3.5 ⭐️

"Always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed - no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull."

What a terrifyingly appropriate read! Big Brother controls all - via a group known only as 'The Party'. You do what The Party tells you, you read what The Party tells you to read and you think what The Party tells you to think.
Winston is one such man. He works in an office that belongs to The Party, his job being to doctor and change newspapers and other paperwork when 'facts change'. Because in this horrifying dystopian world, the past changes all the time. Who is at war with who? Who is a criminal, and who is against The Party. Who has committed what they refer to as 'thought crimes'. Even your own mind is not your own if your facial expression can give away your true feelings.

Each house, building and even the streets is equipped with a 'telescreen' so all acts can be viewed at all times. No privacy, constant fear, no escape.

Winston struggles with the way The Party rules the Country. How is it that Oceania is at war with Eurasia - when just 4 days ago it was at war with Eastasia? But no one will admit this, what The Party says goes, it has always been at war with Eurasia, where would anyone get such false information?

When he hears of The Brotherhood - a rebel group determined to bring down The Party and all it stands for; Winston is determined to join. He meets a woman, they vow to work together with The Brotherhood. But how long until The Party discovers their treachery? And what will they do when they find out?

The world Orwell has created is truly frightening. Incredible to think this was written in 1948 and the fact that it still resonates so strongly in the present really speaks to the way the world and humanity is, and the horrors we are capable of.

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

This changed the way that I looked at ideologies and changed the way I looked at leadership. Cynical, scathing, and not without its flaws, this is still a stark, haunting glimpse at what could be.

“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”

Chilling.

** 2018 addendum - it is a testament to great literature that a reader recalls the work years later and this is a book about which I frequently think. The scene that I most often think is when Winston and Julia are captured.

** 2019 reread - Lost in my memory was to what extent Orwell describes and explains his nightmare.
Winston Smith cautiously and surreptitiously learns about the Brotherhood led by Goldstein and then learns all too well about doublethink.

More than just a cautionary political tale, Orwell has described an ideological abyss into which we must not gaze; a glimpse at authoritarianism power plays to which the Nazis and Soviets never descended. While we can appreciate the reminder to avoid authoritarianism and his prophetic vision, the idea that truth can be arranged through media is perhaps the most relevant for us today.

*** 2020 reread

This time around I focused on the human side of this iconic novel – especially the relationship between Winston and Julia. In the past I have somewhat overlooked Julia as a character and thought that Orwell had neglected to form a strong female character, however I now think that she is every bit as strong as Winston and plays a central role in Orwell’s message.

Whereas Winston hates the party and wants to overturn it, Julia is much more practical and realistic in her rebellion. Winston thinks about the nature of the totalitarianism in abstract ways, Julia uses the terms of doublethink against the party and makes her frank sexuality a systematic rejection of party principle.

While Orwell was forming a cautionary tale based upon his own experience in writing against authoritarian regimes like Stalin’s, Hitler’s (both actually named in the text) and by extension Moa, Mussolini and Franco, it occurs to me that the irony of Winston’s dystopia is at least to some degree focused on the party members themselves. Winston embodies the use of media as propaganda and to disseminate inaccurate statements that prop up the party. In today’s world we are already seeing this kind of abrogation of truth in favor of party purity.

Every bit as timeless and relevant as it has ever been.

*** 2023 reread -

I think we all have had a situation similar to this: we search on the internet for something and then we start seeing advertisements related to our earlier search. That seems reasonable enough, understandable at least.

What about this situation though: we have a VERBAL discussion with our spouse, alone in our kitchen, and then we start seeing advertisements about the subject of our speech.

Wait a minute. OK, I’ve got an Amazon echo, they must have heard us talking.

Wait a minute: heard us talking? In the “privacy” of our home? And who is they?

The fear of surveillance has risen to an alarming level in the past few years and we can look back to 1948 and Orwell’s tale as one source of this anxiety.

I’m in my early 50s as I write this and my generation was raised to be somewhat suspect of governmental intrusions and overreach, taught to be vigilant against totalitarianism. We lived in the time of the Soviet Union and we were taught to be mindful of surveillance and propaganda.

But what if the surveillance does not come from government?
What if what we were taught was itself not wholly correct or accurate?

A young person recently told me that they had read 1984 in high school in the past 3-4 years so this gave me some hope about the next generation.

As a press officer in the military, I had a hand, as did Winston Smith, in shaping the news and thus history. If in my little corner of history, I cropped photos, erasing some people’s involvement in an event, destroying the full accurate record of what happened, then extrapolate this ability at official omission and you can begin to see how easily can the truth be tweaked to match a desired narrative.

This book is as provocative as ever, maybe more so in our strange political climate. More than anything else, this is a thought provoking novel, we are required to think critically about what Orwell states and he invites us, page after page, to think and rethink what we know and how we have been led to know it.

If we “know” something is true, why do we know that? HOW do we know that truth? Like Faulkner’s Absalom! Absalom! We are asked to consider our source and to be at least a little skeptical, of everything.

In this reread, I also made notice of the casual violence that creeps up into Winston’s thoughts. Was Orwell suggesting that the subrogation of Winston’s natural feelings caused an aggressive response in him? Does injustice and tyranny lead to subconscious of animosity?

Orwell describes how Proles represent 85% of Oceania, we see the propaganda and party policy from the perspective of the party, of a party member who actually initiates the remaking of news and thus history. The Party makes up 15% and the inner party is only about 2%. It occurred to me that I’m a Prole, most of us are on the outside looking in. Like George Carlin said, “it’s a club, and we’re not in it.” Did the Proles care anymore? Did they pay attention to the “news” or were they more like Julia, and only played the part for the surveillance state?

I’m going to buy copies of this book for the young people in my life.

Hello friends. Let’s chat for a second here.

This is 1984. It was written by George Orwell. Maybe you were forced to sit down and read it in high school, and you hated it because you were in high school, and you had to take quizzes and write essays and stuff as you read it.

But high school is over, alright?

You’re out there in the real world right now being an adult (I’m not going to say “adulting” because, come on, that’s stupid). You’re out there in the real world, you’re working, maybe in college or pursuing another form of higher education. You have a spouse or something, kids, a pet, a car. You have your own place. You make your own decisions.

It’s a different day and age. That’s what I’m saying. No one is going to come force you to read, okay? No one is expecting you to read this book and write a 500 word essay about the symbolism or whatever.

I’m just a regular guy out here making a simple suggestion. I’m nobody. I’m just an average dude wandering around my slice of North America with basic thoughts and opinions about things.

All I’m suggesting if you read this book sometime.

Especially now.

Yeah, it’s still relevant. Yeah, it’s still creepy. Yeah, Orwell is right about a lot of this stuff. Here we are in 2018 and a book called 1984 written in 1949 is still important. Alright? Just take some time to read it.

It doesn’t have to be now. Not tomorrow. Not even soon, I guess. Just sometime before you die. Maybe sometime in the next few months. Just fit it into your busy schedule and your stack of books.

You know what it’s about. You know you should read it. You know people love it. What are you waiting for? It’s not gonna show up on your doorstep begging to be read. Get out and go get it. Sit down and read it.

That’s all.

Talk to you guys later.