Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2490306 in Books
• Published on: 1983-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 314 pages

Customer Reviews

A chilling tale of totalitarian Despotism
This was a magnificently written book by one of Britains great authors. It kept me entertained for the three days it took me to read it and kept me thinking about it for another two weeks. Once you read this book you begin to realise that we are living in an increasingly 'big-brother' orientated world, with an increase in numbers of CCTV on the streets, Police Helicopters with cameras that can see you anywhere anytime and an increase of police militancy on the streets. they tell us its to protect us and it is, but its also a weapon against us. This Book was George Orwells warning to us all, a parting shot if you like and it should be heeded. but apart from this a thouroughly Grasping read!!

I am a fan of this work, but some take it too far.
Many of the reviewers on this page are part of the pre-millenium paranoia that seems to have gripped our country in a solid grasp in the last few years. What many of the people who have joined this movement fail to realize is that they have done just what Orwell warned against, becoming part of a faceless movement. All that need be given to form a mindless mob is a galant cause, and the destruction of the evil "new world government" fits that bill perfectly. What these people fail to realize is that the individuals trying to violate our homes, and ultimately our brains, are the pervayors of capitalism itself; that is the owners of huge corporate conglomerates , private individuals that have a larger motivation than world domination . . . greed. So, go ahead and buy this book on a computer built by a huge monopolizing business, over an "internet" that has exposed your personal knowledge to thousands of people (a service wich you pay for), using a credit card which holds you constantly in debt to a group of people which you have never even seen. Know then, that some lessons are never learned.

1984 - more "contemporary" than ever!
Having just re-read 1984 it struck me that, whilst the quality of the writing is "timeless," (Orwell constructs a better sentence than most "literary artists"), the book's themes get more and more frightening as Western culture decays toward the millennium. My first school reading was in the days when 1984 was literally "the future," (even though Orwell had always intended it as a satire on contemporary Britain, with "1948" the originally intended title); in England today the resonances are especially profound, and what looked "old-fashioned" to 'sixties and 'seventies sci-fi readers has gained a new and bleaker realism. We're beginning to catch up with the US when it comes to presidential-style "leadership" and "spin," whilst the rewriting of history - with its horrible parallels with the politically correct mythologies espoused in transatlantic universities and the like - is already being implemented, with particular regard to the guilty denial of the achievements of the British Empire, (whilst the Roman and Greek civilisations still manage to escape trendy censure).

The worst shock comes with the realisation that everything 1984 says about the manipulation and reduction of thought by language-control, (Doublethink and Newspeak, respectively), is demonstrably happening right now. Things you can't say become thoughts you can't think, and an attempted conversation with most contemporary English youths on the street will reveal how hard it has become for our ill-educated masses actually to formulate rational thought: what you get is a monotonic patois recitation of received simplistic opinion - or a boot stamping on your face, followed by a law-suit for your assault on them! One recent encounter left me with the reflection that we are so far from Shakespeare one could weep; then I read 1984 again, where Orwell has Winston wake up one morning with the name on his lips, a fleeting memory of a better past. The book is brilliantly written, shockingly painful and horribly, horribly relevant! (It's also fantastically entertaining and often very funny). Read it, read it again, and read it to your children!