الحرب هي السلم
الحرية هي العبودية
الجهل هو القوة

هذه الشعارات للحزب الحاكم في رواية أوريول. هل هي كلمات على ورق؟! معضلات منطقية؟! متناقضات أدبية؟! ام اسلوب عيش يحصل وقد يحصل في العديد من بقاع العالم؟!...

- 1984"، رواية تحذيرية في زمنها وفي حاضرنا وربما في مستقبلنا ايضاً! رواية تحذّر الفرد من السيطرة الشمولية للدولة وما يمكنه ان ينتج عن هكذا سيطرة وكيف ستتغير ملامح الوجود الإنساني للناس داخل هكذا نظام، فالطعام والشراب والنوم والكلام والإنجاب و"الحب" والعقل والتفكير والأطفال واللغة والماضي والحاضر تحت سيطرة الدولة بمختلف اجهزتها من "وزارة الحب" الى "وزارة الحقيقة" والوفرة وشرطة الفكر وغيرها...

لا مفرّ! لا شيء يخصك أنت وحدك إلا بضعة سنتيمترات مكعبة في داخل جمجمتك

- تطرح الرواية العديد من المفاهيم الإيديولوجية والوسائل التي تعتمدها دولة "اوقيانيا" من اجل السيطرة وبقاء نظامها في الحكم، فإلى جانب المراقبة الدائمة للأعضاء وغسيل الدماغ الذي تتبعه على كل من تسوّل له نفسه التفكير او التساؤل، هناك بعض الأفكار الشيطانية الأخرى:

- التحكم بالتاريخ، هذه اليوتوبيا التي يحلم الكثيرون بإمتلاكها في الواقع، امتلكتها الدولة في الرواية، واخذت تغيّر الماضي على هواها

اذا كان الآخرون يقبلون الكذبة التي يفرضها الحزب... واذا كانت السجلات كلها تسجل الكذبة نفسها... فإن تلك الكذبة تصبح تاريخاً، وتصبح حقيقة. من يتحكم بالماضي يتحكّم بالمستقبل: ومن يتحكم بالحاضر يتحكم بالماضي."

لعل من الممكن تماماً ان تكون كل كلمة في كتب التاريخ محض خيال، حتى تلك الأشياء التي يقبلها المرء من غير سؤال

- التحكم بالمصير:

ان البشر المستعبدين يسمحون لإيقاع الحرب المستمرة بالتسارع. لكن بنية إقتصاد العالم والعملية التي يستمر من خلالها تظل من دون اي تغير اساسي حتى اذا كفّ هؤلاء الناس عن الوجود

- مفهوم السلطة:

ليست السلطة أداة، بل غاية! لا يقيم المرء ديكتاتورية حتى يحمي ثورة... يقوم المرء بثورة حتى يبني حكماً ديكتاتورياً! دافع الإضطهاد هو الإضطهاد ودافع التعذيب هو التعذيب ودافع السلطة هو السلطة

السلطة هي انزال الألم والإذلال بالآخر. السلطة هي تمزيق عقول البشر إرباً ثم تركيبها من جديد في أشكال اخرى تقررها انت

- مفهوم الأخ الأكبر:

ان الأخ الأكبر قناع يقدم الحزب نفسه من خلاله الى العالم. ووظيفته هي ان يكون نقطة يتركز فيها الحب والخوف والإجلال

ان النمط القديم من الإشتراكيين، ممن اعتادوا النضال ضد شيء يدعى الإمتيازات الطبقية افترضوا ان ما لا يكون وراثياً لا يمكن ان يكون دائماً... ولم يتوقف هؤلاء الناس قليلاً ليفكروا في ان الارستقراطيات الوراثية كانت قصيرة العمر دائماً في حين ان المؤسسات التي تستطيع ادخال اشخاص جدد، كالكنيسة الكاثوليكية مثلاً، استطاعت الإستمرار مئات السنين او آلاف السنين!

- رواية سوداوية ومحبطة خصوصاً مع تلك النهاية "انه يحب الأخ الأكبر"، لكنها واقعية بالغاية ولو تعددت الوسائل! واذا قمنا بعقد مقارنة بين الرواية والواقع فبعضنا لن يصاب بأي دهشة!.. من يدري

داستان های علمی تخیلی، معمولاً دو جورن:
علمی تخیلی سخت
علمی تخیلی نرم

داستان های علمی تخیلی سخت، به دقت به توصیف تکنولوژی پیشرفته یا ستاره ها و سیارات و قوانین فیزیکی پیرامونشون میپردازه. یعنی کفه ی سنگین داستان بیشتر به طرف علمه تا تخیل. این طور داستان ها به ندرت داستان قدرتمندی دارن. مثال خوب برای علمی تخیلی سخت، فیلم "بین ستاره ای" از کریستوفر نولانه که بیشتر میخواد قوانین کوانتوم و نسبیت راجع به سیاهچاله ها و کرمچاله ها رو نشون بده و داستان قدرتمندی نداره.

در مقابل، علمی تخیلی نرم، بیشتر حول داستان و شخصیت ها و مفاهیم انسانی میگرده و سنگینیش به طرف تخیله تا علم. نویسنده از بستر علمی تخیلی برای بیان حرف ها و اندیشه هاش استفاده کرده، و "علمی بودن" براش خیلی اهمیت نداره.

من بشخصه به علمی تخیلی نرم علاقه ی بیشتری دارم. به نظرم اصلاً داستان علمی تخیلی با��د همین طور باشه: نویسنده از امکانات بی نهایتی که علم و تخیل در اختیارش میذارن استفاده کنه تا مفاهیم انسانی رو نشون بده.

هزار و نهصد و هشتاد و چهار، از این نوعه.

My third time reading this has confirmed something to me.

The world is worse than I originally thought, prayed, or hoped it could be.

It's also easy to scratch the barest surface of Orwell's grand dystopia to see the truth of the world of 1948 or 1984 or 2019 or probably even 2091.

We're all doublethinking all the time. Maybe we believe we're not. Hell, I'd bet that none of us consciously maintain two contradictions in our heads as we juggle the party line... but then, maybe we do. You never know. It is probably about something personal, not political. Maybe it's about saying you love a job you hate, or a spouse, or your own body.

Just applying this to the grand sphere, that people in power got power for the sake of power, and then manipulated us all into believing that we put them there by our own free will, is just a single step further than all the other little lies we keep working so hard to convince ourselves about.

Do you like the way that we deny environmental concerns? Or the future of our energy? Or the very real idea that crop failures stemming from a cascade effect could starve us into near extinction in a single generation? How about the thought that even the most optimistic and drastic of measures in any of these realms is still going to be too little, too late?

We don't even need to look at Orwell's hate-driven society that systematically abuses its populace and then releases them once they're compliant. Just look around us, right now.

Who among us has the single overarching desire to JUST BE LEFT ALONE. Not hassled, not abused, not tormented? This is a far cry from reaching for self-fulfillment, love, and esteem.

I think we're already here. At least we're self-aware enough to know we've always been at war with Eurasia.

Having been written in the late 1940s, 1984 might have seemed so unrealistic and far-fetched as it depicts a world where all we do, think, or say is somehow tracked. The illusion of freedom would only exist so long as no attempt of going against the rules is made. The more I read it, the more I realized such world is in certain ways not that different from what it foresaw when it was written.

At times it made me feel hopeless, and reflect upon on how much resemblance there is with what's going on in the world, however, it really depends on us to change the path that makes us live a better ending.

In spite of it all, I really enjoyed the reading and would definitely recommend it. 4.5 stars rounded up to 5.

Doubleplusgood Maxitruth in Oldspeak on Doublethink and Crimestop!

(Translation from Newspeak: Excellent, accurate analysis of oppressive, selective society in well-written Standard English reflecting on the the capacity to hold two contradictory opinions for truth at the same time and on the effectiveness of protective stupidity as a means to keep a power structure stable.)

There is not much left to say about this prophetic novel by Orwell which has not been said over and over again since its publication at the beginning of the Cold War in 1949. There are obviously elements which refer directly to Stalinist socialism, and the life conditions of people in the 1940s, but what strikes as sadly true, not for Communist propaganda behind the historical Iron Curtain, but for the celebrated democracies in the Western tradition, is the idea of rewriting history and altering facts a posteriori into their opposite to suit political agendas, and the usurpation of scientific and political language to follow a path of absolute brainwashing. Western reality has caught up with 1984 in the era of “alternative facts” instead of falsehoods, and the denunciation of non-existent massacres to create fear, and an increasingly “blackwhite” take on society in general.

Reading this novel for the third time with the speeches of the current President of the United States and his followers ringing in my ears, it is hard not to cringe at the reduction of language that Orwell predicted in "1984" (1949):

"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.”

“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”

Just listening to the current reductionist rhetoric, expressing a less than shallow understanding of basic political thought and knowledge, shows the increasing spread of Newspeak at the highest level of command in democratic societies, claiming to be celebrating education, equality, freedom and human rights.

“So sad! Very dishonest! Total loser! You are fake news! Russia is fake news! The failing NYTimes! It’s great! It’s SO great! You wouldn’t believe how great that is (doubleplusgreat, I assume...). The largest! The best! Running like a fine-tuned machine! The least racist! The most humble! The one with the best polls, for the negative ones are fake!”

- Doublethink and crimestop nonstop!

The problem with dictatorships, and dogmas of a specific faith, is that they will never shy away from usurping and then destroying the generally accepted conventions of communication if it serves their purposes. Thus a creationist believer in the literal truth of the Bible will use the argument of “enquiry”, “controversy” or “evidence” in order to attack real scientists with their own vocabulary, while refusing to question the default setting of their own dogmas, which cannot deliver any evidence at all, being as real as the Bowling Green massacre. The argument of “controversy” is a one-way road to kill opposition with their own weapons while staying safely within the “protective stupidity” (crimestop) of absolute, monofocal faith. The “tolerance” of the open-minded scientist becomes a weapon for the fundamentalist.

(One example of typical crimestop (=protective stupidity) is the Creation Museum in Kentucky, US, advertising their love for science, while starting with the slogan "Be prepared to believe":
"Creationists love science! In fact, the word science means “knowledge.” We invite you to dive into the Bible and the scientific evidence with us to gather as much knowledge about God’s creation as you can. You’ll learn about the different types of science and discover facts and logical arguments you might have never considered. When you start with the Bible as your ultimate authority, you’re ready to discover creation science."
They also have "REAL CREATION SCIENTISTS" (no kidding, they are real, not fake, according to website):
"Did you know the Creation Museum employs PhD creation scientists who teach about anatomy, astronomy, biology, geology, and more from a biblical worldview? ")

The same selective use of language, a consistent tool to exert power in “1984”, can be seen in the Pro Life movement, a violent anti-abortion, anti-contraception fundamentalist Christian group, whose derogatory, misogynistic vocabulary strongly calls Atwood’s The Handmaid's Tale to mind. Their aim, they claim, is to protect unborn life, which sounds honourable until you start to think about their opinions about and treatment of human beings that already dwell on earth: they are conservatives, mostly pro weapons, pro (ideological) wars, pro death penalty, anti welfare, anti climate change and anti health care. That does not rhyme well with the militant need to control female sexuality, labelled protection of the foetus’ right. Controlling sexuality is a major topic in Orwell’s dystopia as well - goodsex being newspeak for chastity.

What struck me as overwhelmingly sad in the main character of "1984", which did not catch my attention the first two times I read the novel, was the breaking down of the man’s sanity and mental capacities, rather than his body. The scary development for Winston Smith is not the prospect of torture, once he starts rebelling against the oppressive (“free”) society, it is the fear to lose his humanity in the process:

“To die hating them, that was freedom.”

This idea, expressed by Ionesco in his fabulous play Rhinocéros as well, is denied Orwell’s main character, however. He is broken, not only physically, but mentally, and after torture of unimaginable dimensions, his closing lines show complete surrender, body and soul, to the evil brainwashing machinery of Big Brother:

“He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother!”

Put this man into the context of an interview on television, where the President of the United States is questioned on his position regarding torture as a means to receive “information”. Dodging the question, he speaks about an undefined opposition “chopping off Christians’ heads”, thus creating the necessary atmosphere of fear to evade direct challenge, and then, in his reduced, stupid language, he says:

“Torture? Do I feel it works? Absolutely, I feel it works.”

And depending on what is your desired outcome (“confession” of facts, alternative or otherwise), it does. Unfortunately. You can force a human being to speak against his or her will, using torture. And as long as you are not finicky regarding the accuracy of the received confession, you will be able to report results. An easy task for any doublethinker.

As for CRIMESTOP - the protective stupidity practised by most dogmatic, orthodox people in all parts of the world - that is the root of the evil. And it can only be challenged with a proper, objective, fact-based, politically and religiously untainted EDUCATION! And please do not confuse that with information! Information, as we know, can be “bad”. Really bad. Rotten. So unfair. So dishonest. The most dishonest information in the world. Total loser information.

Education Against Crimestop Now!

‘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:

‘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.'

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.

2+2=5
وعليك اعتباراها حقيقة مُسلم بها
كيف؟
والمنطق والفكر والمعادلات والدلائل والتاريخ ...إلخ، ليس لها قيمة إذن
فالجهل هو القوة
وأين حريتك في التفكير والرأي!
الحرية هي العبودية
أسوء أنواع القمع، هي تلك التي تُمارس على العق�� والتفكير
أنت لا تملك سوى تلك السنتيميترات المربعة في جمجمتك
لكن حتى تلك، تنوء بِحملها
وملكيتها تُشكل لك خوف ورهبة من أن يظهر ما تُفكر فيه في انفعالاتك
أو على صفحة وجهك أو لغة جسدك
أو حتى أن ينطبع لديك في اللاوعي
فيُصبح أخشى ما تخشاه أن تهلوس به أثناء نومك
قمع فكري، وعملية غسيل للمخ وإعادة صياغته
للدرجة التي توصلك للتشكك في قواك العقلية
أأنت المجنون أم ما يحدث من حولك هو هذيان لا أكثر؟

أكثر الأعمال التي تُبهرني، هي تلك التي تعبث بعقلك
وتغير تفكيرك
تلك التي من المستحيل أن تقرأها ويبقى تفكيرك كما كان قبل قراءتها
تلك التي تصوّر فظاعة الواقع، تجرده وتعريه
وتكشف الحقيقة التي نتغاضى عنها، ونتجنبها
الرواية على الرغم من بعض الملل الذي يتخللها
إلا أن فكرتها تُجبرك على استكمالها
الجزء الأخير منها كارثي وصادم!

أعُجبت بفكرة كتاب غولدشتاين
تلك الحيلة التي أستخدمها أورويل
ليُوضح مقصده وفكرته بتفصيل أكبر
لنُصدم بالحقيقة أكثر

من يملك الماضي يملك المستقبل، من يملك الحاضر يملك الماضي
ووطن بماضي مُزيف، هو وطن لا مستقبل له
اسأل الله ألا يُفقدنا ماضينا، ذاك الشيء الوحيد الذي بقى لنا للتباهي به

هي كما قيل
رواية تُقرأ ثم تُقرأ من جديد

تمّت

What can I say about this book that hasn't already been said by others much smarter than I am? For me it was a 'pathway' book that set me on the on the road of healthy doubt; don't always believe the government/media complex will truthfully reveal the medium for the message. Really believe that Orwell forsaw the spread of fake news we now all are bombarded with everyday.

~ 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.

I prefer 1989

كل ما تشوف صور الرئيس السيسي حفظه الله في الشوارع، اِفتكر الأخ الكبير، وكل ما تشوف الإعلام المصري، افتكر الرواية دي، وغسيل الدماغ اللي بيُمارس علينا.

المؤسسات المصرية أصبحت بتمنح مميزات لمن يبلغ عن (إرهابي) , من فرص
عمل وخلافه , يعني بورقة وسخة ممكن تأذي جارك اللي بينك وبينه مشاكل أو تسجن زميلك اللي بينافسك في الشغل , يعني المفروض نعمل لجورج أورويل مقام ونطوف حواليه.

الرواية التى سنسجن بسببها جميعا , ونوضع فى الأغلال ويركبونا على حمير بالشقلوب ويلفوا بينا الأسواق وهاتف يهتف : انهم يدعون إلى دين جديد , يدعون إلى عدم تقديس الحاكم وسلطته .
إنها الرواية التى يقبض على مالكها (لا فى الاتحاد السوفيتى ولا ما يشبهه) بل فى ام الدنيا مصر .

أنا قرأت كم كتب مترجمه عظيم من حيث الكم (حتى انى وانا صغير) كنت بقول صعب ان حاجه اجنبيه تبهرنى تانى(هطل بعيد عنكم ) . ايه اللى ممكن يبهرنى بعد تولستوى او دستويفسكى او شكسبير او هوجو اوغيرهم وغيرهم .
وخاصة لو روايه ذات طابع سياسى بحت لجوروج اورويل . (انا ما بحبش الروايات السياسيه البحته)

لكنى فوجئت بوجهة نظر مستقبليه عظيمه لاديب صاحب قلم ادبى راقى بيكتب عن النفس الانسانيه بصورة بليغه تجبرك انك تشغل دماغك وتندمج فى العمل الموضوع امامك. عمل يبين لك الحقيقه البشريه فى اسمى واحط صورها.
لو كان اورويل ديكتاتور سابق لم يكن لينجح فى تقديم هذا العمل بهذه الجوده. تحليل دقيق لنظام الحكم القمعى يبين لك كيفية اداء هذه الانظمه .
لمن شاهد فيلم (V for Vendetta ) ممكن يكون فكرة سطحيه عن النظام المقصود . اينعم الروايه حولت لفيلم سينمائى ولكنى لم اشاهده .

1984 تتحدث عن اى نظام قمعى شمولى وكل نظام قمعى شمولى .
الاخ
الكبير هو كل ديكتاتور افتكر نفسه اله فى تاريخ البشريه : هو هتلر هو موسولينى هو عبدالناصر هو صدام هو حافظ الاسد وابنه هو ستالين هو تيتو و فرانكو وسالازار وغيرهم وغيرهم
هو كل حاكم اتخذ من سلطته صنم ليعبده الناس.

1984 هو زمن كل مجتمع متخلف ارتضى ان تسوقه انظمته الى عصور التخلف والجهاله
1984 شهادة وتأريخ سيظل حقيقى الى ان تقوم الساعه.
هى وصمة عار على كل ديكتاتور وعلى كل مجتمع متخلف .
ايها الساده : الادب فى اسمى صوره عندما يؤرخ للماضى والحاضر والمستقبل وهذا ما فعله اورويل