Nineteen Eighty-Four

"1984" es una novela sobre libertad. Orwell relata la vida de una persona que vive bajo el yugo del control de todo lo que hace en la vida. Vive así hasta que se da cuenta de que busca algo más y aparece en su vida una mujer.
Esta novela es todo un clásico de la literatura universal por todo el simbolismo que encierra en sí misma.
Como objeción, diría que le sobran páginas ya que, a ratos, la lectura se hace pesada por la repetición excesiva de los mismos conceptos.

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"1984" is a novel about freedom. Orwell recounts the life of a person who lives under the yoke of control over everything he does in life. He lives like this until he realises that he is looking for something more and a woman appears in his life.
This novel is a classic of world literature for all the symbolism it contains.
As an objection, I would say that it has too many pages, as at times the reading becomes tiresome due to the excessive repetition of the same concepts.

n  n
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.....n  n
...(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 mad utterly bat-shit psycho that I have ever experienced. Ever!!! Despite being published back in 1948, I have yet to find a more chilling, nightmarish locale than Orwell's iconic world of BIG BROTHER and INGSOC. The very mention of either of those terms invokes images of Nazis and Soviet gulags in my mind. Yet Orwell's creation is in many ways even more insidious than these real-world bogeymen.

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.............

n  n

Este libro me sigue atormentando...

Antes de hablar de la historia, primero quiero hablar un poco sobre géneros literarios, si yo se debería enfocarme en el libro pero denme un momento, nunca he sido fanático del género del terror, por dos razones: asustarse para divertirse no me parece muy lógico, y la otra razón es que siempre hay una vocecita en mi cabeza que, cuando se trata de monstruos, fantasmas, demonios, vampiros, posesiones, etc. me dice esto no es real, como te vas a asustar de lo que no existe ni existirá, y termino haciéndole caso, entonces me encuentro con este libro, que según GOODREADS me dice es un clásico, de ciencia ficción distópico, - y una mierda – este libro es de terror, este es el libro que me mantiene despierto en las noches, pensativo y con miedo porque todo lo que dice es casi (un insignificante casi) real.

Ahora si la reseña la dividiré en tres partes, porque el libro está dividido en tres partes a su vez, así que será algo larga, espero la leas, sino me conformo con que hayas leído el párrafo de arriba, en la tercera parte incluiré spoiler, así que si no han leído el libro recomiendo leer solo hasta la segunda parte.

Primera parte: Conocemos a nuestro personaje principal Winston Smith y el nos ira describiendo que tan jodido esta su mundo.

Era un día luminoso y frío de abril y los relojes daban las trece.n

El mundo está dividido en tres grandes potencias en guerra, Winston pertenece a Oceania, la cual esta comandada por el partido INGSOC y su líder es el Gran Hermano, uno de los lemas del partido es n  “El gran hermano siempre te vigila”n y esto, lamentablemente es verdad, ya que en todas partes hay unas maquinas llamadas telepantallas, que se encargan de emitir publicidad para el gobierno, todos los logros de este, y por supuesto también mensajes de a quién debe odiar la población, esto es llevado al extremo en un acto, los "dos minutos de odio", donde toda la población se reúne a declararle su odio a los enemigos del partido. Pero las telepantallas no solo sirven para eso, las telepantallas vigilan, graban todo lo que sucede a su alrededor, para que, la población no pueda cometer ningún crimen sin que se sepa, y aquel que cometa un crimen, como hablar en contra del Gran hermano o del partido, “desaparecerá”, esto tendrá más sentido si conocemos en que trabaja Winston.

n  «El que controla el pasado —decía el slogan del Partido—, controla también el futuro.El que controla el presente, controla el pasado.»n

Winston trabaja en el Ministerio de la verdad, que irónicamente, o doblepensando, se encarga de acomodar el pasado, cambiarlo al antojo y necesidad del partido, Winston se da cuenta por ejemplo de que Oceanía aunque siempre está en guerra, no siempre está en guerra con la misma potencia, a veces esta aliada con una de las potencias y peleada con la otra, pero estas posiciones suelen invertirse, entonces el ministerio de la verdad acomoda todo el pasado a su conveniencia, modificando todo periódico, libro o revista, para que digan que siempre se ha estado en guerra con digamos Eurasia.

Además de esto, cuando se encuentra un criminal que sea perteneciente al partido, todo su pasado es cambiado para decir que dicho criminal siempre fue malo y tuvo intenciones en contra del partido o “desaparece”, cuando una persona desaparece, no es que solamente ha dejado de vivir, no, se elimina todo información que haya sobre la persona, virtualmente nunca existió. Esta primera parte es un monologo casi ininterrumpido de Winston donde nos muestra su desacuerdo con la situación y sus intenciones de formar parte de la rebelión.
Segunda Parte.

LA GUERRA ES LA PAZ

LA LIBERTAD ES LA ESCLAVITUD

LA IGNORANCIA ES LA FUERZAn

En esta parte cambia un poco el tono de la historia, Winston conoce a una chica llamada Julia, de la cual se enamora, ella también está en contra del partido, pero quizás con menos fervor que Winston, empiezan a reunirse en sitios clandestinos y a protestar a su manera en contra del partido, teniendo relaciones, cosa que, si se disfruta, en este mundo también es un crimen. Winston conoce a otro personaje acá, O’Brien un hombre que solo con verlo le inspira admiración y confianza, y que él cree forma parte de la Rebelión. Cosa que se confirma más adelante.

Winston y Julia logran reunirse con O’Brien y este los introduce a la rebelión y le entregara un libro a Winston donde se explica todo el movimiento y todas las razones de porque el mundo está en las condiciones en que esta.

Debo decir que esta fue mi parte favorita del libro, hay tanta filosofía política, tantas explicaciones que incluso siendo parte de esta historia se aplican perfectamente a nuestro mundo, entenderemos ese otro lema del partido LA GUERRA ES LA PAZ / LA LIBERTAD ES LA ESCLAVITUD/ LA IGNORANCIA ES LA FUERZA, todo está explicado tan clara y perfectamente que me hace pensar que el escritor n  George Orwell era un genion, subraye muchos párrafos y frases de esta parte, pero creo que es conveniente que ustedes los lean personalmente junto a la historia.

Tercera parte: léase bajo su propio riesgo, de acá para abajo vienen los spoilers

Winston y Julia son capturados, la verdad no duraron mucho como espías, pero resulta que O’Brien no era de la Rebelión sino del partido.

Winton es separado de Julia y empieza la tortura física y mental por parte de O’Brien, verán O’Brien no quiere matar a Winston, no, no eso sería muy sencillo, el lo quiero destruir psicológicamente, hacer que ame al gran hermano y al partido, que todo pensamiento que ha tenido en contra de ellos sea admitido como erróneo por parte de Winston y que nunca vuelva a pensar en contra de ellos.

Esta es la parte más cruel del libro, odie a O’Brien es un sociópata, sicótico con el poder de hacer mucho daño a Winston y a todos en general, el representa al partido, EL es el partido o ¿debería decir todo es el partido?.

El final, aquí llegamos te felicito y agradezco si has leído lo que escrito hasta este momento,

El final es lo más triste y la razón por la cual le baje una estrella al libro, Winston es sometido, Winston pierde su persona y llega a amar al Gran Hermano



En este momento la voz de George Orwell (que suena extrañamente similar a la de su tocayo George R. R. Martin) dice en mi cabeza, “si creías que habría un final feliz era que no estabas prestando atención”

No, no creía que el final fuera feliz, ya había aceptado lo contrario, pero tonto, inocente de mi pensé que Winston haría algo, que la humanidad prevalecería, que de alguna manera ante toda esta catastrófica situación algo, aunque fuera mínimo, se podría hacer.

Winston no tiene importancia en la historia, su única función es ser narrador, pero no cambia nada, no hace nada, el mundo queda igual de jodido que como nos presentan al principio. Esto me aterra, me atemoriza, me niego a aceptarlo, si pierdo la fe en la humanidad (aun en la humanidad ficticia de un mundo cuasi ficticio) no podre dormir jamás.

Este es un libro que todo el mundo debería leer, y reflexionar sobre él, una vez mas lo recomiendo mucho.

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

I know this is a well loved classic and I definitely enjoyed some parts... but some times I found myself a bit bored :S

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.

•tThe 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.

•tRelated 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."

•tA 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”).

•tThe 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.

•tWe’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).

•tWe 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.

•tWe 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 n  So You've Been Publicly Shamedn, 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

•t“The mutability of the past” means history is forever being rewritten corrected for slips, errors, misprints and misquotes, making truth unknowable (Winston is not even sure of his age or year of birth).

•tThe doublethink slogans of the Party are another deliberate type of unreality.

•tThe 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

•tThe 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.

•tThe second part concerns actions: freedom, courage, love/lust, betrayal.

•tThe 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:

•tWould you risk everything - absolutely everything - for a few passionate meetings with someone you may not even love?

•tTo serve your ideology, would you lie, murder, steal… throw acid in a child’s face?

•tIf you could save your partner by doubling your own pain, would you? Would you really?

•tIs 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.

•t“It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
•t“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.”
•t“An active man of almost paralysing stupidity.”
•t“All history was a palimpsest.”
•t“It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage.”
•t“The old man’s memory was nothing but a rubbish-heap of details.”
•t“A hanging oil lamp which gave off an unclean but friendly smell.”
•t“He would buy further scraps of beautiful rubbish.” (In addition to coral in glass.)
•t“It was camouflage. If you kept the small rules, you could break the big ones.”
•tA dash of lipstick and “she had become not only much prettier, but… far more feminine.”
•tCharrington, the junk shop owner had “vaguely the air of being a collector rather than a tradesman”.
•t“The end was contained in the beginning.”
•t“Our only true life was in the future.”
•t“Winston was gelatinous with fatigue… His body seemed to have not only the weakness of a jelly, but its transparency.”
•t“The best books, he [Winston] perceived, are those that tell you what you know already.” No, no, no!
•t“The blade would bite into him with a sort of burning coldness.”
•t“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?
•t“If you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself.”
•t“The confession was a formality. The torture was real.”
•t“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”
•t“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

•t“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
•t“Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.”
•t“2 + 2 = 5” “Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once.”
•t“It is not enough to obey him: you must love him.”
•t“We are interested solely in power… Power is not a means, it is an end.”
•t“Outside man there is nothing… The earth is the centre of the universe.”
•t“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.

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 ..

Well, shit. That was depressing.



On the upside, the government doesn't actually need Big Brother to keep an eye on us, as we freely head to the internet to type out every excruciating detail of our lives - all while taking pictures of ourselves and then tagging our location.
Bravo, humans!

Ok, but in all honesty, I wasn't all that crazy about this book. There were a lot of things I thought were just bananas. I mean, I get that it's a cautionary tale, but there was just nothing that represented any sort of faith in humanity. While I do see a lot of parallels in this story to the worst and most ignorant parts of us, there's still a lot of good out there.
Every day people commit selfless acts of kindness.
Every. Day.
No, it's not always newsworthy stuff when it happens, but it does happen.
I don't know if Orwell really thought this sort of thing was possible or if it was just his hyper-fantasy version of the worst-case dystopian landscape, but there's just no way you could pull off a lot of this stuff.



Kids turning on their parents? Okay, yes some of the kids would have but some kids are just born to be little shits. But all of the kids? No. Sorry, children with abusive parents love them despite the fact that they were horrible to them. It's hard for children to break away from even the worst family. Most of us tend to seek our parents' approval well into adulthood - usually chasing it until the day we die. The idea that you could completely break down every family like that is unlikely.
No friendships? I don't think so. It's a very human thing to bond with other people and I think it would be hard to irradicate it all. Just like the natural bonds between parents and children, the bonds of friendship and loyalty would be difficult to erase completely across the board.
Loveless marriages? Ok, that would be a bit easier, I'll admit. Still, even with everything arranged to be ridiculously bland and state-sanctioned, you'll have love creep in.
Also, it appeared to me that Orwell thought women (on the whole) could simply be taught to hate sex. Like we don't have urges and have to be coaxed into getting horizontal by men? Religious organizations have been trying to do that for centuries, and yet, here we are.




Now, the idea that we can be misinformed and misdirected as to what is really going on in the world? Yes. But that shit has been going on since the dawn of time. If you think fake news is new, you're an idiot.
Also, the concept of getting people riled up and angry over said misinformation/misdirection. Oh, yeah. And if you're nodding along thinking that it's only those other guys that are stupid enough to get sucked into the paranoid bullshit from their chosen media outlet - think again. We're all being duped and played. Just like the people in the story, we're being fed nonsense to keep us all fighting amongst ourselves.
AND WE ARE GOBBLING IT UP.
Even the words and catchphrases I see used to describe different groups are intentionally picked to sound abrasive, incite anger on all sides, and keep people arguing.



Anyway. In the end, I thought half of this was hysterical nonsense that assumed you could control love and kindness through dwindling language skills and propaganda, and half of it was an incredibly realistic version of the way the Powers That Be have been controlling us for thousands of years.
I didn't enjoy any part of this book but it's definitely worth a read.



The narrator of the audiobook I listened to was Simon Prebble and he did an excellent job.