قُدمت كنهاية سعيده..واكرهها اكثر كلما اشعر انها فعلا ليست سعيده
لقد عشقت تلك الروايه لاني شعرت بالملل المثير طوال احداثها
لم اشعر انها كلاسيكيه,رايتها معاصره واحداثها واقعية وتدور في الوقت الحالي , ومع ذلك شعرت بملل الكلاسيكيات بها
روايه ينعدم فيها العواطف ولكني تأثرت لدرجه الدمع في احد مشاهدها
روايه عشقت فيها اشمئزازي الرهيب منها, واحداثها وشخصي��تها
روايه كنت اسابق الزمن كي انهي عذابي معها..وافكر في نفس الوقت متي سأقرأها مره ثانيه..قريبا
=======*****=======
الاحداث
------
اذا كنت من هواة قراءة الروايات الحديثة -مثلي- واعجبتك تلك الروايات المصنفه كديستوبيا - حيث يعم المدينه او الدوله او العالم ككل الظلم و القهر والفساد والاستبداد, الدمار والتجارب اللاانسانيه - تلك الروايات مثل
The Hunger Games و The Maze Runner و Divergent
او تجربه الرائع احمد خالد توفيق المصريه يوتوبيا
فعليك بالبدء في تلك الروايه الكلاسيكيه للروائي العبقري "جورج اورويل" 1984
-فهي مدخل رائع لمثل ذلك النوع من الروايات, ولن تشعر أبدا انها كلاسيكية او قديمة, حتي وان كانت ترجع ل1948...قبل عنوان الرواية بأربعون عاما
يجب التنويه انه اذا كنت قراءتها واعجبتك بالفعل فعليك بقراءه تلك الروايات الحديثه ايضا- ..بالأخص العاب المجاعات
عقب الحرب العالميه الثانيه وفي وقت صراعات النازيه والشيوعيه ,فتره الاربعينات من القرن الماضي ينقلك المؤلف الي لندن في الديستوبيا التي يتنبأ بها بعد اقل من 40 عاما
ففي عام 1984 ستجد ان العالم بعد صراعاته الدمويه النوويه صار مقسما الي 3 قوي رئيسيه تتحكم في العالم بكل ما تحمله كلمه "تحكم" من معني
فتتحكم في مسكنك ومأكلك ومشربك,تتحكم في اسلوب حياتك,تتحكم في أراءك,توجهاتك
تتحكم في افكارك,مشاعرك,عواطفك..فتذكر ان الاخ الكبير يراقبك..دائما وابدا
هل العالم كله هكذا؟ كيف لك ان تعرف ماذا يحدث في باقي العالم..اصمت واستمع للاخ الكبير فحسب..لا يوجد لك سبيل تواصل مع العالم الخارجي..فكلهم عدو لبلدك
انت منعزل تماما عن العالم..لايصلك من اخباره الا ما يقوله لك الأخ الكبير - هل يبدو ذلك مألوفا لك؟؟
ستقابل مفاجأت واحداث مثيره, ثوره داخليه بعقلك,عقل وينستون البطل الذي تتعايش معه..كراهيه التمرد والشغف الشديد به
نبذ الحريه التي هي العبوديه..نبذ السلام الذي هو الحرب
بالنسبه لي ما يعيب الاحداث شيئا ما هو الجزء المطول من "كتاب حكم الاقليه" والذي ذكرني كثيرا بجو كتب الفلسفه السياسيه كتلك التي يقدمها "يوسف زيدان" وغيره من مدعي الحنكة السياسية...ولكن يقدمها جورج اورويل هنا بطريقه محايده, مفهومة ومتميزة وبالرغم من الملل الذي اعتراني في الجزء الثاني ربما اغلبه بسبب هذا الجزء والذي بالرغم من انك قد قرأت ملخصه في الجزء الاول من الاحداث الا انك ستجد انه من الصعب ان تتركه دون قراءه
ويحسب بحق للمؤلف "تعمقه الشديد"في احداث روايته ورسمها فعلا كانها عن عالم حقيقي.. "ذكرني بعبقريه اخري معاصره هي جي كي رولينج عندما تسهب في عرض مقالات من جرائد عالمها الساحر او عرض صفحات عده لاحد كتب ذلك العالم الخيالي الذي ابتكرته" وهذا ان دل علي شئ فانما يدل عن انك امام روايه ثريه لم يبخل المؤلف بها بشئ ليجعل من الخيال واقعيه فهو ايضا مزج تاريخ اوقيانيا بتاريخ تلك الاحداث العالميه الحقيقيه والمعاصره -وقت صدور الروايه - من نازيه و شيوعيه
راعني ايضا ملاحظه وجدتها علي الويكابيديا هو ان "تبخير الانسان" واعتباره لم يكن
Unperson
كان امرا حقيقيا واتبعه بتعديل الصور وذلك في الاتحاد السوفييتي في الثلاثينات في صوره لستالين مع نيكولاي يزوف رئيس الشرطه السريه والتي تم تعديلها بعد اعدام الاخير لينسب الفضل لستالين وحده في حمله التطهير الشيوعيه وليكون وحده صاحب الفضل في بناء الاتحاد السوفييتي..اي ان الامر له اصول حقيقيه
وأه من مظهر ستالين نفسه :)
وكما قلت في بدايه الريفيو ان ازدواجيه التفكير قادتني الي الجنون في هذا الريفيو
فاني من اعجابي الشديد بالروايه كنت اتمني ان لا تنتشر, ولا يتم طبعها ولا قراءتها علي نطاق واسع...فكم من اخ كبير ظهر بعدها ونفذ قليلا او كثيرا من سياسته...سواء كان علي حق وصواب في جزء من سياسته او علي خطأ
كم منا وصل الامر معه لعشق الاخ الكبير وحبه وتوقف عقله وذهنه وكأن هذا الاخ الكبير الذي نصبه لنفسه لا يخطئ؟
وايضا من اعجابي الشديد بالروايه اتمني ان تنتشر ويتم طبعها كثيرا و تقرأ علي نطاق واسع
فكم منا يجب ان يفيق ويدرك ان عليه ان يعمل بعقله ويفكر كثيرا في حريه فكره وعقله...يفكر لصالحه ولصالح المجتمع ويتخلص من سلطه الاخ الكبير عندما يراه خاطئا كاذبا او منافقا
الصور مجرد صور..لاتعبر عن راي شخصي فمابين تلك الصور ناس احترم سياستهم ولكني لا اراهم دائما علي حق ..فهم بشر اولا واخيرا بعضهم اصابوا ويصيبون قليلا و اخطئوا و يخطئون كثيرا و بعضهم العكس
تناقض؟ هذا هو مايسمي بازدواجيه الفكر التي ستجدها في تلك الروايه الرائعه بحق
اقرأها لتتعرف كيف تحكم عقلك في مايعرض عليك من تاريخ..لتحاول التفرقه بين الزيف وبين الحق
لعلنا نستطيع القضاء علي من يسيطر علينا باسم الاخ الكبير..او من يدعي انه جولدشتاين عصره..اقرأها فانها بحق
روايه مرهقه للعقل
=======*****=======
الشخصيات
-------
وينستون سميث
هو من ستتوحد معه خلال احداث الروايه
وهو الاختيار المناسب ,فهو الطبقه المتوسطه-ماتحت النخبة-..فهو يتوافر له الطعام والشراب والمسكن...ليس ادميا او يتناسب مع كونه احد اعضاء الحزب الخارجي وانما علي الاقل ادميا بما فيه الكفايه مقارنه بعامه الشعب ,اللاشئ , هؤلاء الذين يمثلون 85% من السكان,وهو في وضع أأمن منهم بعيدا عن اماكنهم المعرضه للقصف باستمرار
ولكنه ليس افضل حالا منهم
فقيود حريته اعظم بكثير فهو -عكس عامه الشعب-مراقب 24/7حتي في احلامه واغوار عقله الباطن فيجب ان يكون منضبطا كالمسطره..تاركا افكارك ومشاعرك وعواطفك وتوجهاتك في يد "الاخ الكبير"..في يد حزبك الداخلي والذي يمثل 2% من السكان..اسيادك
ذلك الحزب الداخلي الذي لا تعرف كيف يعيش..هل هو مثلك في تلك المعيشه..معيشه الكفاف او ما دونه؟ بالتاكيد لا, هم ليسوا كعامه الشعب الذين صاروا تحت مستوي الفقر..بل تحت مستوي الحياه نفسها, فلا يلقوا الكفاف..وحياتهم مهدده من وقت لاخر جراء عمليات القصف الحربيه التي لا احد يعرف كنهها بالتحديد
برع المؤلف في رسم شخصيته بطريقه ممتازه,تحولاته ودوافعه وافكاره بل ورسم ذكرياته باتقان وربط بينها وبين الاحداث بطريقه..عبقريه جورج اورويل فعلا ايقنتها برسمه لشخصيته
جوليا
جوليا جوليا جوليا..اه من جوليا..لازدواجيه الفكر ظللت اعشقها واعشق فكرها واعشق ايضا فكره تحطيم راسها في اغلب الوقت
هي زميله وينستون في وزاره الحقيقه في الحزب الخارجي..زميلته الغامضه المريبه المتزمته لدرجة انك ستشعر انها روح الحزب نفسه..ولكنك ستكتشف عنها اشياء لم تخطر علي بال
اوبراين
عضو الحزب الداخلي الموقر..واحد من الساده ..ال2% من الشعب والذي من خلاله ستعرف مميزات هذه النخبه
رجل وقور..مهيب..محترم..ستشعر كم يتفهمك بمجرد نظرته
وكم من المفاجأت التي يطويها في طياتها
فستفاجأ انه مثلك ومعك في الفكر..ولعلك ستفاجأ بحق عندما تجد انه بالفعل روح متمردة تغلغلت الي هذا الحد بالحزب
روايه لن تشعر معها بالوقت..روايه ستقلب تفكيرك
وكما يقول المترجم "الرائع بحق" انور الشامي لهذه النسخه العربيه
وبالفعل..الي قراءه اخري ربما للنسخه الانجليزيه المره القادمه ان شاء الله
محمد العربي
من 27 مايو 2013
الي 30 مايو 2013
A Note that MUST be written in the cover of every edition..
لم اتوقع أن هذا التحذير "إن هذه الرواية تحذير وليست بدليل" بهذه الواقعية، مازالت الحكومات العربية تراقب الجميع لحماية أمن الحكام..بينما مازال أمن الأفراد هزيلا..منعدما
هي الرواية التي كتبت في 1948 بعبقرية، أرسي بها جورج أورويل قواعد روايات الديستوبيا بحق
وإن كانت مستوحاه من واقع محيط به ولكن التاريخ دائما يجد وسيلة ليتكرر ويزيد وينتشر ويتوغل
هي رواية مازالت صداها في روايات شبابية تصدر حتي الأن متأثرة بها..بل وقد تكون اكثر امتاعا منها
*تحذير هام قبل البدء*
كاتب الريفيو متأثرا ويعاني أعراض "ازدواجية التفكير" بشكل خطير
فأذا لم تقرأ الرواية بعد فستستشعر ان كاتب الريفيو "مجنونا"، أما اذا قد قرأتها فستتيقن انه حتما يعاني من الجنون
=======*****=======
عشقت هذه الروايه لدرجه الكراهيه
احببت جمال قبح العامه، وكرهت الحريه بشده..اقتنعت باننا يجب ان نخطئ وارتعبت جدا من الصواب
وقد كرهت بشده الاجزاء السياسيه و ضجرت من تلك المقاله السياسيه الطويله "في الجزء الثاني" والتي عزمت علي ان اقرأها قراءه سريعه ..ولكن قرأت مايقرب من 40 صفحه في ساعه ونصف!! لأني شعرت انها فعلا يجب ان تقرأ بتمعن, فهي من اهم المقالات السياسية الواقعية
كرهت تلك المشاهد الجنسيه البسيطه ولعلي استشطت غضبا اذا لم تحدث
وكم كرهت تلك النهايه التي شعرت انها قُدمت كنهاية سعيده..واكرهها اكثر كلما اشعر انها فعلا ليست سعيده
لقد عشقت تلك الروايه لاني شعرت بالملل المثير طوال احداثها
لم اشعر انها كلاسيكيه,رايتها معاصره واحداثها واقعية وتدور في الوقت الحالي , ومع ذلك شعرت بملل الكلاسيكيات بها
روايه ينعدم فيها العواطف ولكني تأثرت لدرجه الدمع في احد مشاهدها
روايه عشقت فيها اشمئزازي الرهيب منها, واحداثها وشخصي��تها
روايه كنت اسابق الزمن كي انهي عذابي معها..وافكر في نفس الوقت متي سأقرأها مره ثانيه..قريبا
=======*****=======
الاحداث
------
اذا كنت من هواة قراءة الروايات الحديثة -مثلي- واعجبتك تلك الروايات المصنفه كديستوبيا - حيث يعم المدينه او الدوله او العالم ككل الظلم و القهر والفساد والاستبداد, الدمار والتجارب اللاانسانيه - تلك الروايات مثل
The Hunger Games و The Maze Runner و Divergent
او تجربه الرائع احمد خالد توفيق المصريه يوتوبيا
فعليك بالبدء في تلك الروايه الكلاسيكيه للروائي العبقري "جورج اورويل" 1984
-فهي مدخل رائع لمثل ذلك النوع من الروايات, ولن تشعر أبدا انها كلاسيكية او قديمة, حتي وان كانت ترجع ل1948...قبل عنوان الرواية بأربعون عاما
يجب التنويه انه اذا كنت قراءتها واعجبتك بالفعل فعليك بقراءه تلك الروايات الحديثه ايضا- ..بالأخص العاب المجاعات
عقب الحرب العالميه الثانيه وفي وقت صراعات النازيه والشيوعيه ,فتره الاربعينات من القرن الماضي ينقلك المؤلف الي لندن في الديستوبيا التي يتنبأ بها بعد اقل من 40 عاما
ففي عام 1984 ستجد ان العالم بعد صراعاته الدمويه النوويه صار مقسما الي 3 قوي رئيسيه تتحكم في العالم بكل ما تحمله كلمه "تحكم" من معني
فتتحكم في مسكنك ومأكلك ومشربك,تتحكم في اسلوب حياتك,تتحكم في أراءك,توجهاتك
تتحكم في افكارك,مشاعرك,عواطفك..فتذكر ان الاخ الكبير يراقبك..دائما وابدا
هل العالم كله هكذا؟ كيف لك ان تعرف ماذا يحدث في باقي العالم..اصمت واستمع للاخ الكبير فحسب..لا يوجد لك سبيل تواصل مع العالم الخارجي..فكلهم عدو لبلدك
انت منعزل تماما عن العالم..لايصلك من اخباره الا ما يقوله لك الأخ الكبير - هل يبدو ذلك مألوفا لك؟؟
ستقابل مفاجأت واحداث مثيره, ثوره داخليه بعقلك,عقل وينستون البطل الذي تتعايش معه..كراهيه التمرد والشغف الشديد به
نبذ الحريه التي هي العبوديه..نبذ السلام الذي هو الحرب
بالنسبه لي ما يعيب الاحداث شيئا ما هو الجزء المطول من "كتاب حكم الاقليه" والذي ذكرني كثيرا بجو كتب الفلسفه السياسيه كتلك التي يقدمها "يوسف زيدان" وغيره من مدعي الحنكة السياسية...ولكن يقدمها جورج اورويل هنا بطريقه محايده, مفهومة ومتميزة وبالرغم من الملل الذي اعتراني في الجزء الثاني ربما اغلبه بسبب هذا الجزء والذي بالرغم من انك قد قرأت ملخصه في الجزء الاول من الاحداث الا انك ستجد انه من الصعب ان تتركه دون قراءه
ويحسب بحق للمؤلف "تعمقه الشديد"في احداث روايته ورسمها فعلا كانها عن عالم حقيقي.. "ذكرني بعبقريه اخري معاصره هي جي كي رولينج عندما تسهب في عرض مقالات من جرائد عالمها الساحر او عرض صفحات عده لاحد كتب ذلك العالم الخيالي الذي ابتكرته" وهذا ان دل علي شئ فانما يدل عن انك امام روايه ثريه لم يبخل المؤلف بها بشئ ليجعل من الخيال واقعيه فهو ايضا مزج تاريخ اوقيانيا بتاريخ تلك الاحداث العالميه الحقيقيه والمعاصره -وقت صدور الروايه - من نازيه و شيوعيه
راعني ايضا ملاحظه وجدتها علي الويكابيديا هو ان "تبخير الانسان" واعتباره لم يكن
Unperson
كان امرا حقيقيا واتبعه بتعديل الصور وذلك في الاتحاد السوفييتي في الثلاثينات في صوره لستالين مع نيكولاي يزوف رئيس الشرطه السريه والتي تم تعديلها بعد اعدام الاخير لينسب الفضل لستالين وحده في حمله التطهير الشيوعيه وليكون وحده صاحب الفضل في بناء الاتحاد السوفييتي..اي ان الامر له اصول حقيقيه
وأه من مظهر ستالين نفسه :)
وكما قلت في بدايه الريفيو ان ازدواجيه التفكير قادتني الي الجنون في هذا الريفيو
فاني من اعجابي الشديد بالروايه كنت اتمني ان لا تنتشر, ولا يتم طبعها ولا قراءتها علي نطاق واسع...فكم من اخ كبير ظهر بعدها ونفذ قليلا او كثيرا من سياسته...سواء كان علي حق وصواب في جزء من سياسته او علي خطأ
كم منا وصل الامر معه لعشق الاخ الكبير وحبه وتوقف عقله وذهنه وكأن هذا الاخ الكبير الذي نصبه لنفسه لا يخطئ؟
وايضا من اعجابي الشديد بالروايه اتمني ان تنتشر ويتم طبعها كثيرا و تقرأ علي نطاق واسع
فكم منا يجب ان يفيق ويدرك ان عليه ان يعمل بعقله ويفكر كثيرا في حريه فكره وعقله...يفكر لصالحه ولصالح المجتمع ويتخلص من سلطه الاخ الكبير عندما يراه خاطئا كاذبا او منافقا
الصور مجرد صور..لاتعبر عن راي شخصي فمابين تلك الصور ناس احترم سياستهم ولكني لا اراهم دائما علي حق ..فهم بشر اولا واخيرا بعضهم اصابوا ويصيبون قليلا و اخطئوا و يخطئون كثيرا و بعضهم العكس
تناقض؟ هذا هو مايسمي بازدواجيه الفكر التي ستجدها في تلك الروايه الرائعه بحق
اقرأها لتتعرف كيف تحكم عقلك في مايعرض عليك من تاريخ..لتحاول التفرقه بين الزيف وبين الحق
لعلنا نستطيع القضاء علي من يسيطر علينا باسم الاخ الكبير..او من يدعي انه جولدشتاين عصره..اقرأها فانها بحق
روايه مرهقه للعقل
=======*****=======
الشخصيات
-------
وينستون سميث
هو من ستتوحد معه خلال احداث الروايه
وهو الاختيار المناسب ,فهو الطبقه المتوسطه-ماتحت النخبة-..فهو يتوافر له الطعام والشراب والمسكن...ليس ادميا او يتناسب مع كونه احد اعضاء الحزب الخارجي وانما علي الاقل ادميا بما فيه الكفايه مقارنه بعامه الشعب ,اللاشئ , هؤلاء الذين يمثلون 85% من السكان,وهو في وضع أأمن منهم بعيدا عن اماكنهم المعرضه للقصف باستمرار
ولكنه ليس افضل حالا منهم
فقيود حريته اعظم بكثير فهو -عكس عامه الشعب-مراقب 24/7حتي في احلامه واغوار عقله الباطن فيجب ان يكون منضبطا كالمسطره..تاركا افكارك ومشاعرك وعواطفك وتوجهاتك في يد "الاخ الكبير"..في يد حزبك الداخلي والذي يمثل 2% من السكان..اسيادك
ذلك الحزب الداخلي الذي لا تعرف كيف يعيش..هل هو مثلك في تلك المعيشه..معيشه الكفاف او ما دونه؟ بالتاكيد لا, هم ليسوا كعامه الشعب الذين صاروا تحت مستوي الفقر..بل تحت مستوي الحياه نفسها, فلا يلقوا الكفاف..وحياتهم مهدده من وقت لاخر جراء عمليات القصف الحربيه التي لا احد يعرف كنهها بالتحديد
برع المؤلف في رسم شخصيته بطريقه ممتازه,تحولاته ودوافعه وافكاره بل ورسم ذكرياته باتقان وربط بينها وبين الاحداث بطريقه..عبقريه جورج اورويل فعلا ايقنتها برسمه لشخصيته
جوليا
جوليا جوليا جوليا..اه من جوليا..لازدواجيه الفكر ظللت اعشقها واعشق فكرها واعشق ايضا فكره تحطيم راسها في اغلب الوقت
هي زميله وينستون في وزاره الحقيقه في الحزب الخارجي..زميلته الغامضه المريبه المتزمته لدرجة انك ستشعر انها روح الحزب نفسه..ولكنك ستكتشف عنها اشياء لم تخطر علي بال
اوبراين
عضو الحزب الداخلي الموقر..واحد من الساده ..ال2% من الشعب والذي من خلاله ستعرف مميزات هذه النخبه
رجل وقور..مهيب..محترم..ستشعر كم يتفهمك بمجرد نظرته
وكم من المفاجأت التي يطويها في طياتها
فستفاجأ انه مثلك ومعك في الفكر..ولعلك ستفاجأ بحق عندما تجد انه بالفعل روح متمردة تغلغلت الي هذا الحد بالحزب
روايه لن تشعر معها بالوقت..روايه ستقلب تفكيرك
وكما يقول المترجم "الرائع بحق" انور الشامي لهذه النسخه العربيه
إنها رواية تقرأ، ثم تقرأ من جديد
وبالفعل..الي قراءه اخري ربما للنسخه الانجليزيه المره القادمه ان شاء الله
محمد العربي
من 27 مايو 2013
الي 30 مايو 2013
February 19, 2022
حدثني عن القهر
عن الاستعباد
عن الذل
ثم حدثني بأدق التفاصيل
عن مراحل تقويض الكائن الانساني
حدثني كثيرا وطويلا كي أعي هذا الدمار
كي أتشربه
كي أدميه في لحمي وأعصابي نصلا حادا طويلا
كي أنزف روحي بكاء
كي أتعلم شيئا نافعا قبل أن أغادر هذا العالم البائس
حدثني يا أورويل فما أشهى وجع حديثك
وما أشهى ألم المعرفة النازف
الحرب هي السلام
ما المفترض علي فعله
الكتابة عن نفسي أم عن وطني أم عن وينستون
بمن أبدأ
ولكن مهلا
لما التفرقة..؟
كلنا واحد
أنا.. وينستون..جوليا..أنت..
بقعة الأرض التي تنتمي إليها روحك
وتدعوها وطن
الحريّة هي العبودية
كلنا كتلة معجونة بألف نوع من النزف
كلنا ذرات اجتمعت وتشكلت آدميين ونباتات وصخور
الجهل هو القّوة
كلنا غبار نجوم أراد له حظه السيئ أن يتشكل ليكون العائلة الإنسانية على كوكب ملعون أسميناه الأرض
الأخ الكبير يراقبك
من نحن يا أورويل..؟
من نحن حتى نفعل ذلك بأنفسنا
من نحن حتى نهزم بعضنا البعض بهذه الطريقة
أي لعنة حلت بنا فأصبحنا بشرا يأكل بعضه بعضا بأبشع الصور..؟
::::::::::::::::::::
يقول أورويل أن الكتاب الأفضل
هو ما يخبرك بما تعرفه بالفعل
ولكننا باختلاف خبراتنا لم نكن نعرف أننا يمكن لنا كبشر أن ننحط لهذه الدرجة
أن ننهزم لهذه الدرجة
كان هناك أمل أهوج يناطح بداخل كل واحد فينا بدرجة متفاوتة
يحاول الاحتفاظ بصورته الآدمية التي تمزقت أشلاء مرة تلو المرة
بعد كل قراءة للتاريخ
أو معايشة لأحداث ثورة
ولكنه كان كذلك حقا بالنسبة لي
لقد أخبرني بما كنت أعرفه بالفعل
لكنني أنكر بعضه بعناد
أهوّن على نفسي بابتداعات دماغية
بهلوسات أمل عن انتصار العدل ذات يوم
::::::::::::::::::::
من منا نظر إلى ما حوله بنفس الطريقة بعد قراءة كتاب كهذا..؟
من منا لم تتغير رؤيته لأشياء كثيرة كثيرة كان عنها غافل
أو متغافل
إن لم يكن هذا الكتاب ضربة الفأس التي تحدث عنها كافكا
والتي تهزك من الأعماق
فماذا يكون إذا..؟
::::::::::::::::::::
إنها الديستوبيا الأكثر سوادا في تاريخ الأدب
فيها يعيش الكائن الحي في خوف دائم
خوف من شرطة الفكر
من شاشات الرصد
من التفوه بكلمة قد تدمر حياته بأكملها
من تعبير وجه قد ينفلت منه دون قصد فيسحق بلا رحمة
من خطرٍ محتمل الوقوع
من عدو مجهول قد ينقض عليك في أي لحظة
من عيون الأخ الكبير
الإله..المخلص..المحبوب غصبا عن الكل.. وبرضا الكل
تلك العيون التي لم تترك شيئا لم تتواجد عليه
أغلفة الكتب ..الطوابع.. الأعلام .. أغلفة الحلوى..لعملات
إنه يلاحقك أينما تكون
وفي كل وقت
الأخ الأكبر
الطاغية المعبود في كل زمان ومكان
هذا الذي قد يكون مستوحى من ستالين
ولكنه يجثم على أنفاس الخلائق منذ بدأ تاريخ الأرض
وأوقيانيا هي الدولة التي اخترعها أورويل
ليبني على أرضها هذه الديستوبيا المريعة
فيها شاشات الرصد تترصد كل تحركاتك
فيها يحافظ الجميع على دقيقتي الكراهية
للتنفيس عن غضبهم من المعارض غولدشتاين
أو بمعنى آخر الشيطان الأعظم كما يصور له سادته
إنه مجتمع مصادر الحقوق منتهك الحريات
محروم حتى من مجرد التفكير
مجتمع يقضي عمره كله تحت الرقابة
التي تحصي عليه أنفاسه وتحركاته
مجتمع يعرف مصيره منذ أن يولد
يعرف أن الطاغية الأعظم قد حدد له كل شيء سلفا
طعامه.. شرابه .. نوع قهوته -بن النصر
عدد شفرات الحلاقة
فيه وزارة الحقيقة تزور الحقيقة وتختلق الأكاذيب
وزارة السلام تختص بشؤون الحرب والسلاح
وزارة الوفرة تجوع المواطنين
ووارة الحب تعذب الخلائق وتناهض الجنس
أهي تسميات ساخرة حقا..؟
أوزارة الحب تختلف عن الأمن الوطني أو أمن الدولة عندنا..؟
في الرواية تبررها فلسفة الحزب-الدولة للتفكير المزدوج
أما عندنا فما هو التبرير يا ترى
::::::::::::::::::::
يعتمد الحزب الميمون على ما أسماه بالتفكير الازدواجي
إنه يعني ببساطة أن تعي الحقيقة كاملة
ومع ذلك تصدق عكسها وبنفس القناعة
أن تؤمن برأيين متناقضين
" أن تجهض المنطق بالمنطق
أن ترفض الالتزام بالأخلاق فيما أنت واحدٌ من الداعين إليها
أن تعتقد أن الديمقراطية ضربٌ من المستحيل في حين أن الحزب وصيّ عليه
أن تنسى كل ما يتعين عليك نسيانه ثم تستحضره في الذاكرة حينما تمس الحاجة إليه
ثم تنساه مرة ثانية فورًا.."
إنه ليس تجردا من الإنسانية فحسب
إنه إعادة تصنيع للمخ البشري
بعد محو كل ما بداخله
إنهم لا يكتفون بأن تخاف
بأن تصير كتلة ممزقة اللحم والأعصاب تستعطفهم الموت حتى ينتهي عذابك
إنهم يحيلونك آخر
ليصير عقلك ألة
مجرد آلة صماء تنفذ الأوامر
وهذا الآخر أو الآلة يصير مقتنعا تمام الاقتناع بكل استبداد كان يناضل لأجل زواله
إنهم يمسخونك ..
وهذا أشنع ما في الأمر
هذا أشنع ما في الأمر
::::::::::::::::::::
يعمل وينستون سميث في وزارة الحقيقة
يشاهد ويشارك يوميا في تزوير التاريخ
كل السجلات تم إتلافها
وكل كتاب أعيدت كتابته وكل صورة أعيد رسمها
واسم كل تمثال وشارع وبناية جرى استبداله
وكل تاريخ جرى تحريفه
“إننا نقوم بتدمير الكلمات –عشرات بل مئات الكلمات
"كل يوم يجري تدميرها.. إننا نسلخ اللغة حتى العظام
ولكن وينستون ارتكب الجريمة العظمى
فقد بدأ في الشك
والتفكير في هذا الهراء الذي يعيش بداخله
لقد تمرد في عقله ثم على أرض الواقع
يقيم علاقةً مع جوليا المتمردة كذلك
ينخرط معها في تنظيم للتآمر على الحزب
أو هكذا خيل لهما
وهكذا يلقى تحت رحمة من لا يرحم
"إننا سنسحقك إلى درجة لا يمكنك بعدها أن تعود بحياتك إلى سيرتها الأولى وستحدث لك أشياء لن يمكنك أن تبرأ من آثارها حتى لو عشت ألف عام وأبدا لن تقدر ثانيةً على الشعور بما يشعر به الأحياء
إن كل شيء سيموت داخلك ولن تعود قادرا على الحب أو الصداقة أو الاستمتاع بالحياة أو الضحك أو حب الاستطلاع أو الشجاعة أو الاستقامة
"ستكون أجوف لأننا سنعصرك حتى تصبح خواء من كل شيء ثم نملأك بذواتنا
والتعذيب الرهيب الذي يتعرض له وينستون هو تعذيب ممنهج
"نحن لا نحطم أعداءنا فحسب
وإنما نغير ما في أنفسهم"
لا بطش من أجل الانتقام
أو تلقين الخارجين عن قوانين الحزب درسا قاسيا
إنهم لا يقبلون بالطاعة السلبية أو حتى بالخضوع بمعناه المعروف
فعندما يخضع السجين في النهاية يجب أن يكون ذلك نابعًا من إرادته الحرة
لا يكفي أن تقول أن 2 + 2 =5
يجب أن تؤمن بها
"إننا نبدد فكره ونجعله واحدًا منا قبل أن نقتله
إننا نجري للدماغ غسيلا شاملاً قبل أن نعصف به
نحن نختلف عن طغاة الماضي الذين يقولون:
يجب أن لا تفعل ذلك
وعن الاستبداديين الذين يقولون:
يجب أن تفعل ذلك
"نحن نقول: كن..
إنهم لا يسمحون لأحد بأن يخرج من سجنهم شهيدا
إنهم لن ي��معوا عنك أبدًا لأنّك ستُزال تمامًا من سجل التاريخ"
سنحيلك إلى غاز ثم نطلقك في الهواء. سنجعلك نسيًا منسيًّا. و��ن يبقى منك شيء لا اسمًا في سجل ولا أثرًا في ذاكرةٍ حيّة
ستمحى كل علاقةٍ لك بالماضي كما بالمستقبل وستصبح وكأنك لم تكن "
-كم اصبعا تري يا ونستون ..؟
-أربعا.. خمسا
الرقم الذي تريده ..كل ما أرجوه أن توقف الألم...
تحت وطأة التعذيب يعترف وينستون "بجرائم" لم يرتكبها أصلا
وغدا همه الوحيد أن يكتشف ما يريدون أن يعترف به"
حتى يبادر إلي الاعتراف قبل أن يلجأ المحققون لحمله علي ذلك"
اغتيال عدد من أعضاء الحزب البارزين
وتوزيع منشورات تحرض علي الفتنة
واختلاس أموال عامة وبيع أسرار عسكرية والاشتراك في عمليات التخريب
وبأنه كان عميلا مأجورا لحكومة استاسيا
وبأنه كان مؤمنا بالله ومعجبا بالرأسمالية
وبأنه انزلق الي الشذوذ الجنسي
وأنه قتل زوجته بالرغم من أنه يعرف مثلما يعرف المحققون أن زوجته لا تزال علي قيد الحياة
......
يمر وينستون بمراحل عدة حتى يصل لمرحلة القبول
لقد شعر في غحدى المراحل بأن بقاءه إنسانا
هو أمر يستحق التضحية من أجله
حتى لو لم يؤد ذلك إلى نتيجة فإنه يكون قد ألحق بهم الهزيمة
وقد مرت عليه أوقات كانت رؤيته للحرية
هي أن يموت وهو يكرههم
ولكن ذلك كما نعلم.. لم يدم طويلا
::::::::::::::::::::
إنه هذا المزج العجيب الذي تمكن منه أورويل تمكن أستاذ
فبرغم كون الرواية تحمل عمقا وقوة تجعلها بلا جدال من الطراز الرفيع
إلا أنها تصل لجميع نوعيات القراء
ولا تحتاج فئة معينة كي تفهمها
هي موجهة للجميع
واستطاعت أن تصل إلى قلوب الجميع
لقد صنع المعادلة الصعبة بالفعل
فلا تدع براعتها السياسية تنسيك أنها رواية أدبية من أعلى طراز
::::::::::::::::::::
السلطة عند الحزب الحاكم
اقرأ جيدا ما يقوله أورويل على لسان أوبراين
إن الحزب يسعى إلى بلوغ السلطة لذاتها تلك المطلقة. السلطة غاية وليست وسيلة. لا نسعى وراء الثروة ولا الرفاهية ولا العمر المديد ولا السعادة. إننا ندرك أنه ما من أحد يمسك بزمام السلطة وهو ينتوي التخلي عنها. فالمرء لا يقيم حكما استبداديا لحماية الثورة وإنما يشعل الثورة لاقامة حكم استبدادي. إن الهدف من الاضطهاد هو الاضطهاد. والهدف من التعذيب هو التعذيب وغاية السلطة هي السلطة. والسلطة هي سلطان على البشر، على أجسامهم وعلى عقولهم قبل كل شيء. أما أن يكون لك سلطان على المادة فليس بالأمر الهام إذ نحن نسيطر على المادة سيطرة مطلقة.
::::::::::::::::::::
النهــــاية
وينستون يذبحنا بكلماته الأخيرة
أذكر أنني وقت القراءة الأولى ظللت أردد تلك الجملة
بلا وعي وبانذهال تام
فاكتب معي الآن ضاحكا حتى ينخلع قلبك
الحرب هي السلام
العبودية هي الحرية
الجهل هو القوة
2+2=5
وحاول معي أن تحل هذه الأحجية
:
:
!
-------------
هذه المراجعة أرهقتني
وعذبتني
وأضنت روحي تماما
أعتذر لطولها..كما أعتذر لكثرة الاقتباسات ولكثرة ثرثرتي
إنني فقط أحاول محاولات طفولية
أحاول كتابة ما يليق بعظمة مثل هذه الرواية
وأرجو أن أكون قد وفقت في أن أصف
ولو بعض مما اعتراني مع هذا العمل البديع
..
عن الاستعباد
عن الذل
ثم حدثني بأدق التفاصيل
عن مراحل تقويض الكائن الانساني
حدثني كثيرا وطويلا كي أعي هذا الدمار
كي أتشربه
كي أدميه في لحمي وأعصابي نصلا حادا طويلا
كي أنزف روحي بكاء
كي أتعلم شيئا نافعا قبل أن أغادر هذا العالم البائس
حدثني يا أورويل فما أشهى وجع حديثك
وما أشهى ألم المعرفة النازف
الحرب هي السلام
ما المفترض علي فعله
الكتابة عن نفسي أم عن وطني أم عن وينستون
بمن أبدأ
ولكن مهلا
لما التفرقة..؟
كلنا واحد
أنا.. وينستون..جوليا..أنت..
بقعة الأرض التي تنتمي إليها روحك
وتدعوها وطن
الحريّة هي العبودية
كلنا كتلة معجونة بألف نوع من النزف
كلنا ذرات اجتمعت وتشكلت آدميين ونباتات وصخور
الجهل هو القّوة
كلنا غبار نجوم أراد له حظه السيئ أن يتشكل ليكون العائلة الإنسانية على كوكب ملعون أسميناه الأرض
الأخ الكبير يراقبك
من نحن يا أورويل..؟
من نحن حتى نفعل ذلك بأنفسنا
من نحن حتى نهزم بعضنا البعض بهذه الطريقة
أي لعنة حلت بنا فأصبحنا بشرا يأكل بعضه بعضا بأبشع الصور..؟
::::::::::::::::::::
الولاء يعني إنعدام التفكير .. بل إنعدام الحاجة للتفكير
الولاء هو عدم الوعي
____________
يقول أورويل أن الكتاب الأفضل
هو ما يخبرك بما تعرفه بالفعل
ولكننا باختلاف خبراتنا لم نكن نعرف أننا يمكن لنا كبشر أن ننحط لهذه الدرجة
أن ننهزم لهذه الدرجة
كان هناك أمل أهوج يناطح بداخل كل واحد فينا بدرجة متفاوتة
يحاول الاحتفاظ بصورته الآدمية التي تمزقت أشلاء مرة تلو المرة
بعد كل قراءة للتاريخ
أو معايشة لأحداث ثورة
ولكنه كان كذلك حقا بالنسبة لي
لقد أخبرني بما كنت أعرفه بالفعل
لكنني أنكر بعضه بعناد
أهوّن على نفسي بابتداعات دماغية
بهلوسات أمل عن انتصار العدل ذات يوم
::::::::::::::::::::
من وجهة نظر الطبقة الدنيا
فإن أي تغيير تاريخي لا يعدو أن يكون مجرد تغيير في أسماء سادتها
ــــــــــــــــ
من منا نظر إلى ما حوله بنفس الطريقة بعد قراءة كتاب كهذا..؟
من منا لم تتغير رؤيته لأشياء كثيرة كثيرة كان عنها غافل
أو متغافل
إن لم يكن هذا الكتاب ضربة الفأس التي تحدث عنها كافكا
والتي تهزك من الأعماق
فماذا يكون إذا..؟
::::::::::::::::::::
إن ألد أعدائك هو جهازك العصبي
ــــــــــــ
إنها الديستوبيا الأكثر سوادا في تاريخ الأدب
فيها يعيش الكائن الحي في خوف دائم
خوف من شرطة الفكر
من شاشات الرصد
من التفوه بكلمة قد تدمر حياته بأكملها
من تعبير وجه قد ينفلت منه دون قصد فيسحق بلا رحمة
من خطرٍ محتمل الوقوع
من عدو مجهول قد ينقض عليك في أي لحظة
من عيون الأخ الكبير
الإله..المخلص..المحبوب غصبا عن الكل.. وبرضا الكل
تلك العيون التي لم تترك شيئا لم تتواجد عليه
أغلفة الكتب ..الطوابع.. الأعلام .. أغلفة الحلوى..لعملات
إنه يلاحقك أينما تكون
وفي كل وقت
الأخ الأكبر
الطاغية المعبود في كل زمان ومكان
هذا الذي قد يكون مستوحى من ستالين
ولكنه يجثم على أنفاس الخلائق منذ بدأ تاريخ الأرض
وأوقيانيا هي الدولة التي اخترعها أورويل
ليبني على أرضها هذه الديستوبيا المريعة
فيها شاشات الرصد تترصد كل تحركاتك
فيها يحافظ الجميع على دقيقتي الكراهية
للتنفيس عن غضبهم من المعارض غولدشتاين
أو بمعنى آخر الشيطان الأعظم كما يصور له سادته
إنه مجتمع مصادر الحقوق منتهك الحريات
محروم حتى من مجرد التفكير
مجتمع يقضي عمره كله تحت الرقابة
التي تحصي عليه أنفاسه وتحركاته
مجتمع يعرف مصيره منذ أن يولد
يعرف أن الطاغية الأعظم قد حدد له كل شيء سلفا
طعامه.. شرابه .. نوع قهوته -بن النصر
عدد شفرات الحلاقة
فيه وزارة الحقيقة تزور الحقيقة وتختلق الأكاذيب
وزارة السلام تختص بشؤون الحرب والسلاح
وزارة الوفرة تجوع المواطنين
ووارة الحب تعذب الخلائق وتناهض الجنس
أهي تسميات ساخرة حقا..؟
أوزارة الحب تختلف عن الأمن الوطني أو أمن الدولة عندنا..؟
في الرواية تبررها فلسفة الحزب-الدولة للتفكير المزدوج
أما عندنا فما هو التبرير يا ترى
::::::::::::::::::::
إن جريمة الفكر لا تفضي إلى الموت إنها الموت نفسه
ـــــــــــــ
يعتمد الحزب الميمون على ما أسماه بالتفكير الازدواجي
إنه يعني ببساطة أن تعي الحقيقة كاملة
ومع ذلك تصدق عكسها وبنفس القناعة
أن تؤمن برأيين متناقضين
" أن تجهض المنطق بالمنطق
أن ترفض الالتزام بالأخلاق فيما أنت واحدٌ من الداعين إليها
أن تعتقد أن الديمقراطية ضربٌ من المستحيل في حين أن الحزب وصيّ عليه
أن تنسى كل ما يتعين عليك نسيانه ثم تستحضره في الذاكرة حينما تمس الحاجة إليه
ثم تنساه مرة ثانية فورًا.."
إنه ليس تجردا من الإنسانية فحسب
إنه إعادة تصنيع للمخ البشري
بعد محو كل ما بداخله
إنهم لا يكتفون بأن تخاف
بأن تصير كتلة ممزقة اللحم والأعصاب تستعطفهم الموت حتى ينتهي عذابك
إنهم يحيلونك آخر
ليصير عقلك ألة
مجرد آلة صماء تنفذ الأوامر
وهذا الآخر أو الآلة يصير مقتنعا تمام الاقتناع بكل استبداد كان يناضل لأجل زواله
إنهم يمسخونك ..
وهذا أشنع ما في الأمر
هذا أشنع ما في الأمر
::::::::::::::::::::
وأدرك أيضاً أن هذا هو ما يعتري الإنسان في كل المواقف البطولية والمأساوية
ففي ميدان القتال أو في غرفة التعذيب أو على متن سفينة تغرق
تغدو القضايا التي تحارب من أجلها طيّ النسيان دائما
ذلك لأن جسدك يظل يتضخم حتى يملأ عليك العالم فلا ترى سواه
ــــــــــــــــ
يعمل وينستون سميث في وزارة الحقيقة
يشاهد ويشارك يوميا في تزوير التاريخ
كل السجلات تم إتلافها
وكل كتاب أعيدت كتابته وكل صورة أعيد رسمها
واسم كل تمثال وشارع وبناية جرى استبداله
وكل تاريخ جرى تحريفه
“إننا نقوم بتدمير الكلمات –عشرات بل مئات الكلمات
"كل يوم يجري تدميرها.. إننا نسلخ اللغة حتى العظام
ولكن وينستون ارتكب الجريمة العظمى
فقد بدأ في الشك
والتفكير في هذا الهراء الذي يعيش بداخله
لقد تمرد في عقله ثم على أرض الواقع
يقيم علاقةً مع جوليا المتمردة كذلك
ينخرط معها في تنظيم للتآمر على الحزب
أو هكذا خيل لهما
وهكذا يلقى تحت رحمة من لا يرحم
"إننا سنسحقك إلى درجة لا يمكنك بعدها أن تعود بحياتك إلى سيرتها الأولى وستحدث لك أشياء لن يمكنك أن تبرأ من آثارها حتى لو عشت ألف عام وأبدا لن تقدر ثانيةً على الشعور بما يشعر به الأحياء
إن كل شيء سيموت داخلك ولن تعود قادرا على الحب أو الصداقة أو الاستمتاع بالحياة أو الضحك أو حب الاستطلاع أو الشجاعة أو الاستقامة
"ستكون أجوف لأننا سنعصرك حتى تصبح خواء من كل شيء ثم نملأك بذواتنا
والتعذيب الرهيب الذي يتعرض له وينستون هو تعذيب ممنهج
"نحن لا نحطم أعداءنا فحسب
وإنما نغير ما في أنفسهم"
لا بطش من أجل الانتقام
أو تلقين الخارجين عن قوانين الحزب درسا قاسيا
إنهم لا يقبلون بالطاعة السلبية أو حتى بالخضوع بمعناه المعروف
فعندما يخضع السجين في النهاية يجب أن يكون ذلك نابعًا من إرادته الحرة
لا يكفي أن تقول أن 2 + 2 =5
يجب أن تؤمن بها
"إننا نبدد فكره ونجعله واحدًا منا قبل أن نقتله
إننا نجري للدماغ غسيلا شاملاً قبل أن نعصف به
نحن نختلف عن طغاة الماضي الذين يقولون:
يجب أن لا تفعل ذلك
وعن الاستبداديين الذين يقولون:
يجب أن تفعل ذلك
"نحن نقول: كن..
إنهم لا يسمحون لأحد بأن يخرج من سجنهم شهيدا
إنهم لن ي��معوا عنك أبدًا لأنّك ستُزال تمامًا من سجل التاريخ"
سنحيلك إلى غاز ثم نطلقك في الهواء. سنجعلك نسيًا منسيًّا. و��ن يبقى منك شيء لا اسمًا في سجل ولا أثرًا في ذاكرةٍ حيّة
ستمحى كل علاقةٍ لك بالماضي كما بالمستقبل وستصبح وكأنك لم تكن "
-كم اصبعا تري يا ونستون ..؟
-أربعا.. خمسا
الرقم الذي تريده ..كل ما أرجوه أن توقف الألم...
تحت وطأة التعذيب يعترف وينستون "بجرائم" لم يرتكبها أصلا
وغدا همه الوحيد أن يكتشف ما يريدون أن يعترف به"
حتى يبادر إلي الاعتراف قبل أن يلجأ المحققون لحمله علي ذلك"
اغتيال عدد من أعضاء الحزب البارزين
وتوزيع منشورات تحرض علي الفتنة
واختلاس أموال عامة وبيع أسرار عسكرية والاشتراك في عمليات التخريب
وبأنه كان عميلا مأجورا لحكومة استاسيا
وبأنه كان مؤمنا بالله ومعجبا بالرأسمالية
وبأنه انزلق الي الشذوذ الجنسي
وأنه قتل زوجته بالرغم من أنه يعرف مثلما يعرف المحققون أن زوجته لا تزال علي قيد الحياة
......
يمر وينستون بمراحل عدة حتى يصل لمرحلة القبول
لقد شعر في غحدى المراحل بأن بقاءه إنسانا
هو أمر يستحق التضحية من أجله
حتى لو لم يؤد ذلك إلى نتيجة فإنه يكون قد ألحق بهم الهزيمة
وقد مرت عليه أوقات كانت رؤيته للحرية
هي أن يموت وهو يكرههم
ولكن ذلك كما نعلم.. لم يدم طويلا
::::::::::::::::::::
كان الذي استهواه من ذلك كله هو تلك الحركة
التي نزعت بها ثيابها وطوحت بها أرضا
فبرش��قتها وعدم مبالاتها بدا كأنها تقوض ثقافة كاملة
وتنقض نظاما فكريا بكليته، كما لو لن الأخ الكبير والحزب وشرطة الفكر يمكن أن تذهب أدراج الرياح بحركة بارعة كحركة ذراعها
ــــــــــ
إنه هذا المزج العجيب الذي تمكن منه أورويل تمكن أستاذ
فبرغم كون الرواية تحمل عمقا وقوة تجعلها بلا جدال من الطراز الرفيع
إلا أنها تصل لجميع نوعيات القراء
ولا تحتاج فئة معينة كي تفهمها
هي موجهة للجميع
واستطاعت أن تصل إلى قلوب الجميع
لقد صنع المعادلة الصعبة بالفعل
فلا تدع براعتها السياسية تنسيك أنها رواية أدبية من أعلى طراز
::::::::::::::::::::
السلطة عند الحزب الحاكم
اقرأ جيدا ما يقوله أورويل على لسان أوبراين
إن الحزب يسعى إلى بلوغ السلطة لذاتها تلك المطلقة. السلطة غاية وليست وسيلة. لا نسعى وراء الثروة ولا الرفاهية ولا العمر المديد ولا السعادة. إننا ندرك أنه ما من أحد يمسك بزمام السلطة وهو ينتوي التخلي عنها. فالمرء لا يقيم حكما استبداديا لحماية الثورة وإنما يشعل الثورة لاقامة حكم استبدادي. إن الهدف من الاضطهاد هو الاضطهاد. والهدف من التعذيب هو التعذيب وغاية السلطة هي السلطة. والسلطة هي سلطان على البشر، على أجسامهم وعلى عقولهم قبل كل شيء. أما أن يكون لك سلطان على المادة فليس بالأمر الهام إذ نحن نسيطر على المادة سيطرة مطلقة.
::::::::::::::::::::
النهــــاية
وينستون يذبحنا بكلماته الأخيرة
أذكر أنني وقت القراءة الأولى ظللت أردد تلك الجملة
بلا وعي وبانذهال تام
فاكتب معي الآن ضاحكا حتى ينخلع قلبك
الحرب هي السلام
العبودية هي الحرية
الجهل هو القوة
2+2=5
وحاول معي أن تحل هذه الأحجية
:
:
لن يثوروا حتى يعوا
ولن يعوا إلا بعد أن يثوروا
!
-------------
هذه المراجعة أرهقتني
وعذبتني
وأضنت روحي تماما
أعتذر لطولها..كما أعتذر لكثرة الاقتباسات ولكثرة ثرثرتي
إنني فقط أحاول محاولات طفولية
أحاول كتابة ما يليق بعظمة مثل هذه الرواية
وأرجو أن أكون قد وفقت في أن أصف
ولو بعض مما اعتراني مع هذا العمل البديع
..
January 7, 2011
YOU. ARE. THE. DEAD. Oh my God. I got the chills so many times toward the end of this book. It completely blew my mind. It managed to surpass my high expectations AND be nothing at all like I expected. Or in Newspeak "Double Plus Good."
Let me preface this with an apology. If I sound stunningly inarticulate at times in this review, I can't help it. My mind is completely fried.
This book is like the dystopian Lord of the Rings, with its richly developed culture and economics, not to mention a fully developed language called Newspeak, or rather more of the anti-language, whose purpose is to limit speech and understanding instead of to enhance and expand it. The world-building is so fully fleshed out and spine-tinglingly terrifying that it's almost as if George travelled to such a place, escaped from it, and then just wrote it all down.
I read Fahrenheit 451 over ten years ago in my early teens. At the time, I remember really wanting to read 1984, although I never managed to get my hands on it. I'm almost glad I didn't. Though I would not have admitted it at the time, it would have gone over my head. Or at the very least, I wouldn't have been able to appreciate it fully.
From the start, the author manages to articulate so many of the things I have thought about but have never been able to find a way to put into words. Even in the first few chapters I found myself having to stop just to quietly consider the words of Mr Orwell.
For instance, he talks about how the act of writing itself is a type of time travel. It is communicating with the future. I write these words now, but others may not discover them for hours, weeks, or even years. For me, it is one time. For you the reader, it is an entirely different one.
Just the thought that reading and writing could one day be outlawed just shivers my timbers. I related to Winston so much in that way. I would have found a way to read or write.
The politics and psychology of this novel run deep. The society in the book has no written laws, but many acts are punishable by death. The slogan of the Party (War is Peace...) is entirely convoluted. Individuality is frowned upon and could lead to being labeled a traitor to the Party.
I also remember always wondering why the title was 1984. I was familiar with the concept of Big Brother and wondered why that wasn't the name of the book. In the story, they don't actually know what year it is because so much of the past has been erased by the Ministry of Truth. It could very easily have been 1981. I think that makes the title more powerful. Something as simple as the year or date is unknown to these people. They have to believe it is whatever day that they are told it is. They don't have the right to keep track. Knowledge is powerful. Knowledge is necessary. But according to Big Brother. Ignorance is strength.
1984 is written in past tense and has long paragraphs of exposition, recounting events, and explaining the society. These are usually things that distance me from a book and from the characters, but Orwell managed to keep me fully enthralled. He frequently talks in circles and ideas are often repeated but it is still intriguing, none the less. I must admit that I zoned out a bit while Winston was reading from The Book, but I was very fascinated by the culture.
Sometimes it seems as though the only way to really experience a characters emotions is through first person. This is not the case with this book, as it is written in third person; yet, I never failed to be encompassed in Winston's feelings. George manages to ensure that the reader never feels disconnected from the events that are unfolding around them, with the exception of the beginning when Winston is just starting to become awakened. I developed a strong attachment to Winston and thrived on living inside his mind. I became a member of the Thought Police, hearing everything, feeling everything and last but not least, (what the Thought Police are not allowed to do) questioning everything.
I wasn't expecting a love story in this book, but the relationship between Julia and Winston was truly profound. I enjoyed it even more than I would have expected and thought the moments between them were beautiful. I wasn't sure whether he was going to eventually betray Julia to the Party or not, but I certainly teared up often when it came to their relationship.
George has an uncanny ability to get to the base of the human psyche, at times suggesting that we need to be at war for many different reasons, whether it's at war with ourselves or with others. That is one thing I have never understood: why humans feel the need to destroy and control each other.
It seems that the main and recurring message in this book is about censorship and brainwashing. One, censorship, is limited and little exposure to ideas of the world; the other, brainwashing, is forced and too much exposure to a certain ideas. Both can be extremely dangerous.
Inside the ministry of Truth, he demonstrates the dangers of censorship by showing how the Party has completely rewritten the past by forging and abolishing documents and physical evidence. We also spend quite a bit of time with Winston in the Ministry of Love, where the brainwashing takes place. Those who commit thoughtcrime are tortured until they grow to love and obey Big Brother and serve only the interests of the Party.
A common theme occurred to me throughout the book, although it wasn't necessarily referenced consistently. The good of the many is more important than the good of the one. There are so many variables when it comes to this statement and for the most part it seems natural to say, "Of course, the many is more important than the one", but when inside Winston's head, all that I began to care about was his well-being and not if he was able to help disband or conquer the Party and Big Brother. I just wanted him to be at peace.
Whether or not the good of all is more important than that of the one, I can't answer. I think most people feel their own happiness is more important than the rest of the world's, and maybe that's part of the problem but it's also human nature. I only wish we could all accept one other regardless of belief and culture and not try to force ways of life onto other people. Maybe I'm naive for thinking that way, but so be it.
I almost don't know what to think about this book. I'm not even sure my brain still works, or if it ever worked right at all. This book has a way of making you think you know exactly what you believe about everything and then turning you completely upside down and making you question whether or not you believe anything at all about anything. It's the strangest thing. Hmmm. Doublethink? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
Everything about this book is captivating. It's groundbreaking yet at the same time, purely classic. Ahead of its time, yet timeless. From Big Brother to the Thought Police, I was hooked and wanted to know more about it all.
Basically, I think everyone should read 1984 at some point. You really have to be in the mood to work at reading it, though. But it's all worth it in the end. It's absolutely incredible and I loved it. I don't re-read many books but this will definitely be one of them. It is a hard read, but more importantly, it is a MUST read.
Let me preface this with an apology. If I sound stunningly inarticulate at times in this review, I can't help it. My mind is completely fried.
This book is like the dystopian Lord of the Rings, with its richly developed culture and economics, not to mention a fully developed language called Newspeak, or rather more of the anti-language, whose purpose is to limit speech and understanding instead of to enhance and expand it. The world-building is so fully fleshed out and spine-tinglingly terrifying that it's almost as if George travelled to such a place, escaped from it, and then just wrote it all down.
I read Fahrenheit 451 over ten years ago in my early teens. At the time, I remember really wanting to read 1984, although I never managed to get my hands on it. I'm almost glad I didn't. Though I would not have admitted it at the time, it would have gone over my head. Or at the very least, I wouldn't have been able to appreciate it fully.
From the start, the author manages to articulate so many of the things I have thought about but have never been able to find a way to put into words. Even in the first few chapters I found myself having to stop just to quietly consider the words of Mr Orwell.
For instance, he talks about how the act of writing itself is a type of time travel. It is communicating with the future. I write these words now, but others may not discover them for hours, weeks, or even years. For me, it is one time. For you the reader, it is an entirely different one.
Just the thought that reading and writing could one day be outlawed just shivers my timbers. I related to Winston so much in that way. I would have found a way to read or write.
The politics and psychology of this novel run deep. The society in the book has no written laws, but many acts are punishable by death. The slogan of the Party (War is Peace...) is entirely convoluted. Individuality is frowned upon and could lead to being labeled a traitor to the Party.
I also remember always wondering why the title was 1984. I was familiar with the concept of Big Brother and wondered why that wasn't the name of the book. In the story, they don't actually know what year it is because so much of the past has been erased by the Ministry of Truth. It could very easily have been 1981. I think that makes the title more powerful. Something as simple as the year or date is unknown to these people. They have to believe it is whatever day that they are told it is. They don't have the right to keep track. Knowledge is powerful. Knowledge is necessary. But according to Big Brother. Ignorance is strength.
1984 is written in past tense and has long paragraphs of exposition, recounting events, and explaining the society. These are usually things that distance me from a book and from the characters, but Orwell managed to keep me fully enthralled. He frequently talks in circles and ideas are often repeated but it is still intriguing, none the less. I must admit that I zoned out a bit while Winston was reading from The Book, but I was very fascinated by the culture.
Sometimes it seems as though the only way to really experience a characters emotions is through first person. This is not the case with this book, as it is written in third person; yet, I never failed to be encompassed in Winston's feelings. George manages to ensure that the reader never feels disconnected from the events that are unfolding around them, with the exception of the beginning when Winston is just starting to become awakened. I developed a strong attachment to Winston and thrived on living inside his mind. I became a member of the Thought Police, hearing everything, feeling everything and last but not least, (what the Thought Police are not allowed to do) questioning everything.
I wasn't expecting a love story in this book, but the relationship between Julia and Winston was truly profound. I enjoyed it even more than I would have expected and thought the moments between them were beautiful. I wasn't sure whether he was going to eventually betray Julia to the Party or not, but I certainly teared up often when it came to their relationship.
George has an uncanny ability to get to the base of the human psyche, at times suggesting that we need to be at war for many different reasons, whether it's at war with ourselves or with others. That is one thing I have never understood: why humans feel the need to destroy and control each other.
It seems that the main and recurring message in this book is about censorship and brainwashing. One, censorship, is limited and little exposure to ideas of the world; the other, brainwashing, is forced and too much exposure to a certain ideas. Both can be extremely dangerous.
Inside the ministry of Truth, he demonstrates the dangers of censorship by showing how the Party has completely rewritten the past by forging and abolishing documents and physical evidence. We also spend quite a bit of time with Winston in the Ministry of Love, where the brainwashing takes place. Those who commit thoughtcrime are tortured until they grow to love and obey Big Brother and serve only the interests of the Party.
A common theme occurred to me throughout the book, although it wasn't necessarily referenced consistently. The good of the many is more important than the good of the one. There are so many variables when it comes to this statement and for the most part it seems natural to say, "Of course, the many is more important than the one", but when inside Winston's head, all that I began to care about was his well-being and not if he was able to help disband or conquer the Party and Big Brother. I just wanted him to be at peace.
Whether or not the good of all is more important than that of the one, I can't answer. I think most people feel their own happiness is more important than the rest of the world's, and maybe that's part of the problem but it's also human nature. I only wish we could all accept one other regardless of belief and culture and not try to force ways of life onto other people. Maybe I'm naive for thinking that way, but so be it.
I almost don't know what to think about this book. I'm not even sure my brain still works, or if it ever worked right at all. This book has a way of making you think you know exactly what you believe about everything and then turning you completely upside down and making you question whether or not you believe anything at all about anything. It's the strangest thing. Hmmm. Doublethink? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
Everything about this book is captivating. It's groundbreaking yet at the same time, purely classic. Ahead of its time, yet timeless. From Big Brother to the Thought Police, I was hooked and wanted to know more about it all.
Basically, I think everyone should read 1984 at some point. You really have to be in the mood to work at reading it, though. But it's all worth it in the end. It's absolutely incredible and I loved it. I don't re-read many books but this will definitely be one of them. It is a hard read, but more importantly, it is a MUST read.
September 26, 2023
"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."
In ravaged post-apocalyptic future, the world has divided itself into three totalitarian superpowers: Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. The three superstates always in constant never ending war with each other, and relentlessly and mercilessly purging their own population to align them with their current goals. Winston works in the ‘Ministry of Truth’ every day revising, rewriting and burning history records to match the ever changing version of history dictated by their all-powerful leader, the Big Brother. Secretly though, deep in his heart Winston hates their cruel leadership, and wishes their defeat. A traitor in thought, his life would be forfeit if someone ever finds out, and there are spies everywhere…
An unforgettable story about the inner strength and inherent weakness of the human spirit, struggling in the most oppressive of worlds. A book that teaches us to love and value freedom, and its costs; to cherish independent thought, and never letting go the fight. I LOVED the secret unfolding relationship with Julia, their quirkiness ; and I can’t express my heartbreak and sadness for the ultimate fate of the ever cheerful and loyal Tom Parsons. Gosh! This was a such a dark and grim story, but overall, enormously invaluable.
A timeless masterpiece and one of the founding pillars of dystopian fiction. A must read in life, along with Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World . The holy trinity of dystopia. Highly Recommendable!
After a decade or so my memory is a bit hazy but I think I found the ‘Goldstein book’ part quite tedious; hence the four stars. Everything else was just perfect, darkly perfect. I remember enjoying this one immensely back in the day. ��Animal farm’ as well, another absolute masterpiece. Boy I really need to read more Orwell one of these days!
*** The movie Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) is a fantastic adaptation, greatly capturing much of the book’s essence. Some liberties were taken of course, but overall pretty faithful to the original work. Coincidentally it was filmed in 1984! Can you believe it? Talk about brilliant perfect timing! John Hurt was spectacular, in one of his most iconic and remembered performances ever. May the good man rest in peace. Suzanna Hamilton was magnificent too; and Gregor Fisher as Parsons was totally on point., and boy did I hate O’Brien! Fortunately much of the book of Goldstein tediousness was omitted. Not a perfect film mind you, but a great adaptation. An absolute must watch, even if you didn’t read the book.
-----------------------------------------------
PERSONAL NOTE :
[1949] [339p] [Dystopia] [Highly Recommendable] ["If they could make me stop loving you-that would be the real betrayal.”] [“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”]
-----------------------------------------------
★★★★★ Animal Farm
★★★★☆ 1984
-----------------------------------------------
“La guerra es la paz. La libertad es la esclavitud. La ignorancia es la fuerza”
En un devastado futuro post-apocalíptico, el mundo se ha dividido a sí mismo en tres superpoderes totalitarios: Oceanía, Eurasia y Asia Oriental. Los tres superestados siempre uno contra otro en una constante guerra sin fin, y purgando sin descanso y sin piedad su propia población para alinearlos con sus objetivos actuales. Winston trabaja en el ‘Ministerio de la Verdad’ todos los días revisando, reescribiendo y quemando registros de historia para que se adecuen a la siempre cambiante versión de la historia dictada por su todopoderoso líder, el Gran Hermano. Aunque secretamente, en lo profundo de su corazón Winston odia su cruel liderazgo, y desea su derrota. Un traidor en pensamiento, su vida estaría perdida si alguien llegara a enterarse, y hay espías por doquier…
Una inolvidable historia sobre la fuerza interna e inherente debilidad del espíritu humano, luchando en el más opresivo de los mundos. Un libro que nos enseña a amar y valorar la libertad, y sus costos; apreciar el pensamiento independiente, y nunca abandonar la lucha. AME el secreto desarrollo de la relación con Julia, su excentricidad ; y no puedo ni expresar mi desconsuelo y tristeza por el fin último del fiel y siempre positivo Tom Parsons. ¡Dios! Esta sí que fue una historia oscura y sombría, pero por sobre todo, enormemente invaluable.
Una obra maestra de todos los tiempos y uno de los pilares fundacionales de la ficción distópica. Una lectura obligada de la vida, junto a Fahrenheit 451 y Un Mundo Feliz . La santa trinidad de la distopía. ¡Altamente Recomendable!
Después de una década o más mi memoria es algo nubosa pero creo que la parte del ‘Libro de Goldstein’ fue bastante tediosa; por eso las cuatro estrellas. Todo lo demás fue simplemente perfecto, oscuramente perfecto. Recuerdo haber disfrutado inmensamente este libro en su día. ‘Rebelión en la granja’ también, otra gigante obra maestra. ¡Creo que necesito leer más de Orwell uno de estos días!
*** La película (1984) es una fantástica adaptación, capturando enormemente mucha de la esencia del libro. Algunas libertades se tomaron por supuesto, pero dentro de todo bastante fiel a la obra original. ¡Coincidentemente fue filmada en 1984! ¿Increíble no? ¡Brillante y perfecta sincronización! John Hurt estuvo espectacular, en una de sus más icónicas y recordadas actuaciones jamás. Que el buen hombre descanse en paz. Suzanna Hamilton estuvo magnífica también; y Gregor Fisher como Parsons totalmente acorde, ¡y por Dios cómo odié a O’Brien! Afortunadamente mucho del tedioso libro de Goldstein fue omitido. No un filme perfecto debo aclarar, pero sí una genial adaptación. Un absoluto deber de ver en la vida, incluso si no leíste el libro.
-----------------------------------------------
NOTA PERSONAL :
[1949] [339p] [Distopía] [Altamente Recomendable] ["Si pueden obligarme a dejarte de amar... esa sería la verdadera traición."] [“Si quieres guardar un secreto, también debes ocultártelo a ti mismo.”]
-----------------------------------------------
In ravaged post-apocalyptic future, the world has divided itself into three totalitarian superpowers: Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. The three superstates always in constant never ending war with each other, and relentlessly and mercilessly purging their own population to align them with their current goals. Winston works in the ‘Ministry of Truth’ every day revising, rewriting and burning history records to match the ever changing version of history dictated by their all-powerful leader, the Big Brother. Secretly though, deep in his heart Winston hates their cruel leadership, and wishes their defeat. A traitor in thought, his life would be forfeit if someone ever finds out, and there are spies everywhere…
An unforgettable story about the inner strength and inherent weakness of the human spirit, struggling in the most oppressive of worlds. A book that teaches us to love and value freedom, and its costs; to cherish independent thought, and never letting go the fight. I LOVED the secret unfolding relationship with Julia, their quirkiness ; and I can’t express my heartbreak and sadness for the ultimate fate of the ever cheerful and loyal Tom Parsons. Gosh! This was a such a dark and grim story, but overall, enormously invaluable.
A timeless masterpiece and one of the founding pillars of dystopian fiction. A must read in life, along with Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World . The holy trinity of dystopia. Highly Recommendable!
After a decade or so my memory is a bit hazy but I think I found the ‘Goldstein book’ part quite tedious; hence the four stars. Everything else was just perfect, darkly perfect. I remember enjoying this one immensely back in the day. ��Animal farm’ as well, another absolute masterpiece. Boy I really need to read more Orwell one of these days!
*** The movie Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) is a fantastic adaptation, greatly capturing much of the book’s essence. Some liberties were taken of course, but overall pretty faithful to the original work. Coincidentally it was filmed in 1984! Can you believe it? Talk about brilliant perfect timing! John Hurt was spectacular, in one of his most iconic and remembered performances ever. May the good man rest in peace. Suzanna Hamilton was magnificent too; and Gregor Fisher as Parsons was totally on point., and boy did I hate O’Brien! Fortunately much of the book of Goldstein tediousness was omitted. Not a perfect film mind you, but a great adaptation. An absolute must watch, even if you didn’t read the book.
-----------------------------------------------
PERSONAL NOTE :
[1949] [339p] [Dystopia] [Highly Recommendable] ["If they could make me stop loving you-that would be the real betrayal.”] [“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”]
-----------------------------------------------
★★★★★ Animal Farm
★★★★☆ 1984
-----------------------------------------------
“La guerra es la paz. La libertad es la esclavitud. La ignorancia es la fuerza”
En un devastado futuro post-apocalíptico, el mundo se ha dividido a sí mismo en tres superpoderes totalitarios: Oceanía, Eurasia y Asia Oriental. Los tres superestados siempre uno contra otro en una constante guerra sin fin, y purgando sin descanso y sin piedad su propia población para alinearlos con sus objetivos actuales. Winston trabaja en el ‘Ministerio de la Verdad’ todos los días revisando, reescribiendo y quemando registros de historia para que se adecuen a la siempre cambiante versión de la historia dictada por su todopoderoso líder, el Gran Hermano. Aunque secretamente, en lo profundo de su corazón Winston odia su cruel liderazgo, y desea su derrota. Un traidor en pensamiento, su vida estaría perdida si alguien llegara a enterarse, y hay espías por doquier…
Una inolvidable historia sobre la fuerza interna e inherente debilidad del espíritu humano, luchando en el más opresivo de los mundos. Un libro que nos enseña a amar y valorar la libertad, y sus costos; apreciar el pensamiento independiente, y nunca abandonar la lucha. AME el secreto desarrollo de la relación con Julia, su excentricidad ; y no puedo ni expresar mi desconsuelo y tristeza por el fin último del fiel y siempre positivo Tom Parsons. ¡Dios! Esta sí que fue una historia oscura y sombría, pero por sobre todo, enormemente invaluable.
Una obra maestra de todos los tiempos y uno de los pilares fundacionales de la ficción distópica. Una lectura obligada de la vida, junto a Fahrenheit 451 y Un Mundo Feliz . La santa trinidad de la distopía. ¡Altamente Recomendable!
Después de una década o más mi memoria es algo nubosa pero creo que la parte del ‘Libro de Goldstein’ fue bastante tediosa; por eso las cuatro estrellas. Todo lo demás fue simplemente perfecto, oscuramente perfecto. Recuerdo haber disfrutado inmensamente este libro en su día. ‘Rebelión en la granja’ también, otra gigante obra maestra. ¡Creo que necesito leer más de Orwell uno de estos días!
*** La película (1984) es una fantástica adaptación, capturando enormemente mucha de la esencia del libro. Algunas libertades se tomaron por supuesto, pero dentro de todo bastante fiel a la obra original. ¡Coincidentemente fue filmada en 1984! ¿Increíble no? ¡Brillante y perfecta sincronización! John Hurt estuvo espectacular, en una de sus más icónicas y recordadas actuaciones jamás. Que el buen hombre descanse en paz. Suzanna Hamilton estuvo magnífica también; y Gregor Fisher como Parsons totalmente acorde, ¡y por Dios cómo odié a O’Brien! Afortunadamente mucho del tedioso libro de Goldstein fue omitido. No un filme perfecto debo aclarar, pero sí una genial adaptación. Un absoluto deber de ver en la vida, incluso si no leíste el libro.
-----------------------------------------------
NOTA PERSONAL :
[1949] [339p] [Distopía] [Altamente Recomendable] ["Si pueden obligarme a dejarte de amar... esa sería la verdadera traición."] [“Si quieres guardar un secreto, también debes ocultártelo a ti mismo.”]
-----------------------------------------------
June 25, 2019
This book is far from perfect. Its characters lack depth, its rhetoric is sometimes didactic, its plot (well, half of it anyway) was lifted from Zumyatin’s We, and the lengthy Goldstein treatise shoved into the middle is a flaw which alters the structure of the novel like a scar disfigures a face.
But in the long run, all that does not matter, because George Orwell got it right.
Orwell, a socialist who fought against Franco, watched appalled as the great Soviet experiment was reduced to a totalitarian state, a repressive force equal in evil to Fascist Italy or Nazi Germany. He came to realize that ideology in an authoritarian state is nothing but a distraction, a shiny thing made for the public to stare at. He came to realize that the point of control was more control, the point of torture was more torture, that the point of all their "alternative facts" was to fashion a world where people would no longer possess even a word for truth.
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.
Orwell’s vision of the world is grim; too grim, some would argue, for it may deprive the faint-hearted among us of hope. But Orwell never wanted to take away hope. No, he wished to shock our hearts into resistance by showing us the authoritarian nightmare achieved: a monument of stasis, a tribute to surveillance and control.
Here, in the USA, in 2017, our would-be totalitarians are a long way from stasis. Right now they’re stirring up chaos and confusion, spreading lies and then denying they spread them, hoping to gaslight us into a muddle of helplessness and inactivity. They are trying to destroy a vigorous democracy, and they know it will take much chaos and confusion to bring that democracy down. They hate us most when we march together, when we occupy senate offices and jam the congressional switchboard, when we congregate in pubs and coffee houses and share our outrage and fear, for they know that freedom thrives on solidarity and resistance, and that solidarity and resistance engender love and hope. They much prefer it when we brood in solitude, despairing and alone.
Which reminds me...one of the things we should never do is brood about the enemy’s ideology (Is Steve Bannon a Fascist? A Nazi? A Stalinist?), for while we try to discern his “ideological goals,” the enemy is busy pulling on his boots, and his boots are made with hobnails, with heel irons, and equipped with toecaps of steel.
Finally, it does not matter who heads up the authoritarian state: a bully boy like Mussolini, a strutting coprophiliac like Hitler, a Napoleonic pig like Stalin, or a brainless dancing bear like Trump. Whatever the current incarnation of “Big Brother” may be, the goal is always the same:
A nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting - three hundred million people all with the same face.
September 17, 2016
WAR IS PEACE.
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
Those words keep sounding in my head since I read this book. Gosh, probably the most haunting not to mention frightening book I've ever read. 1984 should also be included in the horror genre.
1984 describes a Utopia. Not Thomas More's version of Utopia, but this is one is the antithesis, i.e. Dystopia. Imagine living in a country, whose leaders apply a totalitarian system in regulating their citizen, in the most extreme ways, which make Hitler, Mao, Stalin and that old bloke in V for Vendetta look like sissies.
Working, eating, drinking, sleeping, talking, thinking, procreating...in short living, all are controlled by the state. Any hint of obedience or dislike can be detected by various state apparatus such as the Thought Police, telescreen, or even your children, who will not hesitate to betray you to the authorities. Even language is modified in such ways that you cannot express yourself, since individualism is a crime.
The past is controlled, rewritten into something that will strengthen the incumbent ruler. Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past. There is no real truth. The "truth" is what the state says it is. Black is white, 2+2=5, if the state says so.
The world in 1984 is divided into three states, originated from the ashes from World War II: Oceania (British Isles, the Americas, Pacific, Australia), Eurasia (Europe & Russia), and Eastasia (the rest of it). Continuous warfare between those three (who hold similar ideologies) is required to keep the society's order and peace. Si vis pacem para bellum. That's describes the first slogan.
The second slogan, freedom is slavery, means the only way to be free is by letting you lose yourself and to be integrated within the Party. That way, you'll be indestructible and immortal.
Ignorance is strength, means the division on high, middle, low classes in society will never be changed. The middle wants to be the high and they'll act "on behalf of the low" to dethrone the high. Afterwards, a new middle class arises, all will change except the low. The high and middle make and uphold the law, the low (proletarian) is just too stupid to revolt. The state maintains its structure by torture, intimidation, violence, and brainwashing.
Blimey, Orwell's Animal Farm is already depressing, but 1984 gives "depression" a new meaning, at least for me.
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
Those words keep sounding in my head since I read this book. Gosh, probably the most haunting not to mention frightening book I've ever read. 1984 should also be included in the horror genre.
1984 describes a Utopia. Not Thomas More's version of Utopia, but this is one is the antithesis, i.e. Dystopia. Imagine living in a country, whose leaders apply a totalitarian system in regulating their citizen, in the most extreme ways, which make Hitler, Mao, Stalin and that old bloke in V for Vendetta look like sissies.
Working, eating, drinking, sleeping, talking, thinking, procreating...in short living, all are controlled by the state. Any hint of obedience or dislike can be detected by various state apparatus such as the Thought Police, telescreen, or even your children, who will not hesitate to betray you to the authorities. Even language is modified in such ways that you cannot express yourself, since individualism is a crime.
The past is controlled, rewritten into something that will strengthen the incumbent ruler. Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past. There is no real truth. The "truth" is what the state says it is. Black is white, 2+2=5, if the state says so.
The world in 1984 is divided into three states, originated from the ashes from World War II: Oceania (British Isles, the Americas, Pacific, Australia), Eurasia (Europe & Russia), and Eastasia (the rest of it). Continuous warfare between those three (who hold similar ideologies) is required to keep the society's order and peace. Si vis pacem para bellum. That's describes the first slogan.
The second slogan, freedom is slavery, means the only way to be free is by letting you lose yourself and to be integrated within the Party. That way, you'll be indestructible and immortal.
Ignorance is strength, means the division on high, middle, low classes in society will never be changed. The middle wants to be the high and they'll act "on behalf of the low" to dethrone the high. Afterwards, a new middle class arises, all will change except the low. The high and middle make and uphold the law, the low (proletarian) is just too stupid to revolt. The state maintains its structure by torture, intimidation, violence, and brainwashing.
Blimey, Orwell's Animal Farm is already depressing, but 1984 gives "depression" a new meaning, at least for me.
January 28, 2014
In George Orwell's 1984, Winston Smith is an open source developer who writes his code offline because his ISP has installed packet sniffers that are regulated by the government under the Patriot Act. It's really for his own protection, though. From, like, terrorists and DVD pirates and stuff. Like every good American, he drinks Coca-Cola and his processed food has desensitized his palate to all but four flavors: sweet, salty-so-that-you-will-drink-more-coca-cola, sweet, and Cooler Ranch!(tm). His benevolent overlords have provided him with some war happening somewhere for some reason so that he, and the rest of the population, can be sure that the government is really in his best interests. In fact, the news always has some story about Paris Hilton or yet another white girl who has been abducted by some evil bastard who is biologically wired by 200,000 years of human evolution to fuck 12-year-olds, but is socially conditioned to be obsessed with sex, yet also to feel guilty about it. This culminates into a distorted view of sexuality, and results in rape and murder, which both make for very good news topics. This, too, is in Winston's best interests because, while fear is healthy, thinking *too* much about his own mortality is strictly taboo, as it may lead to something dangerously insightful, and he might lose his taste for Coca Cola and breast implants. The television also plays on his fears of the unknown by exaggerating stereotypes of minorities and homosexuals, under the guise of celebrating "diversity", but even these images of being ghetto-fabulous and a lisping interior designer actually exist solely to promote racism and homophobia, which also prove to be efficient distractions.
For some reason, Winston gets tired of eating recycled Pop Tarts and eating happy pills and pretending to be interested in sports and manufactured news items. But, in the end, they fix him and he's happy again. Or something.
For some reason, Winston gets tired of eating recycled Pop Tarts and eating happy pills and pretending to be interested in sports and manufactured news items. But, in the end, they fix him and he's happy again. Or something.
December 4, 2013
1984 is not a particularly good novel, but it is a very good essay. On the novel front, the characters are bland and you only care about them because of the awful things they live through. As a novel all the political exposition is heavyhanded, and the message completely overrides any sense of storytelling. As an essay, the points it makes can be earthshaking. It seems everyone who has so much as gotten a parking ticket thinks he lives in a 1984-dystopia. Every administration that reaches for power, injures civil liberties or collaborates too much with media is accused of playing Big Brother. These are the successes of 1984's paranoia, far outliving its original intent as a battery against where Communism was going (Orwell was a severely disappointed Marxist), and while people who compare their leaders to Big Brother are usually overreaching themselves and speak far away from Orwell's intent and vision, it is a useful catchcloth for dissent. Like so many immortalized books with a social vision, 1984's actual substance is so thin that its ideologies and fear-mongering aspects can be stretched and skewed to suit the readers. If you'd like a better sense of the real world and Orwell's intents, rather than third-hand interpretations of his fiction, then his Homage to Catalonia is highly recommended.
December 26, 2020
This was the book that started my love affair with the dystopian genre. And maybe indirectly influenced my decision to do a politics degree. I was only 12 years old when I first read it but I suddenly saw how politics could be taken and manipulated to tell one hell of a scary and convincing story. I'm a lot more well-read now but, back then, this was a game-changer. I started to think about things differently. I started to think about 2 + 2 = 5 and I wanted to read more books that explored the idea of control.
Read
December 16, 2018This was an up and down kind of read for me. There were parts that I really enjoyed and parts that I found extremely difficult to maneuver through. I'm glad that I decided to pick it up and give it a go, because it's one that I've been curious about for a long time. I can definitely see why so many people love this book. It explores a lot of things that we see happening in the world today. I can't say I'm leaving it as a massive fan, but I'm sure it's one that I'll continue to think about.
March 26, 2019
I'm gonna ask myself a mandatory question and say nothing more.
Why the fuck had I not read this book before?
Why the fuck had I not read this book before?
June 4, 2011
هذه الرواية لا يجب أن تصنف أدبا ورواية وفنا وحسب ..
كلا .. هي أكبر من ذلك,
يجب أن تدرس كحالة مستعصية في علم الاجتماع وعلم السياسة .. !
عندما كتب جورج أورويل في الـ1949 كان متشائما لدرجة بعيدة لما سيؤول له العالم بعد 1984
نعم، ربما لم يتحقق ما قاله أورويل تماما، لكنه قد حصل بصورة موازية وشبيهة في كثير من المجتمعات الشمولية
لنتحدث عن سوريا مثلا :
الأخ الكبير : القائد الملهم والرئيس الشاب الدكتور بشار الأسد ..
أعضاء الحزب الداخلي: بعض المكونات الرئيسية للنظام
أعضاء الحزب الخارجي: حزب البعث
العامة: 19 مليون ونصف المليون مواطن سوري
أوقيانوسيا: سوريا الأسد
الله هو السلطة: الله سوريا بشار وبس
التفكير المزدوج: "دولة ممانعة لم تطلق رصاصة واحدة على عدوها الذي وجدت لممانعته" مثلا
شاشات الرصد: الهواتف والتجسس على الإنترنت
اللغة الجديدة: الإصلاح، الممانعة، التقدم، القومية وغيرها
أوبراين: نموذج للمخبر السوري الذي تمنحه روحك وثقتك ليضربك ويهينك
غرفة 101: السجن الصحراوي
غرف وأقبية وزارة الحب: المقار الأمنية المنتشرة في كل مكان
حتى الجهاز ذا القرص موجود باسم بساط الريح
وغيرها ..
المقصود أن بإمكانك إسقاط الرواية على أي مجتمع شمولي لترى منظورا مشابها لذاك العالم المظلم.
لكن النتيجة المختلفة ..
هناك بعض الجمل التي يجب أن تحفظ حفظا، لا أن تسجل فقط :
الولاء يعني عدم التفكير، بل هو عدم الحاجة للتفكير. الولاء يعني عدم الوعي
وهذا ما نحفظه وندرسه في المدارس بنفس المصطلح، الولاء للأخ الكبير .. بغض النظر عن تصرفاته ونتائجها وأفكاره وما يقوم به، أي فعلا عدم الوعي ..
إن كان هناك من أمل فهو في العامة
تماما .. فقط أعطهم بعض الوعي وسيصنعون المعجزات ..
أي :
لكي يثوروا يجب أن يعوا، ولكي يعوا يجب أن يثورووا
أرجوك .. إن نسيت كل الرواية، فاخرج منها بهذه الثلاث كلمات فقط .. !
غاية السلطة هي السلطة
السلطة وحسب ..
ولا تصدقوا كل الخطابات الخالدة والوعود الاقتصادية والسياسية والعسكرية والتنموية ..
السلطة للسلطة، لا لخدمة أحد أو شعب أو إنسانية أو قيمة أو خلق أو أي شيء آخر ..
لذلك فالسلطة المطلقة دائما مفسدة مطلقة ..
مقاطع كتاب غولدشتاين وإن كانت طوباوية إلى حد ما، لكنها صحيحة وأكاديمية . !
الوضع الطبيعي يجب أن يسير كما تحدث عنه أورويل، ولو أن صاحب الحانوت - نسيت اسمه - وأوبراين ما كانا مخبرين لنجحت الثورة ..
وهذا ما حصل في مصر وتونس، وسيحصل في بقية المجتمعات الشمولية ..
بوعي العامة وثورتهم ثم وعيهم مرة أخرى ..
كلا .. هي أكبر من ذلك,
يجب أن تدرس كحالة مستعصية في علم الاجتماع وعلم السياسة .. !
عندما كتب جورج أورويل في الـ1949 كان متشائما لدرجة بعيدة لما سيؤول له العالم بعد 1984
نعم، ربما لم يتحقق ما قاله أورويل تماما، لكنه قد حصل بصورة موازية وشبيهة في كثير من المجتمعات الشمولية
لنتحدث عن سوريا مثلا :
الأخ الكبير : القائد الملهم والرئيس الشاب الدكتور بشار الأسد ..
أعضاء الحزب الداخلي: بعض المكونات الرئيسية للنظام
أعضاء الحزب الخارجي: حزب البعث
العامة: 19 مليون ونصف المليون مواطن سوري
أوقيانوسيا: سوريا الأسد
الله هو السلطة: الله سوريا بشار وبس
التفكير المزدوج: "دولة ممانعة لم تطلق رصاصة واحدة على عدوها الذي وجدت لممانعته" مثلا
شاشات الرصد: الهواتف والتجسس على الإنترنت
اللغة الجديدة: الإصلاح، الممانعة، التقدم، القومية وغيرها
أوبراين: نموذج للمخبر السوري الذي تمنحه روحك وثقتك ليضربك ويهينك
غرفة 101: السجن الصحراوي
غرف وأقبية وزارة الحب: المقار الأمنية المنتشرة في كل مكان
حتى الجهاز ذا القرص موجود باسم بساط الريح
وغيرها ..
المقصود أن بإمكانك إسقاط الرواية على أي مجتمع شمولي لترى منظورا مشابها لذاك العالم المظلم.
لكن النتيجة المختلفة ..
هناك بعض الجمل التي يجب أن تحفظ حفظا، لا أن تسجل فقط :
الولاء يعني عدم التفكير، بل هو عدم الحاجة للتفكير. الولاء يعني عدم الوعي
وهذا ما نحفظه وندرسه في المدارس بنفس المصطلح، الولاء للأخ الكبير .. بغض النظر عن تصرفاته ونتائجها وأفكاره وما يقوم به، أي فعلا عدم الوعي ..
إن كان هناك من أمل فهو في العامة
تماما .. فقط أعطهم بعض الوعي وسيصنعون المعجزات ..
أي :
لكي يثوروا يجب أن يعوا، ولكي يعوا يجب أن يثورووا
أرجوك .. إن نسيت كل الرواية، فاخرج منها بهذه الثلاث كلمات فقط .. !
غاية السلطة هي السلطة
السلطة وحسب ..
ولا تصدقوا كل الخطابات الخالدة والوعود الاقتصادية والسياسية والعسكرية والتنموية ..
السلطة للسلطة، لا لخدمة أحد أو شعب أو إنسانية أو قيمة أو خلق أو أي شيء آخر ..
لذلك فالسلطة المطلقة دائما مفسدة مطلقة ..
مقاطع كتاب غولدشتاين وإن كانت طوباوية إلى حد ما، لكنها صحيحة وأكاديمية . !
الوضع الطبيعي يجب أن يسير كما تحدث عنه أورويل، ولو أن صاحب الحانوت - نسيت اسمه - وأوبراين ما كانا مخبرين لنجحت الثورة ..
وهذا ما حصل في مصر وتونس، وسيحصل في بقية المجتمعات الشمولية ..
بوعي العامة وثورتهم ثم وعيهم مرة أخرى ..
August 1, 2023
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
This changed the way that I looked at ideologies and changed the way I looked at leadership. Cynical, scathing, and not without its flaws, this is still a stark, haunting glimpse at what could be.
“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”
Chilling.
** 2018 addendum - it is a testament to great literature that a reader recalls the work years later and this is a book about which I frequently think. The scene that I most often think is when Winston and Julia are captured.
** 2019 reread - Lost in my memory was to what extent Orwell describes and explains his nightmare.
Winston Smith cautiously and surreptitiously learns about the Brotherhood led by Goldstein and then learns all too well about doublethink.
More than just a cautionary political tale, Orwell has described an ideological abyss into which we must not gaze; a glimpse at authoritarianism power plays to which the Nazis and Soviets never descended. While we can appreciate the reminder to avoid authoritarianism and his prophetic vision, the idea that truth can be arranged through media is perhaps the most relevant for us today.
*** 2020 reread
This time around I focused on the human side of this iconic novel – especially the relationship between Winston and Julia. In the past I have somewhat overlooked Julia as a character and thought that Orwell had neglected to form a strong female character, however I now think that she is every bit as strong as Winston and plays a central role in Orwell’s message.
Whereas Winston hates the party and wants to overturn it, Julia is much more practical and realistic in her rebellion. Winston thinks about the nature of the totalitarianism in abstract ways, Julia uses the terms of doublethink against the party and makes her frank sexuality a systematic rejection of party principle.
While Orwell was forming a cautionary tale based upon his own experience in writing against authoritarian regimes like Stalin’s, Hitler’s (both actually named in the text) and by extension Moa, Mussolini and Franco, it occurs to me that the irony of Winston’s dystopia is at least to some degree focused on the party members themselves. Winston embodies the use of media as propaganda and to disseminate inaccurate statements that prop up the party. In today’s world we are already seeing this kind of abrogation of truth in favor of party purity.
Every bit as timeless and relevant as it has ever been.
*** 2023 reread -
I think we all have had a situation similar to this: we search on the internet for something and then we start seeing advertisements related to our earlier search. That seems reasonable enough, understandable at least.
What about this situation though: we have a VERBAL discussion with our spouse, alone in our kitchen, and then we start seeing advertisements about the subject of our speech.
Wait a minute. OK, I’ve got an Amazon echo, they must have heard us talking.
Wait a minute: heard us talking? In the “privacy” of our home? And who is they?
The fear of surveillance has risen to an alarming level in the past few years and we can look back to 1948 and Orwell’s tale as one source of this anxiety.
I’m in my early 50s as I write this and my generation was raised to be somewhat suspect of governmental intrusions and overreach, taught to be vigilant against totalitarianism. We lived in the time of the Soviet Union and we were taught to be mindful of surveillance and propaganda.
But what if the surveillance does not come from government?
What if what we were taught was itself not wholly correct or accurate?
A young person recently told me that they had read 1984 in high school in the past 3-4 years so this gave me some hope about the next generation.
As a press officer in the military, I had a hand, as did Winston Smith, in shaping the news and thus history. If in my little corner of history, I cropped photos, erasing some people’s involvement in an event, destroying the full accurate record of what happened, then extrapolate this ability at official omission and you can begin to see how easily can the truth be tweaked to match a desired narrative.
This book is as provocative as ever, maybe more so in our strange political climate. More than anything else, this is a thought provoking novel, we are required to think critically about what Orwell states and he invites us, page after page, to think and rethink what we know and how we have been led to know it.
If we “know” something is true, why do we know that? HOW do we know that truth? Like Faulkner’s Absalom! Absalom! We are asked to consider our source and to be at least a little skeptical, of everything.
In this reread, I also made notice of the casual violence that creeps up into Winston’s thoughts. Was Orwell suggesting that the subrogation of Winston’s natural feelings caused an aggressive response in him? Does injustice and tyranny lead to subconscious of animosity?
Orwell describes how Proles represent 85% of Oceania, we see the propaganda and party policy from the perspective of the party, of a party member who actually initiates the remaking of news and thus history. The Party makes up 15% and the inner party is only about 2%. It occurred to me that I’m a Prole, most of us are on the outside looking in. Like George Carlin said, “it’s a club, and we’re not in it.” Did the Proles care anymore? Did they pay attention to the “news” or were they more like Julia, and only played the part for the surveillance state?
I’m going to buy copies of this book for the young people in my life.
This changed the way that I looked at ideologies and changed the way I looked at leadership. Cynical, scathing, and not without its flaws, this is still a stark, haunting glimpse at what could be.
“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”
Chilling.
** 2018 addendum - it is a testament to great literature that a reader recalls the work years later and this is a book about which I frequently think. The scene that I most often think is when Winston and Julia are captured.
** 2019 reread - Lost in my memory was to what extent Orwell describes and explains his nightmare.
Winston Smith cautiously and surreptitiously learns about the Brotherhood led by Goldstein and then learns all too well about doublethink.
More than just a cautionary political tale, Orwell has described an ideological abyss into which we must not gaze; a glimpse at authoritarianism power plays to which the Nazis and Soviets never descended. While we can appreciate the reminder to avoid authoritarianism and his prophetic vision, the idea that truth can be arranged through media is perhaps the most relevant for us today.
*** 2020 reread
This time around I focused on the human side of this iconic novel – especially the relationship between Winston and Julia. In the past I have somewhat overlooked Julia as a character and thought that Orwell had neglected to form a strong female character, however I now think that she is every bit as strong as Winston and plays a central role in Orwell’s message.
Whereas Winston hates the party and wants to overturn it, Julia is much more practical and realistic in her rebellion. Winston thinks about the nature of the totalitarianism in abstract ways, Julia uses the terms of doublethink against the party and makes her frank sexuality a systematic rejection of party principle.
While Orwell was forming a cautionary tale based upon his own experience in writing against authoritarian regimes like Stalin’s, Hitler’s (both actually named in the text) and by extension Moa, Mussolini and Franco, it occurs to me that the irony of Winston’s dystopia is at least to some degree focused on the party members themselves. Winston embodies the use of media as propaganda and to disseminate inaccurate statements that prop up the party. In today’s world we are already seeing this kind of abrogation of truth in favor of party purity.
Every bit as timeless and relevant as it has ever been.
*** 2023 reread -
I think we all have had a situation similar to this: we search on the internet for something and then we start seeing advertisements related to our earlier search. That seems reasonable enough, understandable at least.
What about this situation though: we have a VERBAL discussion with our spouse, alone in our kitchen, and then we start seeing advertisements about the subject of our speech.
Wait a minute. OK, I’ve got an Amazon echo, they must have heard us talking.
Wait a minute: heard us talking? In the “privacy” of our home? And who is they?
The fear of surveillance has risen to an alarming level in the past few years and we can look back to 1948 and Orwell’s tale as one source of this anxiety.
I’m in my early 50s as I write this and my generation was raised to be somewhat suspect of governmental intrusions and overreach, taught to be vigilant against totalitarianism. We lived in the time of the Soviet Union and we were taught to be mindful of surveillance and propaganda.
But what if the surveillance does not come from government?
What if what we were taught was itself not wholly correct or accurate?
A young person recently told me that they had read 1984 in high school in the past 3-4 years so this gave me some hope about the next generation.
As a press officer in the military, I had a hand, as did Winston Smith, in shaping the news and thus history. If in my little corner of history, I cropped photos, erasing some people’s involvement in an event, destroying the full accurate record of what happened, then extrapolate this ability at official omission and you can begin to see how easily can the truth be tweaked to match a desired narrative.
This book is as provocative as ever, maybe more so in our strange political climate. More than anything else, this is a thought provoking novel, we are required to think critically about what Orwell states and he invites us, page after page, to think and rethink what we know and how we have been led to know it.
If we “know” something is true, why do we know that? HOW do we know that truth? Like Faulkner’s Absalom! Absalom! We are asked to consider our source and to be at least a little skeptical, of everything.
In this reread, I also made notice of the casual violence that creeps up into Winston’s thoughts. Was Orwell suggesting that the subrogation of Winston’s natural feelings caused an aggressive response in him? Does injustice and tyranny lead to subconscious of animosity?
Orwell describes how Proles represent 85% of Oceania, we see the propaganda and party policy from the perspective of the party, of a party member who actually initiates the remaking of news and thus history. The Party makes up 15% and the inner party is only about 2%. It occurred to me that I’m a Prole, most of us are on the outside looking in. Like George Carlin said, “it’s a club, and we’re not in it.” Did the Proles care anymore? Did they pay attention to the “news” or were they more like Julia, and only played the part for the surveillance state?
I’m going to buy copies of this book for the young people in my life.
May 11, 2011
I am a big fan of speculative fiction and in my literary travels I have encountered a myriad of dystopias, anti-utopias and places and societies that make one want to scream and.....
...(with or without contemporaneous loss of bladder and other bodily functions)....
Simply put, George Orwell's 1984 is unquestionably the most memorable and MOST DISTURBING vision of a world gone
I first read this book when I was 12 years old in 7th grade as a...get this...class reading assignment. Looking back on it, I have NO IDEA why on Earth we were reading this book at that age but I do recall we spent quite a bit of time discussing it. I wish I could recall the substance of those discussions because I can only imagine the kind of PIERCING INSIGHT that a group of hormonally challenged pre-teens thought up in regards to this book. Needless to say, I think that this is a book that is best appreciated AFTER your first pimple.
Anyway, I decided to re-read this book recently as an adult in the hopes that I would be able to gain a great appreciation for this classic. Well, the book did more than that. IT ABSOLUTELY FLOORED ME. From the very first sentence, "It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen" to the unforgettable final sentence (which I will not give away here), this story sucked me in, beat the living shit out of me and through me out the other side a hollow, wasted wreck. I know, it doesn't sound very cheery, but it is a life-changing experience.
I have always thought that one of the best and most important qualities of science fiction is that it frees the author to take the controversial, politically charged issues and trends of the day and create a possible future based on exaggerations of such trends and in so doing present a compelling and critical argument for change. Well NO ONE has ever done a better job than better Orwell in showing the possible nightmare (and thus potential danger) of a society without basic civil liberties and a government with complete and unchallenged control.
This book is bleak, dreary, frightening, upsetting and absolutely BRILLIANT and one of my "All Time Favorite" novels. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!! 6.0 stars.
...........REMEMBER, BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.............
March 29, 2017
I know this is a well loved classic and I definitely enjoyed some parts... but some times I found myself a bit bored :S
July 27, 2021
(Book 547 From 1001 Books) - Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
Nineteen Eighty-Four, often published as 1984, is a dystopian novel published in 1949 by English author George Orwell.
The novel is set in Airstrip One, formerly Great Britain, a province of the superstate Oceania, whose residents are victims of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance and public manipulation.
Oceania's political ideology, euphemistically named English Socialism is enforced by the privileged, elite Inner Party.
Via the "Thought Police", the Inner Party persecutes individualism and independent thinking, which are regarded as "thoughtcrimes".
عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «1984»؛ «۱۹۸۴»؛ «هزار و نهصد وهشتاد و چهار 1984»؛ نویسنده جورج اورول؛ انتشاراتیها (نیلوفر، آزرمیدخت، یاران، اردیبهشت؛ حکایتی دگر، فراموشی؛ ماهانه؛ هنر پارینه؛ انتشارات ولی؛ اختر، سومر، کارگاه، گهبد؛ مجید، و ...)؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش سال 1982میلادی
عنوان: 1984 (۱۹۸۴)؛ نویسنده: جورج اورول؛ مترجم: صالح حسینی؛ تهران، نیلوفر، 1361؛ در 272ص؛ چاپ دوم 1364؛ سوم 1367؛ چهارم سال1369؛ شابک: 9644480449؛ پنجم 1374؛ ششم 1376؛ هفتم 1380؛ هشتم 1382؛ یازدهم و دوازدهم 1388؛ شابک789644480447؛ سیزدهم 1389؛ در 312ص؛ چاپ چهاردهم 1395؛ عنوان گسترده: هزار و نهصد وهشتاد و چهار؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان بریتانیا - سده 20م
مترجمین دیگر خانمها و آقایان: «رضا زارع، در 384ص، قزوین آزرمیدخت، 1392»؛ «خدیجه خدایی، در 318ص، تبریز، یاران، 1391»؛ «نرگس حیدری منجیلی، در 352ص، تهران، اردیبهشت، 1389»،؛ «مریم فیروزبخت، در 392ص، تهران، حکایتی دگر، 1389»؛ «زهره زندیه، در 400ص، قزوین، آزرمیدخت»؛ «کتایون شاهوردی، در 465ص، تهران، فراموشی، 1396»؛ «فهیمه رحمتی، در 400ص، تهران، ماهانه، 1394»؛ «امیر سالارکیا، در 384ص؛ تهران، هنر پارینه، 1394»؛ «مرتضی، سعیدی تبار، در 384ص، کرمان، انتشارات ولی، 1393»؛ «محمدعلی جدیری، تهران، اختر، چاپ یازدهم 1392، در 399ص؛ چاپ سیزدهم، تبریز، سومر، 1393، در 283ص»؛ «وحید کیان، تهران، کارگاه فیلم و گرافیک سپاس، 1394، در 375ص»؛ «حمیدرضا بلوچ، در 288ص، تهران، گهبد، 1384، چاپ دوم 1385، سوم 1386، پنجم 1388؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، مجید، 1386؛ در 288ص؛ چاپ هشتم 1392»؛
کتاب «1984» را نویسنده و شاعر «بریتانیا»، «اریک آرتور بلر» با نام مستعار «جرج (جورج) اورول»؛ بنگاشته اند، و تا به امروز به بیش از شصت و پنج زبان گوناگون برگردان، و میلیونها نسخه از آن فروخته شده است؛ با توجه به تصویر روشنی که «اورول» در داستان از نظامهای تمامیتخواه ارائه میدهند، انگار کنید بیانیه ای سیاسی، برای رد همه ی نظامهای توتالیتر، و «کمونیستی» است؛ «جهان اورولی، 1984؛» داستان «وینستون اسمیت» را روایت میکند؛ فردیکه نماد یک شهروند عادی دگراندیش، در دنیای «اورولی» است؛ رمان در سال 1949میلادی نوشته شده، زمانیکه جنگ دوم جهانگیر به تازگی پایان یافته بود؛ و جهانیان، خطر تسلیم شدن در پیشگاه دیکتاتورها را، نیک فهمیده بودند؛ در آن زمان، جنگ سرد هنوز آغاز نشده بود، و در دنیای غرب نیز، هنوز روشنفکران بسیاری بودند، که از «کمونیسم» هواداری، و دفاع میکردند؛ در واقع «اورول» کتاب را، برای اخطار به غربیان، برای گوشزد کردن خطر گسترش «کمونیسم»، نوشته اند؛ اما داستان این اثر را، میتوان به شرایط حاکم بر تمام جوامع تحت سلطه ی حکومتهای استبدادی نیز، گسترش داد؛ داستان در سال 1984میلادی (سی و پنجسال پس از تاریخ نگارش کتاب) در شهر «لندن»، رخ میدهد؛ پس از جنگ جهانگیر، حاکمان کشورهای توانمند، به این نتیجه رسیده اند، که اگر جهان، به روند افزایش ثروت ادامه دهد، ارکان جامعه ی طبقاتی، به خطر میافتد؛ و حکومتها سرنگون میشوند؛ آنها تنها راه جلوگیری از این امر را، نابود کردن ثروت تولید شده، در جنگی بی پایان میبینند؛
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 21/05/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 04/05/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
Nineteen Eighty-Four, often published as 1984, is a dystopian novel published in 1949 by English author George Orwell.
The novel is set in Airstrip One, formerly Great Britain, a province of the superstate Oceania, whose residents are victims of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance and public manipulation.
Oceania's political ideology, euphemistically named English Socialism is enforced by the privileged, elite Inner Party.
Via the "Thought Police", the Inner Party persecutes individualism and independent thinking, which are regarded as "thoughtcrimes".
عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «1984»؛ «۱۹۸۴»؛ «هزار و نهصد وهشتاد و چهار 1984»؛ نویسنده جورج اورول؛ انتشاراتیها (نیلوفر، آزرمیدخت، یاران، اردیبهشت؛ حکایتی دگر، فراموشی؛ ماهانه؛ هنر پارینه؛ انتشارات ولی؛ اختر، سومر، کارگاه، گهبد؛ مجید، و ...)؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش سال 1982میلادی
عنوان: 1984 (۱۹۸۴)؛ نویسنده: جورج اورول؛ مترجم: صالح حسینی؛ تهران، نیلوفر، 1361؛ در 272ص؛ چاپ دوم 1364؛ سوم 1367؛ چهارم سال1369؛ شابک: 9644480449؛ پنجم 1374؛ ششم 1376؛ هفتم 1380؛ هشتم 1382؛ یازدهم و دوازدهم 1388؛ شابک789644480447؛ سیزدهم 1389؛ در 312ص؛ چاپ چهاردهم 1395؛ عنوان گسترده: هزار و نهصد وهشتاد و چهار؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان بریتانیا - سده 20م
مترجمین دیگر خانمها و آقایان: «رضا زارع، در 384ص، قزوین آزرمیدخت، 1392»؛ «خدیجه خدایی، در 318ص، تبریز، یاران، 1391»؛ «نرگس حیدری منجیلی، در 352ص، تهران، اردیبهشت، 1389»،؛ «مریم فیروزبخت، در 392ص، تهران، حکایتی دگر، 1389»؛ «زهره زندیه، در 400ص، قزوین، آزرمیدخت»؛ «کتایون شاهوردی، در 465ص، تهران، فراموشی، 1396»؛ «فهیمه رحمتی، در 400ص، تهران، ماهانه، 1394»؛ «امیر سالارکیا، در 384ص؛ تهران، هنر پارینه، 1394»؛ «مرتضی، سعیدی تبار، در 384ص، کرمان، انتشارات ولی، 1393»؛ «محمدعلی جدیری، تهران، اختر، چاپ یازدهم 1392، در 399ص؛ چاپ سیزدهم، تبریز، سومر، 1393، در 283ص»؛ «وحید کیان، تهران، کارگاه فیلم و گرافیک سپاس، 1394، در 375ص»؛ «حمیدرضا بلوچ، در 288ص، تهران، گهبد، 1384، چاپ دوم 1385، سوم 1386، پنجم 1388؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، مجید، 1386؛ در 288ص؛ چاپ هشتم 1392»؛
کتاب «1984» را نویسنده و شاعر «بریتانیا»، «اریک آرتور بلر» با نام مستعار «جرج (جورج) اورول»؛ بنگاشته اند، و تا به امروز به بیش از شصت و پنج زبان گوناگون برگردان، و میلیونها نسخه از آن فروخته شده است؛ با توجه به تصویر روشنی که «اورول» در داستان از نظامهای تمامیتخواه ارائه میدهند، انگار کنید بیانیه ای سیاسی، برای رد همه ی نظامهای توتالیتر، و «کمونیستی» است؛ «جهان اورولی، 1984؛» داستان «وینستون اسمیت» را روایت میکند؛ فردیکه نماد یک شهروند عادی دگراندیش، در دنیای «اورولی» است؛ رمان در سال 1949میلادی نوشته شده، زمانیکه جنگ دوم جهانگیر به تازگی پایان یافته بود؛ و جهانیان، خطر تسلیم شدن در پیشگاه دیکتاتورها را، نیک فهمیده بودند؛ در آن زمان، جنگ سرد هنوز آغاز نشده بود، و در دنیای غرب نیز، هنوز روشنفکران بسیاری بودند، که از «کمونیسم» هواداری، و دفاع میکردند؛ در واقع «اورول» کتاب را، برای اخطار به غربیان، برای گوشزد کردن خطر گسترش «کمونیسم»، نوشته اند؛ اما داستان این اثر را، میتوان به شرایط حاکم بر تمام جوامع تحت سلطه ی حکومتهای استبدادی نیز، گسترش داد؛ داستان در سال 1984میلادی (سی و پنجسال پس از تاریخ نگارش کتاب) در شهر «لندن»، رخ میدهد؛ پس از جنگ جهانگیر، حاکمان کشورهای توانمند، به این نتیجه رسیده اند، که اگر جهان، به روند افزایش ثروت ادامه دهد، ارکان جامعه ی طبقاتی، به خطر میافتد؛ و حکومتها سرنگون میشوند؛ آنها تنها راه جلوگیری از این امر را، نابود کردن ثروت تولید شده، در جنگی بی پایان میبینند؛
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 21/05/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 04/05/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
February 8, 2017
Social media is a cage full of starved rats and all of us have our heads stuck in there now, like it or not.
April 24, 2021
“The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.”
Just about everything Orwell says in 1984 is a maniacal truism. In some twisted form, everything reflects the truth of reality.
Of course there are exaggerations, though nothing is far from plausibility. We are controlled by our governments, and often in ways we are not consciously aware of. Advertisements, marketing campaigns and political events are all designed for us to elicit a certain response and think in a desired way.
1984 takes this to the extreme. Cultural brainwashing becomes the chief goal. Assimilation into a passionless (and completely ignorant) mind-set becomes the most effective means of keeping the population down. If you can make a man forget (or deny) his past then he knows of no situation better than his current state: it’s all he knows, so why would he act to change it? Subjugation becomes normality.
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.”
Big brother does this by harsh policing, excessive surveillance and language manipulation. The streets are claustrophobic and the people (the workers) can escape nothing. Every action, every word spoken, is recorded. The police are ready to grab anyone who steps remotely out of line. Controlling language is perhaps the most effective thought control method I’ve ever heard of. If language can be broken down into the absolute basics, the simplest and ordinary units, then people can only express themselves on a very minor level. They cannot think beyond their daily tasks because there are no words that connote dreams and fantasy.
Step out of line and you are killed, though not before being dragged to room 101 for torture and even stronger methods of thought control. As such through the plot the book depicts a stark transformation, a transformation of man who was once willing to fight and to think but falls into one of the ingenious traps big brother sets for him to expose his criminality. Orwell’s words are frightening because of their eerie parallels with reality. He shows us that we are not so far from big brother as we may think.
“We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them.”
Unlike Animal Farm this also leaves much to the imagination. It’s a much more successful book and one that once it has been read, it certainly cannot be unread.
___________________________________
You can connect with me on social media via My Linktree.
__________________________________
April 22, 2016
misogynistic shit
October 15, 2010
Praise the lord and pass the amunition, I am finished with this beast of a book. My brain feels like sludge, I just want to crawl into a hole and forget all that was engrained into my poor head. Why, oh why did I have the noble idea to read such a monster? How am I supposed to rate such s#@$?????
I believe, like some of you that this might have been better had I read it in a class or with a group. Alone it was fingernails to chalkboard miserable.
After reading this, it just makes you feel hopeless.
Hallelujah, it's over. Never again, Orwell.... Never again!
Sidenote: I did a little experiment on facebook about this book... I wrote in my status that I was reading '1984', anybody have any opinions? Almost everyone of the commenters wrote how much they enjoyed this book and how it was one of their favorite books ever. While I am sure that maybe 1 of them was being truthful, I have to doubt atleast half of them..... Now I ask, Why do people lie about certain books? Do they think it makes them look smarter? Cooler? Well-rounded? I just don't get it, if you don't like something you don't like it. It's not neccessary to like it for classic book sake. This might not be making sense to some of you.... maybe you would have to know the people who were commenting, I don't know. But, I am sure all of you have been in a bookstore or talking with a co-worker, etc., and they spout out some well known "hip" book that they just 'adore'. You know this person and it's hard to see them reading period, much less what they are talking about.
I guess my point is, don't be a fake book talker. Like it, Yay. Don't like it, Yay. I'm not going to think less of you for not liking something you "SHOULD" like by literary standards.
Rant over.
I believe, like some of you that this might have been better had I read it in a class or with a group. Alone it was fingernails to chalkboard miserable.
After reading this, it just makes you feel hopeless.
Hallelujah, it's over. Never again, Orwell.... Never again!
Sidenote: I did a little experiment on facebook about this book... I wrote in my status that I was reading '1984', anybody have any opinions? Almost everyone of the commenters wrote how much they enjoyed this book and how it was one of their favorite books ever. While I am sure that maybe 1 of them was being truthful, I have to doubt atleast half of them..... Now I ask, Why do people lie about certain books? Do they think it makes them look smarter? Cooler? Well-rounded? I just don't get it, if you don't like something you don't like it. It's not neccessary to like it for classic book sake. This might not be making sense to some of you.... maybe you would have to know the people who were commenting, I don't know. But, I am sure all of you have been in a bookstore or talking with a co-worker, etc., and they spout out some well known "hip" book that they just 'adore'. You know this person and it's hard to see them reading period, much less what they are talking about.
I guess my point is, don't be a fake book talker. Like it, Yay. Don't like it, Yay. I'm not going to think less of you for not liking something you "SHOULD" like by literary standards.
Rant over.
February 3, 2023
I wanted to understand the origin of the expression "Big Brother" associated with our modern world, and I immersed myself in 1984 by George Orwell. This novel of anticipation, published in 1949, is striking! We follow the destinies of Winston and Julia in this universe, which is reminiscent of ours or what it could become. Of course, it is a fable, but the images strike and remain used for a long time. After reading this cult novel, we look at certain realities differently. It is a detour that is worth it, a must. Why did I wait so long to read it?
April 16, 2024
‘If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.’
‘History stopped in 1936,’ George Orwell once said to fellow author Arthur Koestler. During his time in the Spanish Civil War, Orwell observed the pervasiveness of propaganda as a pillar upholding authoritarianism, from censored newspapers to lies perpetuated for political convenience and began to fear that ‘the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world.’ This fear presented itself across the whole of his works during his short life, culminating in his famous 1984 where he warns ‘who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.’ Published in 1949 and written as Orwell was dying from tuberculosis, he didn’t live long to see how 1984 and his dire warnings against authoritarianism would have a lasting effect even to this day, often being used by all sides of the political spectrum as a cultural touchstone. And while this is mostly owing to the broad criticisms showing how any ideology can become oppressive when hungry for power, it also exemplifies his own dread that words will be twisted and quoted as cudgels to fit a desired purpose as truth is washed away. A harrowing story of dystopia, surveillance, manipulation and resistance being crushed underfoot, 1984 still chills today with its themes on collective vs individual identity under totalitarianism and controlling all aspects of reality to eliminate all those who step outside the boundaries of orthodoxy.
‘We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.’
When we read sci-fi, words like “prophetic” and “warning” often get applied. 1984 continues to remain relevant due to its warnings against irresponsible use of rhetoric, which almost makes the references to it amusing or ironic. Such as the Apple computer commercial in 1984 that uses the novel for the sake of marketing (and what is “marketing” but a euphemism for propaganda) a product that would lead to all sorts of concerns over government surveillance for which people would quote 1984 in addressing them. I think the term prophetic often frames a book in a way that causes us to consider how close it came true, which seems beside the point because when we look at the ways it didn’t, that often becomes an excuse for delegitimization or ignoring the warning.
Born Eric Arthur Blair in Bengal in 1903 and passing in 1950, Orwell’s short life left a lasting legacy from his works like Animal Farm being classroom staples in the US and terms like “Orwellian” being blithely applied to anything that brushes against government use of technology and surveillance. Hardly a political cycle goes by in the US without 1984 coming up. In the US alone in the past decade we saw it returning to the paperback bestseller list under the Trump administration when the term “alternative facts” was being tossed around, and a few years later it was being referenced by the GOP to claim the government was denying an election victory and inventing the January 6th terrorist attack to arrest people. Though with a president making statements like “What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening,” naturally one is reminded of Orwell writing ‘the party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command,’ and we are reminded of the power of literature and how we often turn to great works for guidance during uncertain times, though often, as Orwell warned, using it as propaganda shorn of context. Orwell did live long enough to see the novel used improperly, having to put out a statement almost immediately for those who wished to use the novel as an example against the British Labor Party. ‘My recent novel is NOT an on Socialism or on the British Labor Party (of which I am a supporter),’ he wrote, and an introduction to the book states:
Which becomes a pretty important distinction, as Orwell believed in better form of governing yet also was suspicious of anyone who would seek out power in order to change it as he writes in the novel ‘we know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.’ I feel 1984 is best read with an openness to nuance and in good faith, which is often glossed over for the sake of political identifying which is, ironically or not, the exact thing he was warning against. Which is to say, call out problems even if it’s your own “side” and don’t create further divide by abusing rhetoric for the sake of scoring quick political points.
I think there is a tendency when trying to score quick political points that things need to have some sort of unassailable pure aim to them. 1984 is critical of any regime that seeks to keep power, but narrowing it to a pointed attack against an opponent without seeing how it might apply to your own political "team" (US politics is so much cheering for your "home team" than actually hashing out politics, especially lately, though I also find the whole "both sides" angle to often be used less for establishing nuance than trying to delegitamize any efforts for progress too, but hell who am I to say I'm just as bad as anyone) is more convenient. But even Orwell himself isn’t a “pure” figure, having been an informant for the British government delivering a list of names of people suspected of communism (the list includes John Steinbeck and many have observed that there is a strong presence of gay people on the list which makes many of Orwell’s rather homophobic comments seem all the more menacing). He also, as A. E. Dyson observed in his book on Orwell, that he ‘had a very English dislike of intellectuals, supposing that anyone willing to wear such a label would be diminished or depraved.’ Which is all neither here nor there, but goes to show how one can create a narrative out of anything, and that is what 1984 taps into.
So let’s move on to the novel and head on down to Room 101. As I said earlier, 1984 can be read as a culmination of a lot of his themes and ideas across his short career. Warning of totalitarianism arrives everywhere with Orwell, such as Burmese Days when he describes the town as ‘a stifling, stultifying world…which every word and every thought is censored,’ not unlike 1984 because ‘free speech is unthinkable.’ And one can read in Keep the Aspidistra Flying, with Comstock (a name derived from Common and Stock similarly to how the terms in 1984 are often truncated phrases) bemoaning ‘I’m dead, You’re dead. We’re all dead people in a dead world,’ as a precursor to the pivotal moment when Winston and Jane declare ‘we’re dead’ right before being exposed as having been set up. For Orwell, speech and language is very key. Language itself is fallible and can be morphed to meet many purposes—it’s the medium of poets for a reason—and in 1984 Orwell examines how this can be used to negate truth and establish entirely fictional histories that become generally accepted as a means to upholding power.
‘War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.’
Winston’s job is to rewrite history to fit the purpose of the party. Within his department we find all sorts of nefarious linguistic play designed to control the masses because it is thought that ‘if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.’ We can argue that we see this notion reflected in our modern day, where books exposing history that can be seen as a blemish on the US are banned or dismissed as unpatriotic or trying to rewrite history (the irony in the latter is thick) and many have spoken on the suppression of queer books as an effort to erase the language people need to assess their own identities. What Orwell is looking at is the way language and propaganda is used to control. I enjoy the way he makes creative use of language to compile entire terminologies used by Ingsoc (the party in control that is pretty blatantly a nod to Soviet Russia) to create a propagated history that fits whatever they need, even erasing the history of entire wars to portray other countries as allies and erase the recent memory of them as enemies.
To step outside the orthodoxy of the Party’s version of history is to become an enemy of the Party and society and find yourself “vaporized” and erased from history. ‘Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think,’ Orwell writes, ‘Orthodoxy is unconsciousness,’ and when the truth we know conflicts with the truth of the Party, it must be edited. ‘Lies,’ writes Rebecca Solnit in her book Orwell's Roses, ‘the assault on language -- were the necessary foundation for all the other assaults.’ Afterall, ‘the first victim of war is truth, goes the old saying, and a perpetual war against truth undergirds all authoritarianisms.’ “Doublespeak” comes into play here, where one can hold conflicting opinions in their mind and just accept them, and the Party finds that fear is a great tool for ensuring willing erasure of truth. ‘Truth is not a statistic,’ Winston argues, claiming that just because the masses agree doesn’t make it true, though over the novel we see how the power to rewrite “truth” can potentially eviscerate anyone who says otherwise until it becomes the only known “truth.” Returning to Rebecca Solnit, she observes:
It is in this way the Party keeps people subservient. ‘A hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance,’ and Winston, upon reading Goldstein’s book (the book serves as an insert into the narrative that provides a LOT of exposition about the world and its structures as well as being a sort of Marxist-esque handbook, though it only offers the how things came to be and never the why, much to Winston’s interest), Winston realizes that the proles (the working class) are the possible solution. However he realized the proles can only revolt if they become conscious of their conditions and only can become conscious of their conditions if they revolt (not a far cry from Orwell’s own statement ‘we cannot win the war without introducing Socialism, nor establish Socialism without winning the war.’), and worries this may never happen. There is also the issue that a revolution will only put a new Party in power that will inevitably oppress again, just in different ways.
‘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.’
So without giving anything away because this book is full of surprises (though one may guess if they have read We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, which Orwell “borrows” heavily from—as does Huxley’s Brave New World—and still remains my favorite of the three), across this novel we see a spirit of resistance rise and the forces of power come to meet it with a heavy boot and the power of erasure. While much of the novel focuses on the individual versus the collective, the biggest act of betrayal comes at the end in choosing to protect oneself, the individual, and asking for the harm of others in order to enter the “protection” of the collective Party by erasing any part of oneself outside their orthodoxy.
Where once was the belief ‘to die hating them, that was freedom,’ we see ‘in the face of pain there are no heroes’ and fear keeps people in line. Reminding the people of the frailty of being an individual drives them towards compliance. Yet, in another way, we see the collective existing because of the desire of individuals to protect themselves at the expense of everyone else: nobody will revolt out of fear for themselves and in doing so allows the oppression of all to continue. I think this is what Ursula K. Le Guin is getting at when her books look at the need to integrate both the individual and collective by refusing easy binaries and hierarchies. She also, especially in The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia argues that history can never become stagnant and that, like Orwell argues, an revolution will try to uphold power and oppress leading to the necessity of another revolution. While Le Guin sees this as the natural course of history (the double meaning of revolution as a revolt and a constant turning cycling through) Orwell sees this as a constant erosion of truth due to the weaponization of language as propaganda that will inevitably erase reality in place of a false, collective reality where truth is sent to the grave.
‘We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.’
One might find 1984 to be a rather bleak book, but it is also intended as a warning. There are many minor warnings building up to the larger, main point—such as the paperweight symbolizing a past now inaccessible where art could be beautiful for the sake of beauty, as well as symbolizing the frailty of the individual—and that we must take care to use language responsibly lest we hold the door for open propaganda. We can even do this on an individual level, such as not perpetuating misinformation (funny political memes are easy to share but dilute the severity of problems when we poke fun at, say, the looks or mannerisms of a politician instead of focusing on their policies) and not giving in to easy attacks instead of respecting the nuances. And so that's my rough rant on 1984, a book that lives on for both its relevance and its political convenience and maybe we should all remember that truth is more important than winning an argument or scoring political edgy points. I fail at it too, we all do, but Orwell reminds us to do better.
⅘
'A nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting - three hundred million people all with the same face.'
‘History stopped in 1936,’ George Orwell once said to fellow author Arthur Koestler. During his time in the Spanish Civil War, Orwell observed the pervasiveness of propaganda as a pillar upholding authoritarianism, from censored newspapers to lies perpetuated for political convenience and began to fear that ‘the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world.’ This fear presented itself across the whole of his works during his short life, culminating in his famous 1984 where he warns ‘who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.’ Published in 1949 and written as Orwell was dying from tuberculosis, he didn’t live long to see how 1984 and his dire warnings against authoritarianism would have a lasting effect even to this day, often being used by all sides of the political spectrum as a cultural touchstone. And while this is mostly owing to the broad criticisms showing how any ideology can become oppressive when hungry for power, it also exemplifies his own dread that words will be twisted and quoted as cudgels to fit a desired purpose as truth is washed away. A harrowing story of dystopia, surveillance, manipulation and resistance being crushed underfoot, 1984 still chills today with its themes on collective vs individual identity under totalitarianism and controlling all aspects of reality to eliminate all those who step outside the boundaries of orthodoxy.
‘We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.’
When we read sci-fi, words like “prophetic” and “warning” often get applied. 1984 continues to remain relevant due to its warnings against irresponsible use of rhetoric, which almost makes the references to it amusing or ironic. Such as the Apple computer commercial in 1984 that uses the novel for the sake of marketing (and what is “marketing” but a euphemism for propaganda) a product that would lead to all sorts of concerns over government surveillance for which people would quote 1984 in addressing them. I think the term prophetic often frames a book in a way that causes us to consider how close it came true, which seems beside the point because when we look at the ways it didn’t, that often becomes an excuse for delegitimization or ignoring the warning.
Born Eric Arthur Blair in Bengal in 1903 and passing in 1950, Orwell’s short life left a lasting legacy from his works like Animal Farm being classroom staples in the US and terms like “Orwellian” being blithely applied to anything that brushes against government use of technology and surveillance. Hardly a political cycle goes by in the US without 1984 coming up. In the US alone in the past decade we saw it returning to the paperback bestseller list under the Trump administration when the term “alternative facts” was being tossed around, and a few years later it was being referenced by the GOP to claim the government was denying an election victory and inventing the January 6th terrorist attack to arrest people. Though with a president making statements like “What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening,” naturally one is reminded of Orwell writing ‘the party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command,’ and we are reminded of the power of literature and how we often turn to great works for guidance during uncertain times, though often, as Orwell warned, using it as propaganda shorn of context. Orwell did live long enough to see the novel used improperly, having to put out a statement almost immediately for those who wished to use the novel as an example against the British Labor Party. ‘My recent novel is NOT an on Socialism or on the British Labor Party (of which I am a supporter),’ he wrote, and an introduction to the book states:
‘every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.’
Which becomes a pretty important distinction, as Orwell believed in better form of governing yet also was suspicious of anyone who would seek out power in order to change it as he writes in the novel ‘we know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.’ I feel 1984 is best read with an openness to nuance and in good faith, which is often glossed over for the sake of political identifying which is, ironically or not, the exact thing he was warning against. Which is to say, call out problems even if it’s your own “side” and don’t create further divide by abusing rhetoric for the sake of scoring quick political points.
I think there is a tendency when trying to score quick political points that things need to have some sort of unassailable pure aim to them. 1984 is critical of any regime that seeks to keep power, but narrowing it to a pointed attack against an opponent without seeing how it might apply to your own political "team" (US politics is so much cheering for your "home team" than actually hashing out politics, especially lately, though I also find the whole "both sides" angle to often be used less for establishing nuance than trying to delegitamize any efforts for progress too, but hell who am I to say I'm just as bad as anyone) is more convenient. But even Orwell himself isn’t a “pure” figure, having been an informant for the British government delivering a list of names of people suspected of communism (the list includes John Steinbeck and many have observed that there is a strong presence of gay people on the list which makes many of Orwell’s rather homophobic comments seem all the more menacing). He also, as A. E. Dyson observed in his book on Orwell, that he ‘had a very English dislike of intellectuals, supposing that anyone willing to wear such a label would be diminished or depraved.’ Which is all neither here nor there, but goes to show how one can create a narrative out of anything, and that is what 1984 taps into.
So let’s move on to the novel and head on down to Room 101. As I said earlier, 1984 can be read as a culmination of a lot of his themes and ideas across his short career. Warning of totalitarianism arrives everywhere with Orwell, such as Burmese Days when he describes the town as ‘a stifling, stultifying world…which every word and every thought is censored,’ not unlike 1984 because ‘free speech is unthinkable.’ And one can read in Keep the Aspidistra Flying, with Comstock (a name derived from Common and Stock similarly to how the terms in 1984 are often truncated phrases) bemoaning ‘I’m dead, You’re dead. We’re all dead people in a dead world,’ as a precursor to the pivotal moment when Winston and Jane declare ‘we’re dead’ right before being exposed as having been set up. For Orwell, speech and language is very key. Language itself is fallible and can be morphed to meet many purposes—it’s the medium of poets for a reason—and in 1984 Orwell examines how this can be used to negate truth and establish entirely fictional histories that become generally accepted as a means to upholding power.
‘War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.’
Winston’s job is to rewrite history to fit the purpose of the party. Within his department we find all sorts of nefarious linguistic play designed to control the masses because it is thought that ‘if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.’ We can argue that we see this notion reflected in our modern day, where books exposing history that can be seen as a blemish on the US are banned or dismissed as unpatriotic or trying to rewrite history (the irony in the latter is thick) and many have spoken on the suppression of queer books as an effort to erase the language people need to assess their own identities. What Orwell is looking at is the way language and propaganda is used to control. I enjoy the way he makes creative use of language to compile entire terminologies used by Ingsoc (the party in control that is pretty blatantly a nod to Soviet Russia) to create a propagated history that fits whatever they need, even erasing the history of entire wars to portray other countries as allies and erase the recent memory of them as enemies.
‘Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.’
To step outside the orthodoxy of the Party’s version of history is to become an enemy of the Party and society and find yourself “vaporized” and erased from history. ‘Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think,’ Orwell writes, ‘Orthodoxy is unconsciousness,’ and when the truth we know conflicts with the truth of the Party, it must be edited. ‘Lies,’ writes Rebecca Solnit in her book Orwell's Roses, ‘the assault on language -- were the necessary foundation for all the other assaults.’ Afterall, ‘the first victim of war is truth, goes the old saying, and a perpetual war against truth undergirds all authoritarianisms.’ “Doublespeak” comes into play here, where one can hold conflicting opinions in their mind and just accept them, and the Party finds that fear is a great tool for ensuring willing erasure of truth. ‘Truth is not a statistic,’ Winston argues, claiming that just because the masses agree doesn’t make it true, though over the novel we see how the power to rewrite “truth” can potentially eviscerate anyone who says otherwise until it becomes the only known “truth.” Returning to Rebecca Solnit, she observes:
‘To be forced to live with the lies of the powerful is to be forced to live with your own lack of power over the narrative, which in the end can mean lack of power over anything at all. Authoritarians see truth and fact and history as a rival system they must defeat.’
It is in this way the Party keeps people subservient. ‘A hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance,’ and Winston, upon reading Goldstein’s book (the book serves as an insert into the narrative that provides a LOT of exposition about the world and its structures as well as being a sort of Marxist-esque handbook, though it only offers the how things came to be and never the why, much to Winston’s interest), Winston realizes that the proles (the working class) are the possible solution. However he realized the proles can only revolt if they become conscious of their conditions and only can become conscious of their conditions if they revolt (not a far cry from Orwell’s own statement ‘we cannot win the war without introducing Socialism, nor establish Socialism without winning the war.’), and worries this may never happen. There is also the issue that a revolution will only put a new Party in power that will inevitably oppress again, just in different ways.
‘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.’
So without giving anything away because this book is full of surprises (though one may guess if they have read We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, which Orwell “borrows” heavily from—as does Huxley’s Brave New World—and still remains my favorite of the three), across this novel we see a spirit of resistance rise and the forces of power come to meet it with a heavy boot and the power of erasure. While much of the novel focuses on the individual versus the collective, the biggest act of betrayal comes at the end in choosing to protect oneself, the individual, and asking for the harm of others in order to enter the “protection” of the collective Party by erasing any part of oneself outside their orthodoxy.
Where once was the belief ‘to die hating them, that was freedom,’ we see ‘in the face of pain there are no heroes’ and fear keeps people in line. Reminding the people of the frailty of being an individual drives them towards compliance. Yet, in another way, we see the collective existing because of the desire of individuals to protect themselves at the expense of everyone else: nobody will revolt out of fear for themselves and in doing so allows the oppression of all to continue. I think this is what Ursula K. Le Guin is getting at when her books look at the need to integrate both the individual and collective by refusing easy binaries and hierarchies. She also, especially in The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia argues that history can never become stagnant and that, like Orwell argues, an revolution will try to uphold power and oppress leading to the necessity of another revolution. While Le Guin sees this as the natural course of history (the double meaning of revolution as a revolt and a constant turning cycling through) Orwell sees this as a constant erosion of truth due to the weaponization of language as propaganda that will inevitably erase reality in place of a false, collective reality where truth is sent to the grave.
‘We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.’
One might find 1984 to be a rather bleak book, but it is also intended as a warning. There are many minor warnings building up to the larger, main point—such as the paperweight symbolizing a past now inaccessible where art could be beautiful for the sake of beauty, as well as symbolizing the frailty of the individual—and that we must take care to use language responsibly lest we hold the door for open propaganda. We can even do this on an individual level, such as not perpetuating misinformation (funny political memes are easy to share but dilute the severity of problems when we poke fun at, say, the looks or mannerisms of a politician instead of focusing on their policies) and not giving in to easy attacks instead of respecting the nuances. And so that's my rough rant on 1984, a book that lives on for both its relevance and its political convenience and maybe we should all remember that truth is more important than winning an argument or scoring political edgy points. I fail at it too, we all do, but Orwell reminds us to do better.
⅘
'A nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting - three hundred million people all with the same face.'
June 5, 2021
1948: Europe was only starting to recover from the slaughter of World War II. Nazi Germany had been crushed by the Russian army in the East and by the Anglo-American forces in the West. The totalitarian regimes of Hitler, Mussolini and Imperial Japan were defeated. Stalin was going strong. Franco was undisturbed. However, the war was not quite over: the victors, Russia on one side, the USA on the other, were now superpowers staring stonily at each other, their hands loaded with a new and deadly arsenal.
Orwell wrote 1984, right after Animal Farm, in this ominous post/cold/perpetual-war context, and many aspects of it are steeped in the horrors of tyranny, dehumanisation and disaster. Winston Smith, the wretched protagonist, lives in an alternate history where everyone is under constant surveillance (via “telescreens” and widespread denunciation). A place where propaganda, misinformation, history re-writing, language and thought manipulation, “reality control” (2+2=5) are pervasive tools to make every individual conform with the “Ingsoc” Party’s ideology. The result is a diehard totalitarian state, a perfect hell on earth, where individuality is “vaporised” at the whim of a spectral Big Brother and where even love is impossible.
Worth highlighting in the novel: the long interlude about “The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism” (II, 9) — inserted within a slightly incongruous romance episode — and the appendix on “The Principles of Newspeak” — written as if from an unknown point, far in the future, when the madness has eventually subsided. Both sections are stupefying. Yet, the last third of the book is probably one of the worst nightmares in literature: a prolonged torture and brainwashing session that plunges into utter insanity.
Erich Fromm’s afterword (included at the end of the Signet Classics paperback edition) rightly puts 1984 in perspective with its historical context and other works of speculative fiction, like Brave New World. Still, while Huxley’s satire is substantially ironic, almost jovial, the general tone in Orwell’s book is dismal, revolting, at times practically unbearable. At any rate, this novel has become one of the canonical landmarks of political dystopia. Hannah Arendt possibly read 1984 when writing The Origins of Totalitarianism a couple of years after Orwell’s death. Its influence after that, on works like The Handmaid’s Tale, is manifest as well.
Michael Radford’s heartrending film adaptation is very faithful to the novel. But my favourite film “free-adaptation” remains Brazil by Terry Gilliam. Blade Runner, too, borrows much of its 2019 Los Angeles architecture from 1984’s Miniluv pyramidal building descriptions.
The days of Hitler and Stalin are long gone now. Even so, almost a century later, in a time of political paralysis and corruption, where the most prominent “doubleplusgood duckspeaker” politicians of the world make ample use of a new form of newspeak and doublethink; in a time of threatened privacy and increasing digital surveillance and mindfuck, Orwell’s prophetic warning is as relevant as ever.
Orwell wrote 1984, right after Animal Farm, in this ominous post/cold/perpetual-war context, and many aspects of it are steeped in the horrors of tyranny, dehumanisation and disaster. Winston Smith, the wretched protagonist, lives in an alternate history where everyone is under constant surveillance (via “telescreens” and widespread denunciation). A place where propaganda, misinformation, history re-writing, language and thought manipulation, “reality control” (2+2=5) are pervasive tools to make every individual conform with the “Ingsoc” Party’s ideology. The result is a diehard totalitarian state, a perfect hell on earth, where individuality is “vaporised” at the whim of a spectral Big Brother and where even love is impossible.
Worth highlighting in the novel: the long interlude about “The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism” (II, 9) — inserted within a slightly incongruous romance episode — and the appendix on “The Principles of Newspeak” — written as if from an unknown point, far in the future, when the madness has eventually subsided. Both sections are stupefying. Yet, the last third of the book is probably one of the worst nightmares in literature: a prolonged torture and brainwashing session that plunges into utter insanity.
Erich Fromm’s afterword (included at the end of the Signet Classics paperback edition) rightly puts 1984 in perspective with its historical context and other works of speculative fiction, like Brave New World. Still, while Huxley’s satire is substantially ironic, almost jovial, the general tone in Orwell’s book is dismal, revolting, at times practically unbearable. At any rate, this novel has become one of the canonical landmarks of political dystopia. Hannah Arendt possibly read 1984 when writing The Origins of Totalitarianism a couple of years after Orwell’s death. Its influence after that, on works like The Handmaid’s Tale, is manifest as well.
Michael Radford’s heartrending film adaptation is very faithful to the novel. But my favourite film “free-adaptation” remains Brazil by Terry Gilliam. Blade Runner, too, borrows much of its 2019 Los Angeles architecture from 1984’s Miniluv pyramidal building descriptions.
The days of Hitler and Stalin are long gone now. Even so, almost a century later, in a time of political paralysis and corruption, where the most prominent “doubleplusgood duckspeaker” politicians of the world make ample use of a new form of newspeak and doublethink; in a time of threatened privacy and increasing digital surveillance and mindfuck, Orwell’s prophetic warning is as relevant as ever.
September 6, 2022
Update: 1984=2024. FULL DYSTOPIAN PARADIGM FULL STEAM AHEAD
Is Orwell turning in his grave? Does his epitaph read. "I fucking warned you! Don't say I never told you so! "
Did he have a crystal fucking ball?
***
If you want truth, go out and see
Not like in 1984, Richard Burton on TV
Orwell must have been psychic, or was he in the know
Cos' what's going on in the world clearly shows
That humanity is programmed through a TV screen
Since its conception, its all its ever been
News, films, dramas, sports, soaps and cartoons
Leaving the masses wide eyed, like Buffoons
All the rhetoric and propaganda, oozing about us, every place we look, and go
It is everywhere, embedded, enveloping, as people to and fro
Screens on buildings, bus stops, train stations, all over the place, fuelling our vices
PC's, laptops, google glass, tablets and mobile devices
Its in the ether, the air and the subconscious brain
Whether one is aware or not, the information leaves its stain
Orwell must have been psychic, or was he in the know
Perpetual war, a bogeyman, terrorists, must be real, its all a TV show
Censored press, hacking phones, spying on the masses
Every email, phone call, text message, and google eye glasses
Technocratic Dystopia, hunger games, people put into factions
Not allowed to speak, monitoring our actions
In the name of security, no person is free
Unless your blood is Royal, or have connections to the family
Or a valued member in Vatican State, purple robes, velvet glove, and iron fist
A Freemason, a congressman, senator, president, PM, you get the gist
Social engineering, eugenics, deep state, cabals and satanic cults
Lodges, temples, hail, thunder and lightening bolts
Rapture, ragnarok, jihad, ends of days TV
In dramas, films, cartoons, its all we ever see
Monsters and bogeymen, cold war, terrorism, and disease, and destruction
People trafficking, drug smuggling, arms deals, and child abduction
All entertainment, to keep the masses distracted
No freedom of information, cos the juicy bits are redacted
In the name of security, or for the security of a famous name
The whole thing is inverted, its all a game
Cos' rules are lures, and laws are walls
And all of the people are silly fools
Glued to a PC, Mob Phone or TV screen
Since its conception, its all its ever been
Was Orwell a psychic, or was he in the know
One things for certain, it won't be on a TV show
By Leo.🐯👍
When one is young and immersed into the seas of academia one is asked what one wants to be when one grows up? Which pigeon hole? What label? What career?
When a car driver loses control of the vehicle and strays from the path that was ahead, the car careers off the road. One might crash. One is no longer on the journey one originally set out on. One is lost. Off the beaten track.
So, when one is a child and asked what career one wants, esoterically it means how can one be swayed or crashed and stopped from what one may want to be when one grows up. The only answer a child should give to their teacher (indoctrinater) is...HAPPY!👍🐯
Who are these people? These authorities with all the powers?
Deciding what we say, or do, or go, from their Ivory Towers
A deviant neighbour moves in next door, behaviour abnormal, and hoarding trash
Puts his waste in his shed, a festering, mouldy stash
Attracting rats, mice, flies and vermin of all kinds
Breaking other residents resolve, distorting their minds
For when the community complain about it, every day, week in week out, all the time
These authorities point the finger at us, accuse us of a Bloody Hate Crime!
Rationale has been replaced, with the word Hate
As the lines blur, in this New World Order, is it too late?
To change this world? To take a stance? Maybe our last Chance!
This world is going to Hell in a Shitstorm! If we don't restore the Earth's Balance. 🐯👍
Politics, or many ticks? Crawling all over society
Police or Po-Lice? Crawling over people who are Free
Choose and Lose, for they are not there, for the likes of You and Me
Look around and thus, Beware!
These parasites, are only there to Scare
To enforce Order, in the chaos they Create
On behest of the Magicians behind the curtains, the One's that preach Hate.
In this Cube, this false construct, this Square.
So look around, see the whole, and Beware!
I am full aware of what is going on in this pursuit for a New World Order, an Old World Order, whereby the void between the few and the majority broadens. I am so frustrated how the Sheeple just seem to lap it up. Every day the Inter-NET tightens it's grip or, the World Wide Spider Web lures and traps millions with the Glitsy new smart phone. A cell phone. A smart cell phone that is all singing and dancing...Blah! Blah! Blah! It is called a Cell phone for a reason. Like the Net and the Web. Soon all appliances and mob devices will be Smart. If one does not own one then when 5G is rolled out and the Smart Grid comes into being, one will be left behind. Soon all money paid in wages or commerce will be digital and people will not survive in the New Virtual World unless one is chipped or connected to the 5G network. Understand that money is phony. It is paper or a figure on a PC screen. Soon to be a digital concept, like in the film In Time. Money used to be made of copper, silver and gold. This is when coins actually held value, worth it's weight in gold actually meant something. Then the Templars invented the Banking system, (now they are called Freemasons) a Fiat pyramid system that is illegal yet, no person seems to care. That is the way it is. Only because of ignorance. Acquiescence, Taxation is a fraud. It is theft. Time to wake up before it is too late.
Club of Rome, Skull and Bones, Knights of the Realm, Knights of Malta, Rosicrucians, CFR, just a few of the Nefarious institutions. London School Of Economics and the Tavistock Institute. Oh! And the female freemasonic Eastern Star. Maybe I have said too much but, I don't care anymore.
That is today's Rant.
Everybody should read 1984 and also watch the film.
Update:
The Sex Pistols, a great British band
Fully aware, of the hidden hand
The entity, that controls, from most high, looking down
Elevated, Godlike, Alpha, The Crown💓👍🐯
Is Orwell turning in his grave? Does his epitaph read. "I fucking warned you! Don't say I never told you so! "
Did he have a crystal fucking ball?
***
If you want truth, go out and see
Not like in 1984, Richard Burton on TV
Orwell must have been psychic, or was he in the know
Cos' what's going on in the world clearly shows
That humanity is programmed through a TV screen
Since its conception, its all its ever been
News, films, dramas, sports, soaps and cartoons
Leaving the masses wide eyed, like Buffoons
All the rhetoric and propaganda, oozing about us, every place we look, and go
It is everywhere, embedded, enveloping, as people to and fro
Screens on buildings, bus stops, train stations, all over the place, fuelling our vices
PC's, laptops, google glass, tablets and mobile devices
Its in the ether, the air and the subconscious brain
Whether one is aware or not, the information leaves its stain
Orwell must have been psychic, or was he in the know
Perpetual war, a bogeyman, terrorists, must be real, its all a TV show
Censored press, hacking phones, spying on the masses
Every email, phone call, text message, and google eye glasses
Technocratic Dystopia, hunger games, people put into factions
Not allowed to speak, monitoring our actions
In the name of security, no person is free
Unless your blood is Royal, or have connections to the family
Or a valued member in Vatican State, purple robes, velvet glove, and iron fist
A Freemason, a congressman, senator, president, PM, you get the gist
Social engineering, eugenics, deep state, cabals and satanic cults
Lodges, temples, hail, thunder and lightening bolts
Rapture, ragnarok, jihad, ends of days TV
In dramas, films, cartoons, its all we ever see
Monsters and bogeymen, cold war, terrorism, and disease, and destruction
People trafficking, drug smuggling, arms deals, and child abduction
All entertainment, to keep the masses distracted
No freedom of information, cos the juicy bits are redacted
In the name of security, or for the security of a famous name
The whole thing is inverted, its all a game
Cos' rules are lures, and laws are walls
And all of the people are silly fools
Glued to a PC, Mob Phone or TV screen
Since its conception, its all its ever been
Was Orwell a psychic, or was he in the know
One things for certain, it won't be on a TV show
By Leo.🐯👍
When one is young and immersed into the seas of academia one is asked what one wants to be when one grows up? Which pigeon hole? What label? What career?
When a car driver loses control of the vehicle and strays from the path that was ahead, the car careers off the road. One might crash. One is no longer on the journey one originally set out on. One is lost. Off the beaten track.
So, when one is a child and asked what career one wants, esoterically it means how can one be swayed or crashed and stopped from what one may want to be when one grows up. The only answer a child should give to their teacher (indoctrinater) is...HAPPY!👍🐯
Who are these people? These authorities with all the powers?
Deciding what we say, or do, or go, from their Ivory Towers
A deviant neighbour moves in next door, behaviour abnormal, and hoarding trash
Puts his waste in his shed, a festering, mouldy stash
Attracting rats, mice, flies and vermin of all kinds
Breaking other residents resolve, distorting their minds
For when the community complain about it, every day, week in week out, all the time
These authorities point the finger at us, accuse us of a Bloody Hate Crime!
Rationale has been replaced, with the word Hate
As the lines blur, in this New World Order, is it too late?
To change this world? To take a stance? Maybe our last Chance!
This world is going to Hell in a Shitstorm! If we don't restore the Earth's Balance. 🐯👍
Politics, or many ticks? Crawling all over society
Police or Po-Lice? Crawling over people who are Free
Choose and Lose, for they are not there, for the likes of You and Me
Look around and thus, Beware!
These parasites, are only there to Scare
To enforce Order, in the chaos they Create
On behest of the Magicians behind the curtains, the One's that preach Hate.
In this Cube, this false construct, this Square.
So look around, see the whole, and Beware!
I am full aware of what is going on in this pursuit for a New World Order, an Old World Order, whereby the void between the few and the majority broadens. I am so frustrated how the Sheeple just seem to lap it up. Every day the Inter-NET tightens it's grip or, the World Wide Spider Web lures and traps millions with the Glitsy new smart phone. A cell phone. A smart cell phone that is all singing and dancing...Blah! Blah! Blah! It is called a Cell phone for a reason. Like the Net and the Web. Soon all appliances and mob devices will be Smart. If one does not own one then when 5G is rolled out and the Smart Grid comes into being, one will be left behind. Soon all money paid in wages or commerce will be digital and people will not survive in the New Virtual World unless one is chipped or connected to the 5G network. Understand that money is phony. It is paper or a figure on a PC screen. Soon to be a digital concept, like in the film In Time. Money used to be made of copper, silver and gold. This is when coins actually held value, worth it's weight in gold actually meant something. Then the Templars invented the Banking system, (now they are called Freemasons) a Fiat pyramid system that is illegal yet, no person seems to care. That is the way it is. Only because of ignorance. Acquiescence, Taxation is a fraud. It is theft. Time to wake up before it is too late.
Club of Rome, Skull and Bones, Knights of the Realm, Knights of Malta, Rosicrucians, CFR, just a few of the Nefarious institutions. London School Of Economics and the Tavistock Institute. Oh! And the female freemasonic Eastern Star. Maybe I have said too much but, I don't care anymore.
That is today's Rant.
Everybody should read 1984 and also watch the film.
Update:
The Sex Pistols, a great British band
Fully aware, of the hidden hand
The entity, that controls, from most high, looking down
Elevated, Godlike, Alpha, The Crown💓👍🐯
May 22, 2022
Newspeaking ones way towards manufacturing consent with optional mutilating death by torture after brainwashing, because these pesky citizens just don´t get to the core of the fact that Ingsocs War is peace Freedom is Slavery Ignorance is strength police is based on hard, serious humanities such as politics, economics, and sociology.
It´s just reality
The irony lies in the fact that it just seems like the nightmarish tale of a forever dictatorship for the privileged people living in Western, brave new world, pseudo democracies, while it´s painful reality for billions of people. The severity may vary, but there are so many regions and states out there in the world where the „I should be silent to avoid secret torture prisons and internment aka death camps“ thought is a part of daily life, an epigenetic standard nutrition kids are born with.
One character struggling makes it even more intense
Orwells´choice to just focus on one storyline and the backstory makes it so compelling, while the dismal and depressing atmosphere pulls the reader into big brothers surveillance state with its secret police and euphemistic ministries.
Checklisting how much has become real.
Even in democratic countries, there is
vast control of information, media, and the consensus of which economic and political doctrines are dogmas that mustn´t be criticized or doubted.
Permanent warmongering with, especially the US, invading or supporting war parties. This is combined with
Discrediting even not radical, just progressive, alternative political parties, NGOs, and citizen movements that are too defiant. Good old Divide and rule style. Just swallow it, democracy is dead, but at least progressive, critical voices are just ignored and not killed. Thanks to the
Military industrial complex public private partnershipping the last drop out of dysfunctional, intentionally destroyed distributional justice and eco social market economy.
A great problem that emerges from the corporations controlling all democratic European and the US governments, probably the Asian, South American ones, Australia, etc. too, is that they actively promote any kind of authoritarian leadership in countries they have economic interests in, thereby actively helping in spreading Big Brother. Exaggeration? Sadly a clear nope, read Chomsky, Klein, Colin Crouch, Ziegler, Shiva Vandana, etc., all the critical, unheard voices denouncing neoliberalism, neoconservatism, neocolonialism, and globalization. Or call me a leftist conspiracist and trust politicians and journalists, far more easygoing. I should really consider to stop committing thoughtcrimes.
As if any ethical, democratic Western government (or a conglomerate of all of them) would go full economic warfare mode
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economi...
and unleash fictional entities like, let´s just for fun call them, world building mode activated, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organisation, who exploit all weak and poor members while brave new worlding its own population. Or let´s get even more ridiculous and call a fictional superpower United States of Eurasia who loves to step over the final border of actively promoting wars for just economic and geopolitical reasons to directly smash democracies to breed more big brothers since, let´s pick any number, 1945.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timelin...
I just love the uchronia and alternative history genre, it´s both so dark and ironic.
Similar stuff
This is added to my review of Brave new world too.
Besides the 2 behemoths, Karel Capeks´
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8...
dark, disturbing masterpiece is possibly one of the best dystopian terror pieces. It´s focusing on the role of big money and industry, of innocence turned into the same evil it suffers, was written in 1936 and satirizes Germans, Japanese, Russians, societies, ideologies, and economy in general and is a timeless memorial against political and economic terrorism and extremism of any kind.
Aldous Huxley was Orwells´ college professor and they definitively inspired and mentally inseminated another to form these brave new worlds.
Zamyatin Yevgenys´ We is another, historical extremely interesting piece, although just not as famous and fancy as the others, kind of the same problem as with the underappreciated Capek.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7...
An extremely difficult to read one is Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
which comes very close to Huxleys´ ideas, but is much darker.
Some more dark and/ or satiric tones:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
A similar idea by the master of philosophical, satirical sci-fi, the great, unique Lem:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7...
Subjectively, I do find it much more attractive that we wealthy Westerners live in friendly Brave new worlds with fringe pseudo democracy and not in Orwellian or Capekian horror visions as many other poor people around the world do.
Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
It´s just reality
The irony lies in the fact that it just seems like the nightmarish tale of a forever dictatorship for the privileged people living in Western, brave new world, pseudo democracies, while it´s painful reality for billions of people. The severity may vary, but there are so many regions and states out there in the world where the „I should be silent to avoid secret torture prisons and internment aka death camps“ thought is a part of daily life, an epigenetic standard nutrition kids are born with.
One character struggling makes it even more intense
Orwells´choice to just focus on one storyline and the backstory makes it so compelling, while the dismal and depressing atmosphere pulls the reader into big brothers surveillance state with its secret police and euphemistic ministries.
Checklisting how much has become real.
Even in democratic countries, there is
vast control of information, media, and the consensus of which economic and political doctrines are dogmas that mustn´t be criticized or doubted.
Permanent warmongering with, especially the US, invading or supporting war parties. This is combined with
Discrediting even not radical, just progressive, alternative political parties, NGOs, and citizen movements that are too defiant. Good old Divide and rule style. Just swallow it, democracy is dead, but at least progressive, critical voices are just ignored and not killed. Thanks to the
Military industrial complex public private partnershipping the last drop out of dysfunctional, intentionally destroyed distributional justice and eco social market economy.
A great problem that emerges from the corporations controlling all democratic European and the US governments, probably the Asian, South American ones, Australia, etc. too, is that they actively promote any kind of authoritarian leadership in countries they have economic interests in, thereby actively helping in spreading Big Brother. Exaggeration? Sadly a clear nope, read Chomsky, Klein, Colin Crouch, Ziegler, Shiva Vandana, etc., all the critical, unheard voices denouncing neoliberalism, neoconservatism, neocolonialism, and globalization. Or call me a leftist conspiracist and trust politicians and journalists, far more easygoing. I should really consider to stop committing thoughtcrimes.
As if any ethical, democratic Western government (or a conglomerate of all of them) would go full economic warfare mode
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economi...
and unleash fictional entities like, let´s just for fun call them, world building mode activated, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organisation, who exploit all weak and poor members while brave new worlding its own population. Or let´s get even more ridiculous and call a fictional superpower United States of Eurasia who loves to step over the final border of actively promoting wars for just economic and geopolitical reasons to directly smash democracies to breed more big brothers since, let´s pick any number, 1945.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timelin...
I just love the uchronia and alternative history genre, it´s both so dark and ironic.
Similar stuff
This is added to my review of Brave new world too.
Besides the 2 behemoths, Karel Capeks´
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8...
dark, disturbing masterpiece is possibly one of the best dystopian terror pieces. It´s focusing on the role of big money and industry, of innocence turned into the same evil it suffers, was written in 1936 and satirizes Germans, Japanese, Russians, societies, ideologies, and economy in general and is a timeless memorial against political and economic terrorism and extremism of any kind.
Aldous Huxley was Orwells´ college professor and they definitively inspired and mentally inseminated another to form these brave new worlds.
Zamyatin Yevgenys´ We is another, historical extremely interesting piece, although just not as famous and fancy as the others, kind of the same problem as with the underappreciated Capek.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7...
An extremely difficult to read one is Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
which comes very close to Huxleys´ ideas, but is much darker.
Some more dark and/ or satiric tones:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
A similar idea by the master of philosophical, satirical sci-fi, the great, unique Lem:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7...
Subjectively, I do find it much more attractive that we wealthy Westerners live in friendly Brave new worlds with fringe pseudo democracy and not in Orwellian or Capekian horror visions as many other poor people around the world do.
Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
December 4, 2013
I've put off writing a review for 1984 because it's simply too daunting to do so. I liked 1984 even better after a second reading (bumping it up from a 4 star to a 5 star) because I think that, given the complexity of the future created by Orwell, multiple readings may be needed to take it all in. I thought it was genius the first time and appreciated that genius even more the second time.
Orwell had a daunting task: creating a future nearly half a century away from the time period in which he was writing. This future had to be its own complex, independent society, but it also had to be the natural end result of the totalitarianism Orwell witnessed in the communist and socialist regimes of World War II. That's part of the horror of 1984: this future is a recognizable one, even in the 21st century. It's easy to see how those in control can, through manipulation and propaganda, maintain that control simply for the sake of sating their own power hunger. It's easy to say "no one could ever tell me what to think or what to do," but the Party's use of Big Brother, the Thought Police, the Two-Minute Hate, and Doublethink make it easy to see how a person's ability to think independently and discern fiction from reality can be eroded when there is no touchstone to fact. Revising and rewriting the past to make certain that Big Brother and the Party are always correct has effectively eliminated historical accuracy. How can one think and reason in a society where everything is a fabrication?
Another facet of 1984 that I find fascinating is the relationship between Winston and Julia. Winston claims Julia is a "rebel from the waist down," engaging in promiscuity and hedonistic indulgences forbidden by the Party. She doesn't care about social injustice or defining "reality"; she only longs for what will make her feel good in the moment and only rebels far enough to get what she wants. By comparison, Winston is an intellectual rebel, constantly worrying over the issues of truth and freedom and the real, unvarnished past, but limited in how far he's willing to push the boundaries (until he meets Julia). Together, they make a complete rebellion--physical and mental, but apart they find themselves impotent to stand up to the Party.
A cautionary tale, social commentary, and exemplary example of dystopian fiction, 1984 is one of those perfect novels that not only entertains, but forces one to think about the danger associated with giving any one person or entity too much power or control over our lives--issues well worth consideration in post-9/11 America.
Cross posted at This Insignificant Cinder
Orwell had a daunting task: creating a future nearly half a century away from the time period in which he was writing. This future had to be its own complex, independent society, but it also had to be the natural end result of the totalitarianism Orwell witnessed in the communist and socialist regimes of World War II. That's part of the horror of 1984: this future is a recognizable one, even in the 21st century. It's easy to see how those in control can, through manipulation and propaganda, maintain that control simply for the sake of sating their own power hunger. It's easy to say "no one could ever tell me what to think or what to do," but the Party's use of Big Brother, the Thought Police, the Two-Minute Hate, and Doublethink make it easy to see how a person's ability to think independently and discern fiction from reality can be eroded when there is no touchstone to fact. Revising and rewriting the past to make certain that Big Brother and the Party are always correct has effectively eliminated historical accuracy. How can one think and reason in a society where everything is a fabrication?
Another facet of 1984 that I find fascinating is the relationship between Winston and Julia. Winston claims Julia is a "rebel from the waist down," engaging in promiscuity and hedonistic indulgences forbidden by the Party. She doesn't care about social injustice or defining "reality"; she only longs for what will make her feel good in the moment and only rebels far enough to get what she wants. By comparison, Winston is an intellectual rebel, constantly worrying over the issues of truth and freedom and the real, unvarnished past, but limited in how far he's willing to push the boundaries (until he meets Julia). Together, they make a complete rebellion--physical and mental, but apart they find themselves impotent to stand up to the Party.
A cautionary tale, social commentary, and exemplary example of dystopian fiction, 1984 is one of those perfect novels that not only entertains, but forces one to think about the danger associated with giving any one person or entity too much power or control over our lives--issues well worth consideration in post-9/11 America.
Cross posted at This Insignificant Cinder
September 22, 2021
~ 2 stars ~
TW/CW: talk of rape and homicide, physical and mental abuse / torture, misogyny
This has to be my most disappointing read of the year so far. Everything I expected, and everything I wanted never happened. I thought that the political aspect was interesting, and while I liked that part, it sadly was not enough to save this book.
I’ve been wanting to read this for a while as it’s considered such a staple in dystopian, and in general literature. I’ve even watched a school play which I enjoyed, but of course, that had excluded all the problematic aspects, so I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
This book takes on an authoritarianism and totalitarian government, propaganda, censorship, surveillance, etc. and I thought it dealt with that well enough, and making connections between current day and this book was an experience, i'll say that.
Having known this going in, it seemed like something I would love, and it checked off many boxes of what I was looking for at the time. I even had many quotes I had highlighted for this review that I thought were insightful, but my very smart self returned the ebook without recording them all. Other than the ones I used for my reading updates of course, but most of those were ones I used to complain.
But other than that aspect, it felt like a chore to read. So many things that I didn’t like, and so many things that angered me. I’m reading a story, I want to be immersed, and invested, not bored out of my mind. The writing was nothing special, and the story itself was blander than white bread.
The info dumps were absolutely painful too. I don’t know how I pushed through, though barely considering it took me almost 20 days to complete. There was one particular infodump that I especially suffered through, one that would serve to bring up some of these political discussions and simultaneously throw up a bunch of world building on me. It took up more than 13% of the entire book. 13 PERCENT. My brain felt all mushy by the end, and I’m not sure I properly processed any of it. What was the reason? It couldn’t have been any less digestible.
And then of course we have the characters. I would gladly fist fight Winston, who is our protagonist. I don’t care if some would consider that elder abuse, I would if I could. I have read from such unlikable characters before, but Winston is on another level of terrible. Again, must I ask, what was the reason? Why was he so absolutely horrible? He constantly sexualizes the women he “loves” in disgusting ways, and her youth, and has some weird grudge against anyone that is “pure”, whatever that means. No, sorry, he just hates women in general. Before knowing Julia, his love interest, he imagined raping her, and then slitting her throat for being, what he thought then, celabite. He contemplated smashing her head against the wall. And those weren’t solidary situations. He spends the entire book saying and thinking creepy, disgusting and irritating stuff. I hate him.
And then we have Julia, the only female character that spoke more than one line. And her only role is that she is shallow and weak, existing solely for Winston and his pleasure, and his sexual fantasies. And that is all she cares about. Sex. That is all she lives for, and nothing else. She has no thoughts of her own, and her personality is as annoying as can be. It definitely plays into the whole “women are objects” thing, which of course angered me even more. I mean for goodness sake, the misogyny was so strong with this one. As in the overused trope, which in itself promotes that internalized misogyny. Julia outright says how she hates women. Excuse you?
And all the other characters didn’t matter, at least to me, so that neither hurt or helped my experience, but the two we knew the most made me want to chuck the book out the window more times than I could count.
And Winston and Julia together was even worse than I could ever imagine. Not only do they not have any chemistry, just a lot of possessiveness, but they are already confessing their love never having properly talked before. Winston spends a good chunk of the book hating on her, but then when she confesses her love, suddenly he is in love with her too. Winston even tells Julia about how he wanted to *coughs* murder her, and she just laughs it off as if it is something normal. If only this behavior was condemned, as it should be.
This is the most unromantic relationship ever. And obviously I am aware that perhaps I should not judge the book by it’s characters, and their portrayal, as that is not what the story is truly about. That’s not what is important. But don’t you think that if I’m going to be following their story, that I should at least be able to tolerate them? At the very least. I don’t think I am being unerasable. And perhaps I could have overlooked the characters, had I actually been interested in the story itself, but I did not. Little by little, any hope I had was crushed, and I was bored to no extent, so having to deal with an incel on top of it all did not bode well for
Final Thoughts: Overall, I dragged through this. It was not a good read. This is so highly praised and I just expected better. I can see where people who like it are coming from in some way, but it was a big no for me. I’ve also been informed that this is basically just a rip off of We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, which is a better book, so perhaps I will pick that up in the future. Maybe i’ll even read Animal Farm for the sake of it, and also because I’m curious to read about talking pigs.
TW/CW: talk of rape and homicide, physical and mental abuse / torture, misogyny
This has to be my most disappointing read of the year so far. Everything I expected, and everything I wanted never happened. I thought that the political aspect was interesting, and while I liked that part, it sadly was not enough to save this book.
I’ve been wanting to read this for a while as it’s considered such a staple in dystopian, and in general literature. I’ve even watched a school play which I enjoyed, but of course, that had excluded all the problematic aspects, so I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
This book takes on an authoritarianism and totalitarian government, propaganda, censorship, surveillance, etc. and I thought it dealt with that well enough, and making connections between current day and this book was an experience, i'll say that.
Having known this going in, it seemed like something I would love, and it checked off many boxes of what I was looking for at the time. I even had many quotes I had highlighted for this review that I thought were insightful, but my very smart self returned the ebook without recording them all. Other than the ones I used for my reading updates of course, but most of those were ones I used to complain.
But other than that aspect, it felt like a chore to read. So many things that I didn’t like, and so many things that angered me. I’m reading a story, I want to be immersed, and invested, not bored out of my mind. The writing was nothing special, and the story itself was blander than white bread.
The info dumps were absolutely painful too. I don’t know how I pushed through, though barely considering it took me almost 20 days to complete. There was one particular infodump that I especially suffered through, one that would serve to bring up some of these political discussions and simultaneously throw up a bunch of world building on me. It took up more than 13% of the entire book. 13 PERCENT. My brain felt all mushy by the end, and I’m not sure I properly processed any of it. What was the reason? It couldn’t have been any less digestible.
And then of course we have the characters. I would gladly fist fight Winston, who is our protagonist. I don’t care if some would consider that elder abuse, I would if I could. I have read from such unlikable characters before, but Winston is on another level of terrible. Again, must I ask, what was the reason? Why was he so absolutely horrible? He constantly sexualizes the women he “loves” in disgusting ways, and her youth, and has some weird grudge against anyone that is “pure”, whatever that means. No, sorry, he just hates women in general. Before knowing Julia, his love interest, he imagined raping her, and then slitting her throat for being, what he thought then, celabite. He contemplated smashing her head against the wall. And those weren’t solidary situations. He spends the entire book saying and thinking creepy, disgusting and irritating stuff. I hate him.
And then we have Julia, the only female character that spoke more than one line. And her only role is that she is shallow and weak, existing solely for Winston and his pleasure, and his sexual fantasies. And that is all she cares about. Sex. That is all she lives for, and nothing else. She has no thoughts of her own, and her personality is as annoying as can be. It definitely plays into the whole “women are objects” thing, which of course angered me even more. I mean for goodness sake, the misogyny was so strong with this one. As in the overused trope, which in itself promotes that internalized misogyny. Julia outright says how she hates women. Excuse you?
And all the other characters didn’t matter, at least to me, so that neither hurt or helped my experience, but the two we knew the most made me want to chuck the book out the window more times than I could count.
And Winston and Julia together was even worse than I could ever imagine. Not only do they not have any chemistry, just a lot of possessiveness, but they are already confessing their love never having properly talked before. Winston spends a good chunk of the book hating on her, but then when she confesses her love, suddenly he is in love with her too. Winston even tells Julia about how he wanted to *coughs* murder her, and she just laughs it off as if it is something normal. If only this behavior was condemned, as it should be.
This is the most unromantic relationship ever. And obviously I am aware that perhaps I should not judge the book by it’s characters, and their portrayal, as that is not what the story is truly about. That’s not what is important. But don’t you think that if I’m going to be following their story, that I should at least be able to tolerate them? At the very least. I don’t think I am being unerasable. And perhaps I could have overlooked the characters, had I actually been interested in the story itself, but I did not. Little by little, any hope I had was crushed, and I was bored to no extent, so having to deal with an incel on top of it all did not bode well for
Final Thoughts: Overall, I dragged through this. It was not a good read. This is so highly praised and I just expected better. I can see where people who like it are coming from in some way, but it was a big no for me. I’ve also been informed that this is basically just a rip off of We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, which is a better book, so perhaps I will pick that up in the future. Maybe i’ll even read Animal Farm for the sake of it, and also because I’m curious to read about talking pigs.
December 13, 2023
i'm not making any point in particular...just that if you have any intention of reading a book about totalitarianism and apocalyptic government, written by a man who believed in democratic socialism as the solution...well, now might be a good time.
----
full review
I had been meaning to read this book for a long time, but I finally did it based on a friend’s (hi Dario) insistence. It took me way longer than expected to finish it, and once I managed, said friend requested (in all caps) a text-message review. Here is that unaltered review for your perusal.
Message 1: I THOUGHT IT WAS MOSTLY A VESSEL FOR A CERTAIN LINE OF THINKING
Message 2: WHICH WAS CARRIED ACROSS IN GOLDSTEIN’S BOOK AND O’BRIEN’S DIALOGUE AT THE END
Message 3: AND WHILE THOSE PASSAGES WERE SMART AND WORTHY OF PUBLICATION, THEY ULTIMATELY WOULD HAVE BEEN MORE EFFECTIVE AS AN ESSAY
Message 4: BUT NOWHERE CLOSE TO AS MANY PEOPLE WOULD HAVE READ IT AS AN ESSAY
Message 5: anyway in the end i thought much of it was unnecessary but overall it’s a deeply impressive work
Message 6: i was lowkey astonished at how long the goldstein “passages” were
Message 7: but some of the ideas there were remarkable
Message 8: i found myself skimming at some points, and then i was mad at myself for skimming bc it’s like the whole point of the book, and then i was mad at the author for conveying the most important ideas in such a lazy way
Fin.
In conclusion, yes, I am the type of nightmare-person who responds to texts by breaking up sentiments into dozens of messages.
Sorry.
Bottom line: This was good but I wish it had been one or two political opinion papers instead! Sorry again!
----
full review
I had been meaning to read this book for a long time, but I finally did it based on a friend’s (hi Dario) insistence. It took me way longer than expected to finish it, and once I managed, said friend requested (in all caps) a text-message review. Here is that unaltered review for your perusal.
Message 1: I THOUGHT IT WAS MOSTLY A VESSEL FOR A CERTAIN LINE OF THINKING
Message 2: WHICH WAS CARRIED ACROSS IN GOLDSTEIN’S BOOK AND O’BRIEN’S DIALOGUE AT THE END
Message 3: AND WHILE THOSE PASSAGES WERE SMART AND WORTHY OF PUBLICATION, THEY ULTIMATELY WOULD HAVE BEEN MORE EFFECTIVE AS AN ESSAY
Message 4: BUT NOWHERE CLOSE TO AS MANY PEOPLE WOULD HAVE READ IT AS AN ESSAY
Message 5: anyway in the end i thought much of it was unnecessary but overall it’s a deeply impressive work
Message 6: i was lowkey astonished at how long the goldstein “passages” were
Message 7: but some of the ideas there were remarkable
Message 8: i found myself skimming at some points, and then i was mad at myself for skimming bc it’s like the whole point of the book, and then i was mad at the author for conveying the most important ideas in such a lazy way
Fin.
In conclusion, yes, I am the type of nightmare-person who responds to texts by breaking up sentiments into dozens of messages.
Sorry.
Bottom line: This was good but I wish it had been one or two political opinion papers instead! Sorry again!
June 9, 2024
The colour of this book is grey, relentless grey: of skin, sky, food, floor, walls, mind, life itself. Added piquancy comes from general decay, drudgery, exploitation, chronic sickness, and malaise.
Ten Shades of Grey?
There is also sex and (non-sexual) bondage, domination, and torture.
I don’t expect a dystopian book to be happy reading, but this reread was far grimmer than I remembered it, partly because I read it immediately after the lyrical beauty of another dystopia, Fahrenheit 451, reviewed HERE, and partly because I’ve probably watched Terry Gilliam’s magical film, Brazil so many times (though he claimed he had not read the book before making the film).
Nevertheless, more than 50 years after it was written, 1984 is still powerful, important, and relevant - a feat EL James’ “Fifty Shades” books are unlikely to achieve. On the other hand, I gather Fifty Shades lacks page after page of heavy-handed political theory, so on that criterion, it might be ahead of 1984.
“If there is hope, it lies in the proles” - they are not any shade of grey.
The novel that inspired this
Orwell admitted to being heavily inspired by Yevgeny Zamyatin’s WE. The plot is very similar, but WE is a more complex combination of utopia and dystopia, and Natasha Randall's translation has a lyrical beauty very different from Orwell's much greyer, darker mood. See my review HERE.
Have We Reached 1984? (written in 2015)
In some ways, this book is very dated.
• The underlying misogyny is unchallenged (Winston “disliked nearly all women, and especially the young pretty ones… who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party” and he quickly goes from wanting to rape and murder a woman (he even tells her!) to lusting after “her youthful body desperate for him” and feeling “he had a right to” her). On the other hand, Winston is uncritical - enthusiastic even - about her promiscuity.
• Related to that - and to Fahrenheit 451 - Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote in a group discussion: "there's a distinct echo in both books of the Garden of Eden story, with Eve tempting Adam to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And in each case, it's a denial of the dogma that this is the original sin."
• A contemporary writer would probably avoid the lengthy passages of exposition and theory found here (especially ~20 pages of closely typed text from Goldstein’s snappily titled “The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism”).
• The post-war Cold War fears are ancient history, and the rise of supposedly Islamic groups like Daesh/ISIS/ISIL pose a different sort of threat.
BUT, where this is still pertinent, it’s not quite in the ways that Orwell might have expected.
• We’re blasé about ubiquitous CCTV cameras, and we voluntarily, enthusiastically, surrender details of our interests, activities, location, and friends via our smartphone apps, and Google (see Vox article about how Google Trends reveals the truths that people don't tell researchers, here).
• We think we’re too smart to fall for lies like those of the Party, but a quick trawl of trending stories on social media demonstrates the untruth of that: people are gullible. The patent nonsense that people believe and share, without ever engaging the weakest of critical faculties is staggering. Most of those are trivial compared with the lies of Big Brother, but they show how easy it is to believe what everyone else believes, regardless of ample evidence to the contrary.
• We may not have Two Minutes’ Hate or Hate Week, but we certainly have hate figures, and again, social media exacerbates the crowd mentality: “The horrible thing… was not that one was obliged to act a part, but… that it was impossible to avoid joining in”. I’ve not read Jon Ronson’s So You've Been Publicly Shamed , but I’m familiar with many of the stories in it (if you’re not, look at the many excellent reviews on GR). Scary stuff.
Update, January 2017, “Alternative Facts”
On 20 January 2017, Donald Trump was inaugurated as President of the USA. He campaigned in the style of an autocratic, narcissistic demagogue. He had a long track record of flagrantly denying obvious, provable truths, even on trivial matters. The day after numerous photos and other measures showed unimpressive attendance at his inauguration, rather than blame poor weather or practical and financial difficulties of travel, Sean Spicer, White House Press Secretary flat-out denied realistic estimates, refused to take questions, and threatened to crack down on the press. The resulting furore led to Kellyanne Conway, a Trump Strategist, defended him, saying he had merely presented "Alternative Facts".
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command… And yet he was in the right! They were wrong and he was right. The obvious, the silly, and the true had got to be defended. Truisms are true, hold on to that! The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard, water is wet, objects unsupported fall towards the earth's centre. With the feeling that he was speaking to O'Brien, and also that he was setting forth an important axiom, he wrote: .....Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”
“If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened – that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death? ”
“The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink.”
“Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”
UnTruth and UnReality - Three Types
• “The mutability of the past” means history is forever beingrewritten corrected for slips, errors, misprints and misquotes, making truth unknowable (Winston is not even sure of his age or year of birth).
• The doublethink slogans of the Party are another deliberate type of unreality.
• The third confusion of reality is subtler, in stark contrast to the gritty realism of the rest of the book, and not one I’d really considered on previous readings. It relates to dreams, premonitions, hallucinations, and (in)sanity. Confusion from deprivation and torture is one thing, but there are possible magical-realist aspects. Early on, Winston dreams of meeting O’Brien “in the place where there is no darkness”; later mentions are ambiguous as to whether this is coincidence or something else. A country landscape is also familiar from a dream, and he has a muddled dream about the coral paperweight, his mother and a Jewish woman. Furthermore, there are times in prison when the interrogator’s knowledge seems too precise and secret to be inferred from spies, screens or microphones: can he read Winston’s mind?!
“Reality exists in the human mind and nowhere else. ”
“If there is hope, it lies in the proles”
“The proles were not loyal to a party or a country or an idea, they were loyal to one another… The proles had stayed human. ” As unimportant drones, they have freedom denied to Party members and “were beneath suspicion”.
Conditions in Airstrip One are dire, with food and basic services in very limited supply, but sanity is scarcest of all. “Stupidity was as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain. ”
For some, “By lack of understanding they remained sane”.
Three Parts
• The first part sets the scene of Winston’s Smith’s predictable life as an unimportant Party member in Big Brother’s terrifying regime in Airstrip One, ever at war with either Eurasia or Eastasia.
• The second part concerns actions: freedom, courage, love/lust, betrayal.
• The final part is about the consequences of those actions.
Again and again, brief, apparently trivial things turn out to be significant.
Newspeak
“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
“Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year”, with the aim of making “thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it”.
This is really an extreme form of linguistic determinism (aka Sapir-Whorf hypothesis): the idea that the structure of a language can affect the cognition of those who use it. A very different extrapolation of that is in Ted Chiang's The Story of Your Life (filmed for 2016 as Arrival), reviewed HERE.
I thought the linguistic aspect would be something I’d especially enjoy this time, but the key features are familiar and it’s explained in an appendix (which is where most of the lengthy extracts of Goldstein’s book should have gone, imo.) However, it's worth noting that the appendix, written after the main story, is in conventional English. Newspeak is/was no more.
For insight into 21st Century Political Language, see my review of Steven Pool's excellent Unspeak: How Words Become Weapons, How Weapons Become a Message, and How That Message Becomes Reality from 2006, HERE.
Feelings – and Troublesome Questions
This is a grey, cold book. Even the lust and passion it contains is chilling. But it asks timeless and difficult questions about love and loyalty:
• Would you risk everything - absolutely everything - for a few passionate meetings with someone you may not even love?
• To serve your ideology, would you lie, murder, steal… throw acid in a child’s face?
• If you could save your partner by doubling your own pain, would you? Would you really?
• Is failure of love the only betrayal that counts? (If you tell all, but secretly love, are you loyal?)
Quotes
Some are so well-known, it might seem superfluous to type them here, but that’s exactly why I’ve included them.
• “It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
• “Although the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no colour in anything, except the posters that were plastered everywhere.”
• “An active man of almost paralysing stupidity.”
• “All history was a palimpsest.”
• “It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage.”
• “The old man’s memory was nothing but a rubbish-heap of details.”
• “A hanging oil lamp which gave off an unclean but friendly smell.”
• “He would buy further scraps of beautiful rubbish.” (In addition to coral in glass.)
• “It was camouflage. If you kept the small rules, you could break the big ones.”
• A dash of lipstick and “she had become not only much prettier, but… far more feminine.”
• Charrington, the junk shop owner had “vaguely the air of being a collector rather than a tradesman”.
• “The end was contained in the beginning.”
• “Our only true life was in the future.”
• “Winston was gelatinous with fatigue… His body seemed to have not only the weakness of a jelly, but its transparency.”
• “The best books, he [Winston] perceived, are those that tell you what you know already.” No, no, no!
• “The blade would bite into him with a sort of burning coldness.”
• “Never, for any reason on earth, could you wish for an increase in pain… Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain.” Hmm. What about emotional pain?
• “If you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself.”
• “The confession was a formality. The torture was real.”
• “Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”
• “In the old days the heretic walked to the stake still a heretic… But we make the brain perfect before we blow it out.” Shades of Kafka’s In the Penal Colony, reviewed HERE.
Slogans
• “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
• “Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.”
• “2 + 2 = 5” “Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once.”
• “It is not enough to obey him: you must love him.”
• “We are interested solely in power… Power is not a means, it is an end.”
• “Outside man there is nothing… The earth is the centre of the universe.”
• “Big Brother is watching.”
Image source: http://www.artsparx.com/images/bl_val...
OLD Review from 2008
The year 1984 may be long passed, but this book is more pertinent than ever: big brother is watching us, history is rewritten (though that has always been true) and free speech is constrained (albeit often under the misused guise of political correctness).
It's a shame that the humorous TV programme "Room 101" and reality TV franchise "Big Brother" have distracted people from the seriousness of Orwell's message.
Ten Shades of Grey?
There is also sex and (non-sexual) bondage, domination, and torture.
I don’t expect a dystopian book to be happy reading, but this reread was far grimmer than I remembered it, partly because I read it immediately after the lyrical beauty of another dystopia, Fahrenheit 451, reviewed HERE, and partly because I’ve probably watched Terry Gilliam’s magical film, Brazil so many times (though he claimed he had not read the book before making the film).
Nevertheless, more than 50 years after it was written, 1984 is still powerful, important, and relevant - a feat EL James’ “Fifty Shades” books are unlikely to achieve. On the other hand, I gather Fifty Shades lacks page after page of heavy-handed political theory, so on that criterion, it might be ahead of 1984.
“If there is hope, it lies in the proles” - they are not any shade of grey.
The novel that inspired this
Orwell admitted to being heavily inspired by Yevgeny Zamyatin’s WE. The plot is very similar, but WE is a more complex combination of utopia and dystopia, and Natasha Randall's translation has a lyrical beauty very different from Orwell's much greyer, darker mood. See my review HERE.
Have We Reached 1984? (written in 2015)
In some ways, this book is very dated.
• The underlying misogyny is unchallenged (Winston “disliked nearly all women, and especially the young pretty ones… who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party” and he quickly goes from wanting to rape and murder a woman (he even tells her!) to lusting after “her youthful body desperate for him” and feeling “he had a right to” her). On the other hand, Winston is uncritical - enthusiastic even - about her promiscuity.
• Related to that - and to Fahrenheit 451 - Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote in a group discussion: "there's a distinct echo in both books of the Garden of Eden story, with Eve tempting Adam to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And in each case, it's a denial of the dogma that this is the original sin."
• A contemporary writer would probably avoid the lengthy passages of exposition and theory found here (especially ~20 pages of closely typed text from Goldstein’s snappily titled “The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism”).
• The post-war Cold War fears are ancient history, and the rise of supposedly Islamic groups like Daesh/ISIS/ISIL pose a different sort of threat.
BUT, where this is still pertinent, it’s not quite in the ways that Orwell might have expected.
• We’re blasé about ubiquitous CCTV cameras, and we voluntarily, enthusiastically, surrender details of our interests, activities, location, and friends via our smartphone apps, and Google (see Vox article about how Google Trends reveals the truths that people don't tell researchers, here).
• We think we’re too smart to fall for lies like those of the Party, but a quick trawl of trending stories on social media demonstrates the untruth of that: people are gullible. The patent nonsense that people believe and share, without ever engaging the weakest of critical faculties is staggering. Most of those are trivial compared with the lies of Big Brother, but they show how easy it is to believe what everyone else believes, regardless of ample evidence to the contrary.
• We may not have Two Minutes’ Hate or Hate Week, but we certainly have hate figures, and again, social media exacerbates the crowd mentality: “The horrible thing… was not that one was obliged to act a part, but… that it was impossible to avoid joining in”. I’ve not read Jon Ronson’s So You've Been Publicly Shamed , but I’m familiar with many of the stories in it (if you’re not, look at the many excellent reviews on GR). Scary stuff.
Update, January 2017, “Alternative Facts”
On 20 January 2017, Donald Trump was inaugurated as President of the USA. He campaigned in the style of an autocratic, narcissistic demagogue. He had a long track record of flagrantly denying obvious, provable truths, even on trivial matters. The day after numerous photos and other measures showed unimpressive attendance at his inauguration, rather than blame poor weather or practical and financial difficulties of travel, Sean Spicer, White House Press Secretary flat-out denied realistic estimates, refused to take questions, and threatened to crack down on the press. The resulting furore led to Kellyanne Conway, a Trump Strategist, defended him, saying he had merely presented "Alternative Facts".
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command… And yet he was in the right! They were wrong and he was right. The obvious, the silly, and the true had got to be defended. Truisms are true, hold on to that! The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard, water is wet, objects unsupported fall towards the earth's centre. With the feeling that he was speaking to O'Brien, and also that he was setting forth an important axiom, he wrote: .....Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”
“If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened – that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death? ”
“The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink.”
“Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”
UnTruth and UnReality - Three Types
• “The mutability of the past” means history is forever being
• The doublethink slogans of the Party are another deliberate type of unreality.
• The third confusion of reality is subtler, in stark contrast to the gritty realism of the rest of the book, and not one I’d really considered on previous readings. It relates to dreams, premonitions, hallucinations, and (in)sanity. Confusion from deprivation and torture is one thing, but there are possible magical-realist aspects. Early on, Winston dreams of meeting O’Brien “in the place where there is no darkness”; later mentions are ambiguous as to whether this is coincidence or something else. A country landscape is also familiar from a dream, and he has a muddled dream about the coral paperweight, his mother and a Jewish woman. Furthermore, there are times in prison when the interrogator’s knowledge seems too precise and secret to be inferred from spies, screens or microphones: can he read Winston’s mind?!
“Reality exists in the human mind and nowhere else. ”
“If there is hope, it lies in the proles”
“The proles were not loyal to a party or a country or an idea, they were loyal to one another… The proles had stayed human. ” As unimportant drones, they have freedom denied to Party members and “were beneath suspicion”.
Conditions in Airstrip One are dire, with food and basic services in very limited supply, but sanity is scarcest of all. “Stupidity was as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain. ”
For some, “By lack of understanding they remained sane”.
Three Parts
• The first part sets the scene of Winston’s Smith’s predictable life as an unimportant Party member in Big Brother’s terrifying regime in Airstrip One, ever at war with either Eurasia or Eastasia.
• The second part concerns actions: freedom, courage, love/lust, betrayal.
• The final part is about the consequences of those actions.
Again and again, brief, apparently trivial things turn out to be significant.
Newspeak
“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
“Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year”, with the aim of making “thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it”.
This is really an extreme form of linguistic determinism (aka Sapir-Whorf hypothesis): the idea that the structure of a language can affect the cognition of those who use it. A very different extrapolation of that is in Ted Chiang's The Story of Your Life (filmed for 2016 as Arrival), reviewed HERE.
I thought the linguistic aspect would be something I’d especially enjoy this time, but the key features are familiar and it’s explained in an appendix (which is where most of the lengthy extracts of Goldstein’s book should have gone, imo.) However, it's worth noting that the appendix, written after the main story, is in conventional English. Newspeak is/was no more.
For insight into 21st Century Political Language, see my review of Steven Pool's excellent Unspeak: How Words Become Weapons, How Weapons Become a Message, and How That Message Becomes Reality from 2006, HERE.
Feelings – and Troublesome Questions
This is a grey, cold book. Even the lust and passion it contains is chilling. But it asks timeless and difficult questions about love and loyalty:
• Would you risk everything - absolutely everything - for a few passionate meetings with someone you may not even love?
• To serve your ideology, would you lie, murder, steal… throw acid in a child’s face?
• If you could save your partner by doubling your own pain, would you? Would you really?
• Is failure of love the only betrayal that counts? (If you tell all, but secretly love, are you loyal?)
Quotes
Some are so well-known, it might seem superfluous to type them here, but that’s exactly why I’ve included them.
• “It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
• “Although the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no colour in anything, except the posters that were plastered everywhere.”
• “An active man of almost paralysing stupidity.”
• “All history was a palimpsest.”
• “It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage.”
• “The old man’s memory was nothing but a rubbish-heap of details.”
• “A hanging oil lamp which gave off an unclean but friendly smell.”
• “He would buy further scraps of beautiful rubbish.” (In addition to coral in glass.)
• “It was camouflage. If you kept the small rules, you could break the big ones.”
• A dash of lipstick and “she had become not only much prettier, but… far more feminine.”
• Charrington, the junk shop owner had “vaguely the air of being a collector rather than a tradesman”.
• “The end was contained in the beginning.”
• “Our only true life was in the future.”
• “Winston was gelatinous with fatigue… His body seemed to have not only the weakness of a jelly, but its transparency.”
• “The best books, he [Winston] perceived, are those that tell you what you know already.” No, no, no!
• “The blade would bite into him with a sort of burning coldness.”
• “Never, for any reason on earth, could you wish for an increase in pain… Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain.” Hmm. What about emotional pain?
• “If you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself.”
• “The confession was a formality. The torture was real.”
• “Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”
• “In the old days the heretic walked to the stake still a heretic… But we make the brain perfect before we blow it out.” Shades of Kafka’s In the Penal Colony, reviewed HERE.
Slogans
• “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
• “Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.”
• “2 + 2 = 5” “Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once.”
• “It is not enough to obey him: you must love him.”
• “We are interested solely in power… Power is not a means, it is an end.”
• “Outside man there is nothing… The earth is the centre of the universe.”
• “Big Brother is watching.”
Image source: http://www.artsparx.com/images/bl_val...
OLD Review from 2008
The year 1984 may be long passed, but this book is more pertinent than ever: big brother is watching us, history is rewritten (though that has always been true) and free speech is constrained (albeit often under the misused guise of political correctness).
It's a shame that the humorous TV programme "Room 101" and reality TV franchise "Big Brother" have distracted people from the seriousness of Orwell's message.
November 5, 2016
Yes! This book! Amazing! Terrifying, brutal, intricate, prophetic - and, in one big word, GENIUS!
This was a reread - the last time I read this was over 20 years ago and I wanted to see if the 5 star rating and its standing in one of my top 3 favorite books held up - and it most certainly does.
If this book was written today in the midst of the slew of dystopian novels that come out, it may not have stood out. But, this book was way ahead of its time. Written in a post WWII era where the fears of dictatorships and brutal tyranny were fresh in the minds of the people, this book plays off that fear and adds a dark vision of a potential future.
This is where the genius of Orwell comes in. The book is mainly the manifesto of the Party that the main character is seeking to rebell against. But, the ideology and descriptions of this dystopian world are not presented in a boring way - they are fascinating. The fact that Orwell created this world and laid out not only a terrifying political environment, but the rules for the new language they were creating, is beyond amazing.
Finally, some of the things he describes sound all too possible in our current world. The controversial elections this week in the US only added to the intensity of this book.
Read this! Especially if you are a fan of modern dystopia, you must read the fore fathers - 1984 and Brave New World.
And, remember - Big Brother is watching!
This was a reread - the last time I read this was over 20 years ago and I wanted to see if the 5 star rating and its standing in one of my top 3 favorite books held up - and it most certainly does.
If this book was written today in the midst of the slew of dystopian novels that come out, it may not have stood out. But, this book was way ahead of its time. Written in a post WWII era where the fears of dictatorships and brutal tyranny were fresh in the minds of the people, this book plays off that fear and adds a dark vision of a potential future.
This is where the genius of Orwell comes in. The book is mainly the manifesto of the Party that the main character is seeking to rebell against. But, the ideology and descriptions of this dystopian world are not presented in a boring way - they are fascinating. The fact that Orwell created this world and laid out not only a terrifying political environment, but the rules for the new language they were creating, is beyond amazing.
Finally, some of the things he describes sound all too possible in our current world. The controversial elections this week in the US only added to the intensity of this book.
Read this! Especially if you are a fan of modern dystopia, you must read the fore fathers - 1984 and Brave New World.
And, remember - Big Brother is watching!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 126,563 reviews