1984

Wow it's been a while since I've read a book in a day. It's strange to go back to the real dystopian novels after reading a number of YA dystopian that hijacked the genre. I mean no disrespect to those novels, I enjoy them they're just so different from dystopian work like 1984 and Brave New World.

As usual my reviews contain spoilers so stop reading if they bother you.

For one, this book was not about overthrowing the status quo, it was demonstrating how powerful it was. Winston Smith was not a hero. He was a vehicle to show us the extent of the government's power. It was so powerful that it could change reality. It could make 2+2=5 or change the laws of nature--or at least how they're perceived by humans since only animals and proles are free (so the lower-lower class aren't seen as human).

It's just so vast. The fact the world is broken up into 3 super continents and each one has its own form of big brother. It's just so overwhelming and feels so infinite. There is no hope and those like Winston are conditioned to learn that and eventually love that before celebrating their own death.

It's an insidious tale. While I was reading I was entertained but an hour after putting it down I felt creeping fear. Every detail about the ruling party changing reality, rewriting history, and making people disappear, it's all terrifying.

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:

n  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.n

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 ..

Goodness gracious this was very unsettling. I'm already a pretty paranoid person, so the idea of Big Brother was both very intriguing but also extremely frightening.
I really enjoyed reading this, but there were moments when I wasn't invested in the story and wanted to take a break from it, mostly in the last half of the book. Still DEFINITELY worth the read, though!

I absolutely love this book. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that it's the most thought-provoking book I've ever read. It's also my favorite of the dystopian trilogies. 1984 is George Orwell’s magnum opus, an anti-utopian, anti-totalitarian political satire that is arguably the pinnacle of this genre.

The book depicts a totalitarian nation, Oceania, under the complete control of Big Brother and the Party. In this society, the omnipresent and intangible Big Brother is watching over everyone. People live under constant surveillance, with every move monitored by the telescreens. Life is incredibly impoverished, sex is reduced to a procreation task, reading and writing are banned, and only obedience to the Party remains. Anyone who expresses the slightest dissent will be denounced, arrested by the Thought Police, and even simply vaporised.The ruling party, through its pervasive political and technological means, has enveloped the entire nation's political organization, social life, propaganda tools, historical records, and even personal privacy in an invisible net. In this world, freedom is abolished, thought is controlled, humanity is stifled, and history is falsified. People live their days in political terror and hypocritical lies, yet they must still feign loyalty and faith in the Party. Orwell's masterful prose creates a horrifying and repulsive image that leaves me disturbed and terrified.

Before I could recover from this shock, he further expressed the reasons for the formation and development of totalitarian politics. He argued that rulers could never acquire power for the purpose of abolishing it. Power is not a means but an end. For those who have seized power, equality is not an ideal to be strived for, but a danger to be avoided. Because if wealth can be evenly distributed, how can power be retained in the hands of the privileged class?

Therefore, 'the Party,' in order to maintain its long-lasting rule, must deliberately create hierarchies, use lies and alterations to sever the connections between reality and history, use doublethink to make people believe that the Party is always right, and use the Thought Police to eliminate potential dangerous elements with deviant ideas.

Orwell, with his astonishing sensitivity to politics and his incredibly insightful understanding of history, coupled with extraordinary imagination and exceptionally calm rational thinking, peeled away the layers of historical disguise and the warm sentimentality of idealism and technological progress, presenting the bloody reality of totalitarianism before us. With his forward-looking vision, he allows us to see that technological advancement does not necessarily lead to human progress and a better future, but can instead be exploited by totalitarianism, becoming a terrifying machine that suppresses thought and harms humanity! The extent of this is far greater than that of any tyrant or dictator in history. While I admire his profound insight and astonishing foresight, I can't help but feel a chill for the future of humanity.

Of course, even under the intimidation and oppression of authoritarianism, the human heart will not cease to throb and rebel. Winston's repeated scribbling of Down with Big Brother in his diary is undeniable proof of this. Orwell had no doubt about this, but how to rebel was the intractable knot that he pondered over and over. Winston and Julia's love was a spiritual rebellion against the Party, but it could not pose any real threat to the Party. Joining an underground organization and coming into contact with heretical ideas were probably just traps set by those in power to constantly create enemies and then eliminate them to consolidate their power. Through Winston, Orwell says, ”If there is hope, hope lies with the proletariat," indicating that he recognizes that the working class is the greatest force to overthrow tyranny. However, he is also disappointed by the shortsightedness, ignorance, and willingness to be enslaved of the proletariat, and sadly believes that they cannot achieve self-awakening.

This contradiction stems from his own ideological conflict. Orwell, coming from the middle class, sympathized with the proletariat and the lower classes, and tried to connect with them. But there was always an invisible wall, an insurmountable gulf, between him and the proletariat. No matter how much he wanted to approach the lower classes, he could not wash away the middle-class mark on himself, just like Winston's blue uniform that could be recognized by anyone wherever he went. Therefore, even though he firmly believed in the power of the proletariat, he could not truly understand them. This contradiction runs throughout the novel.

When Winston was arrested and sent to the Ministry of Love, his confrontation with O'Brien was actually a confrontation between 2 ideas within Orwell himself: 1 part of him remained optimistic about the possibility of overthrowing totalitarianism, while the other part had been defeated and despaired. In this internal struggle, his conscience was repeatedly defeated by the harsh realities of his situation. His body was tortured, his dignity trampled upon, and his thoughts were reformed, leaving only his attachment to emotion stubbornly persisting. Yes, no matter how strict the thought control is, it cannot control people's love and hate. But even this remaining glimmer of humanity, Orwell still painfully peels it away. After all, people are selfish, and in the face of fear that they cannot overcome, even former love becomes an object of betrayal. Orwell uses an extreme way to dissect his own heart almost mercilessly, and its shocking effect is no less than his exposure of totalitarianism. You can argue that not everyone is like this, but it takes great courage and rationality to face the cowardice and baseness in one's own heart so directly.

Unlike Zamyatin's We, Orwell does not provide an optimistic answer until the very end. However, it is precisely this helplessness and bitterness, pain and confusion, and deep concern for the future of humanity behind the unsolvable problems that give me a profound shock and endless contemplation. This is why the book has become the most successful and influential dystopian novel. Orwell did not live to see the great reputation this book brought him, but his name has become immortal with the spread of the book. Its value will never be obliterated with the rise and fall of totalitarianism.

Today, we have entered the 24th year of the 21st century. Oceania in 1984 has not become a reality, and the former totalitarian societies have vanished into thin air. But can we really breathe a sigh of relief? Is the shadow of Big Brother really gone? It's not that the prophecies in the book have been completely fulfilled, but why do I feel so familiar with them? Humanity has not yet fallen into the irreversible situation in the book, but the future remains shrouded in mist, and we cannot see clearly.

Yes, Orwell's predictions have not been in vain, and they are even being realized continuously. Terrorist politics and totalitarian politics still linger in the world. How should we face such a future? This is a question that everyone who has read 1984 should ponder.

Additional thoughts updated on 30th August 2024:

My view is that this is an extremely pessimistic work. That kind of desperate pessimism is like hunger, cold, or physical pain. You think you can endure it by being indifferent, but the result is only to prove your own weakness.

What creates that pessimism and despair is nothing other than human nature itself. The social system and way of life imagined by Orwell in the book did not scare me, but what terrified me was the revelation of human nature's capacity for cruelty and self-betrayal. The characters in 1984 are trapped in a world where power is an end in itself, and individuals are reduced to mere pawns in a larger political game. The Party's relentless control extends not only to actions but also to thoughts and emotions. Winston's struggle against this oppressive system reveals the human spirit's resilience, but also its vulnerability.

Therefore, I think Orwell's observations of human nature are far more insightful than his depictions of political systems. He masterfully explores the ways in which desire, fear, and societal pressures can shape our actions and beliefs. The novel's most disturbing scenes are those that delve into the depths of the human psyche, exposing our capacity for both love and betrayal.

I have a long-standing fear: what if sex is really stripped of the joy of life and becomes a tense and disgusting means of reproduction? What if people really were to lose their ability to appreciate the beauty and complexity of life, becoming mindless followers of a single ideology? What if human existence were stripped of creativity and reduced to the basic necessities of survival? Orwell warns that even in such a world, our most basic emotions are not safe. Hatred and fear can erode even our love for those closest to us.

Orwell's depiction of Winston Smith's torture at the Ministry of Love is one of the most haunting passages for me. The line, You don't just have to obey, you have to love it from the heart," captures the Party's attempt to control not only our actions but also our innermost thoughts and feelings. I'm fascinated by the way Orwell explores the human capacity for suffering and the lengths to which individuals will go to survive. Winston's ultimate betrayal is a stark reminder of the fragility of human morality in the face of extreme pressure.

I think what Orwell means is that despite their social class or level of education, all people share a common humanity. Those who live with simple faith are no less human than those who pursue knowledge. He challenges the notion that intellectuals are superior to other people. He argues that all humans, regardless of their social status or education, are capable of both good and evil. The concept of 'doublethink' reveals the vulnerability of intellectuals to manipulation. Their pursuit of knowledge and truth can make them a target for those who seek to maintain power. Once their critical thinking is suppressed, intellectuals can lose their sense of self and become mere tools of the state.

Orwell's 1984 is more than a political prophecy; it's a stark warning about the human capacity for self-destruction. While the novel's dystopian world may seem far-fetched, its themes of surveillance, control, and the erosion of individual freedom are eerily prescient. The greatest value of 1984 lies in its reminder that intellectuals have a responsibility to resist those who seek to limit our choices and shape our lives.

As Bertrand Russell once said, "The multiplicity of existence is the source of life."

We should embrace that diversity and fight for the freedom to think, love, and create without fear.

5 / 5 stars

My other review of Orwell's Work:
Animal Farm
1984
The Road to Wigan Pier
Down and Out in Paris and London
Why I Write
Coming up for Air

هیچی نمیشه گفت .. 1984 کتابی هست که اورول زندگیش رو برای نوشتنش از دست داد .. در حین نوشتن دستنویس ها بیماریش تشدید شد و مدتی بعد از نوشتن کتاب از دنیا رفت .. اورول یه نابغه محض هست . تک تک جمله های کتاباش پر از معنی و روشنگرانه است .. 1984 در واقع زندگیه اورول هست .. بازیهای حزبی ..الیگارشی نظامی ..زندگی جاهلانه توده ها .. ناظر کبیر .. جاسوسی همه جانبه ..توقف اندیشه .. این کتاب با فاصله زیاد از نوشته های نویسنده های معاصر بالاتره ..درود بر اورول بزرگ ..

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!

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...