1984 by George Orwell

I've just started reading 1984. I've heard many good things about that book, and everyone here seems to be very positive about it. So I thought: Why not give it a try! And I'm loving it!!!

 

*shrugs* Maybe it explains in sidenotes or something further detail and how it relates to the world now? Or then? Who knows. It IS a pretty simple book. I'm reading it now and I'm really enjoying it.

About the TV thing. Why do people think they "need" it anyway? Really, do they think it's just an innocent box to just WATCH things on? If it really IS so innocent, why do we need commercials to lure us into buying products? I wouldn't be surprised if we are being watched through them.

 

Funnily enough, I've just started reading 1984 too. It's one of those "have to read at some point in your teenage years" books. Damn good so far! I studied Animal Farm last year, and it seems to be along a similar vein.

Someone suggested reading Brave New World if you've read 1984. I know someone who did that and read them quite close together, and it caused problems with separating the two! So I'd suggest leaving a gap (or another couple of books) between them.

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

 

I've learnt a really important lesson from reading this book so far, and I've only gotten like to pg. 50... it's about the importance of education... however much people whine about it, and hate bookworms, education is the only defence we have against leaders such as Big Brother, and I can think of a few in the US/Britain...

Uneducation people are SO easy to manipulate... people sitting in front of a TV for 8 hours a day are so easy to influence, it's really very sad.

 

you have a very valid point there... at the end of the day its us bookworms that have the knowledge and understanding to resist those who take it upon themselves to take advantage of the weak and gulliable... we need to stick together and not give in to the constant harrassment we get (most of which, to the educated mind, is rahter funny)

 

Hmmm. Major movements that had more support amongst the intelligentsia than the general public include pre-war Nazism and eugenics. Watch that false sense of security...

 

there is however a difference between literature and propoganda.. The most important part of education is learning to distinguish between the two.

 

Coincidence or what?...

I've just started re-reading 1984 for the first times in many. many years... just coming to the end of Part 1... and I'm really enjoying this book... so many ideas...

I remember when the mystical date of 1984 actually arrived... greeted with the kind of awe that was only subsequently met with the millenium... just goes to show how much impact this book had upon our society...

Could any contemporary book ever achieve a similar impact upon us?...

Fly...
.
.

 

Don't the, uhh, wars going on in the book, remind you of wars that are going on now?

I swear I'd make every single person in the States read the book, maybe then they'd think twice before supporting a war like the Iraq one, maybe then they wouldn't take everything their leader says for granted, as the absolute truth...

Hmmmm... Ministry of Truth... also reminds me of something... hmmmm... WH?

You know, when you read the book and really think about it, it's not the people themselves, the rich ones or the proles, that are actually doing anything bad... they're just conditioned from a very young age to trust their leader and follow his every order. You can't really blame a robot, because he was instructed to kill somebody, can you?

 

I bought this book a few months ago also and haven't been able to get to read it yet. I have an extensive summer reading list & this will be on it!

 

I'm now reading 1984. I'm not too far into it, but it seems good. Winston seems very paranoid at this point. But if I had to worry about the Thought Police I'd be paranoid too.

 

I generally try to refrain from making "me too" type postings, but that book is so brilliant, and such a classic, that it really is essential reading. It's been a few years since I've read it, yet I still remember a whole flood of warnings and red flags it raises... I have a comment or two, though.

Keep in mind that the government, in the book 1984, did not watch everyone closely. It's just not necessary. Only a very small portion of the populace actually had telescreens. If a government has undue control of even a minority of a population, everyone's rights can be infringed upon. I don't remember that this is stressed in the book, but I think it's an important piece to keep in mind.

It would be a mistake for people to judge the state of liberty today (as some do) by asking "have my own rights been infringed?" or even "do I know anyone whose rights have been infringed?" Even in the most oppressive states, only a small percentage of citizens are directly affected- the rest fall in line out of fear or stop voicing objections simply to conform socially. In the USA, if your constitutional rights are violated as part of an alleged terrorism incident, it's a criminal offense to even tell anyone about it. You might very well know someone personally whose rights have been abused.

 

you might like...

http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/index-man.html
http://www.studentsfororwell.org/

http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/go-now.html

I read the book when i was 16 , i loved . I did not realy understand everything within it , but still enjoyed the love story. I have not read it since . But aspects of life i see know and were more than likely around when i first read it , do make me think 'oh yeah'. Its quite a seminal book

I thought the film did it no justice at all....

if you like it you may like The futurlogical congress



http://www.swcp.com/hypertoad/vivisect/textual/l.html

http://www.cyberiad.info/english/dziela/dziela.htm

Thats prety good as well ... its a bit like the first matrix film i think . Not entirely but questioning what is real and unreal is within the book quite a lot.

 

Matthew, I'm amazed to see your mention of The Futurological Congress. That just happens to be the book I was reading when my wife and I met and moved in together 20-something years ago. I really liked it, and I was talking about it in chat just the other day. It truly startled me to see it!

One additional point might be worth noting with regards to the book 1984. In some ways, the powers held by the Bush Administration are worse than even depicted in the book. Given that our entire lives are documented electronically, from every call we make, every purchase, every library book checked out, every financial transaction, every detail revealed in every medical exam or procedure- and we're caught on videotape at every major intersection. All of this data can be examined by law enforcement without our being informed of it, and if we find out, it is not legal to tell anyone that we've even found out. This applies to all US citizens, not just government employees, as in Orwell's book.

Even as dismal as 1984 appears to be, it describes a government with drastically less capability than is held by the US government today. No government ever in human history has had such unmonitored power, so there's nothing even remotely similar for comparison.

We're on new ground. This has never been tried by any government EVER. It remains to be seen where we're going, but Frank Zappa, before he died, warned that the road has only one destination: Fascism. He even predicted that the Bush family would be at the helm when our civil liberties are finally trashed completely. Man I miss that dude...

 

Serendipity works in many pleasant ways..


I bought that cover version of the book about 7 years ago...its stuck with me because its very very good.

 

Yeah, and has anyone noticed how there was this war going on all the time against some unknown and ever changing enemy, with victories being broadcast over the telescreens but never setbacks and it was to keep everyone in order and working hard... The War on Terror???

 

One week we're arming and training Sunnis and Republican Guard officers, and helping them track down and kill Shiites, the next week we're helping the Shia hunt down and kill Sunnis and Republican Guard. We've switched sides so many times I'm beginning to lose track of which damn side "we" are even on. I remember for sure that we were first against Sunnis and the RG, that we then HIRED Saddam's entire police-state structure, then fired them and declared them to be the enemy. Then we decided they were the good guys after all, but now... okay, I've lost track of it.

Precisely as described by Orwell, no one finds this in any way contradictory to anything.

 

I just started reading 1984 too. One of the things that struck me was the similarity between Goldstein and Ben Laden, the unseen enemy of the Party, once beloved (the Bush family's ties with the Saudis) and now hiding in foreign lands, never meant to be actually caught or even really seen for that matter. And every morning Headline News brings us our Two Minutes Hate. And that was just in chapter one,

 

1984 is one of my favorites! I have seen a lot of people on here mentioning the book Brave New World for people that liked 1984... & it is very good as well. I really liked the ideas the book had about what the future could turn into, but I thought the characters & story kind of fizzled out at the end ~ But it is still worth reading!

There are a couple of other books that should be mentioned here ~
Farenheit 451 (not to be confused with the new Michael Moore film!) is a wonderful book that everyone should read (& not just for school). It is about a future where people become obsessed with television & other entertainment... so the government outlaws & burns all books & most people really don't care.

Another book that is along these lined is The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Most people have never heard of this one, but I think people on this forum would love it! In this book radiation (from what I remember) makes it much harder for women to be able to become pregnant & have children... and so the government basically takes away their rights completely & forces the healthier women to sleep with the more important male leaders that have been unable to have children with their wives. I love how the government changes things slowly in the beginning so that no one notices what is going on until it is too late!

Happy reading!!

 

The Handmaid's Tale... sounds very familiar but I've not read it... is that the book that the movie A Boy and His Dog was based on? Somehow that's what comes to mind.

Regarding 1984, I saw this online test about the book:

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/1984/quiz.html