Paperback, 384 pages
English language
Published Oct. 6, 2003 by Penguin Books.
Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the needs of the Party. Yet he inwardly rebels against the totalitarian world he lives in, which demands absolute obedience and controls him through the all-seeing telescreens and the watchful eye of Big Brother. In his longing for truth and liberty, Smith begins a secret love affair with fellow-worker Julia, but soon discovers a nightmare world where love is hate, war is peace and the true price of freedom is betrayal. --back cover
Excellent, yet depressing book depicting a dystopic society that has way too much verisimilitude. A must-read.
Definitely will not rate the book. I know why it's important it's there but I hated the book.
George Orwell is indisputably the greatest didactic writer in the English language since Samuel Johnson. As an essayist, he is a nonpareil, and his insights — which he modestly characterized as "a power of facing unpleasant facts" — are remarkable, original, and biting. The scintillating force of his pen shines most brightly in his essays and his memoirs.
The very power of his personal prose that gives such force to his essays and memoirs, however, leaves his fiction curiously flat. For all his insight, he seems to lack the ability to free his characters to lead independent fictional lives. A person reading Orwell's novels for their characterization would shoot himself.
Such is the force, clarity, and originality of Orwell's ideas, however, and the freshness of his candor, that it is easy to forgive the flat characterization and intrusive narration of the novels. And while each generation seems to find some …
George Orwell is indisputably the greatest didactic writer in the English language since Samuel Johnson. As an essayist, he is a nonpareil, and his insights — which he modestly characterized as "a power of facing unpleasant facts" — are remarkable, original, and biting. The scintillating force of his pen shines most brightly in his essays and his memoirs.
The very power of his personal prose that gives such force to his essays and memoirs, however, leaves his fiction curiously flat. For all his insight, he seems to lack the ability to free his characters to lead independent fictional lives. A person reading Orwell's novels for their characterization would shoot himself.
Such is the force, clarity, and originality of Orwell's ideas, however, and the freshness of his candor, that it is easy to forgive the flat characterization and intrusive narration of the novels. And while each generation seems to find some pundit who dismisses Orwell's dark vision in 1984 as passe, fresh revelations of the octopus-like stranglehold of the National Security Agency over the daily minutiae of the the lives of 300 million Americans gives proof daily of how prescient Orwell was. Big Brother is indeed watching.
Scariest book I have ever read.
