Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #186 in Books
• Published on: 2004-01-29
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Synopsis
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, symbolic head of the Party. In his longing for truth and liberty, Smith begins a secret love affair with a fellow-worker Julia, but soon discovers the true price of freedom is betrayal.

Customer Reviews

Worth a look
Its amazing this book was wrote in the forties. Its very modern and alot of what George Orwell wrote come true, very worrying. Maybe not his best work, still a classic though. Sixty years later and 1984 is still going strong. He has, in my opinion wrote better books but I would definitely recommend this book. Orwell's last masterpiece.

The greatest dytopian novel? Certainly the most influential.
The book that gave us 'Orwellian', 'Room 101' and 'Big Brother', but it gave us so much more.

Orwell's final and greatest novel is a wonderful combination of important ideas expressed in simple language. It is an easy read and can be read in a short time, but will remain with you long afterwards. It challenges you to review how you interact with society and most importantly the state.

One of the major themes that is often overlooked is that which examines why we are good or bad. Is it because we want to be good or is it that we are afraid of punishment if we are bad.

Another interesting theme is the use and abuse of language, Orwell believed that the very language one uses influences how one thinks. He examines how, by the restriction of language, the state can restrict ideas.

Of course Orwell wrote the novel as an examination of one possible future and it is both fun and frightening to compare his predictions with the course history has taken. Indeed, whole passages can leave you thinking "My God, he was right."

Is it relevant today?
I read this book having been unable to ignore the hype surrounding it. As with anything like this you usually stand to be dissapointed, but I was pleasantly surprised at how the book fitted my expectations very well.
The story is slightly sketchy in some places but this is the beauty of it - it keeps a good pace and concentrates on the authors suggestions of possible government structure in 1984 rather than centralising on the characters too much.

Where the characters are heavily detailed, this is to help create a tangible picture of the points the author is trying to make.

The words in our everyday use which originated from this book are taken for granted by us i.e. "Big Brother", "Room 101", And the author paints a powerful picture of their meaning.

Whilst writing this book in the 1940's, George Orwell obviously tried to predict the kind of technology we would be using by 1984 - and this must have seemed a world away for him. However, by 1984 the technology he had spoken of was easily possible and currently is far surpassed.

The overall setting of the story seems (at points) impossible to comprehend, but when you break down each part of Oceanic society and the circumstances that created it, it is generally easy to see "some" similarity with our own situation in the 21st century.