1984
 

I just read this book and thought it was very good.

I love the quotes:
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength

They seem not contradict eachother but they make perfect sense in the book. Greatly reccommend the book to anyone. Any comments?

1984,
I was in So Cal in the USMC
War is Peace a nessary Evil
Freedom is Slavery Well if you feel that way go find a dictatership to live in
Ignorance is Strength nice to not to have to worry about it , ain't it ???

***SPOILER***
(just being polite in case anyone hasn't read it)

I first read this book when I was too young to fully appreciate the political content, but even then it was a damn good read. When the voice from the hidden telescreen tells Julia snd Winston, "You are the dead" it shocked me so profoundly I dropped the book.

Back in the 80s, everything seemed to be being abbreviated, or spelled in a simplistic way (Kwik-Fit for example). Of all the small details in the book, it was this that made me worry that the book was prophectic after all.

And David Bowie's album of the same name is double plus good.

I like the Eurythmics Album for the movie, the one that didn't end up being used by the filmmaker.

It's an intense book, one of my favorites. I reread it every few years to see if my reaction to it has changed.

I had to look this up, as I remembered the soundtrack from watching the film (in an English Literature lesson - how cool is that?) but knew I could be wrong - it's a long time ago now....

According to www.annie-lennox.com, most of it was used:

I read that book and did an abstract of a case-book on it for my high school senior english project. It was a very good book, and as I had to do the case book on it I had to really think about what the book was saying. I would recommend it to anyone. And to think, I only picked that book because it was the year I was born. I hadn't heard about it before. Fascinating.

I read that book in 1984 (I read everything I could get my hands on when I was in middle school) and thought to myself at the time how horrible it would be to live that way. Now, 22 years later, we're getting closer and closer to it in the US.

If you haven't read it, please do. It may result in your being a lot more interested in how your government holds your fate in their hands and more actively involved in changing the trend toward totalitarianism in the US.

Now I want you to write a three page essay on why America is the best country in the world. After that I want you to write a two page essay on why democracy is the best system of government. Then go watch some MTV and you will realize why America is so great.

Jesus. What a way to make a guy feel old. 1984 was the FUTURE, not the past.

I loved 1984. Awesome book. We covered it in English and I just became so utterly absorbed in it. Then when Eurythmics did the music for the film I was delighted! I was a big Eurythmics fan back then *grins*.

One of the thing I love about 1984, was that Orwell allowed the ending to be...disturbing and bleak. I think it's one of the best examples of a very British kind of vision.

Of course, what's interesting is that the techniques used in 1984, if I remember them correctly, did not meet the initial definition of torture that the U.S. proposed between 2001-2004.

Orwell got the date wrong, but as it was written in 1948 and he changed the last 2 digits around, he got closer than anyone else has.
Excellent book about ruling by fear to the point where a man betrays the woman he loves.

"underneath the spreading chestnut tree; where i sold you and you sold me."

"DO IT TO JULIA!"

We recently saw a film adaptation in a little blackbox theatre and quite enjoyed it.

I read this book a few years ago, also and found myself deeply disturbed for several weeks afterwards. I think it was good for me, though. It altered my perspective.

1984 was one of my inoculations against collectivist totalitarianism.

For a look at a subtler, less Soviet-style hellish dystopia, try Brave New World as a companion volume. They are like two bookends.

Brave New World was a lot better, if you ask me.

Have you read any other orwell books Urbane? I am thinking for example of Homage to Catalonia, or The Road to Wigan Pier.

Orwell was a socialist. What gives 1984 its power is that it is written by someone who had a profound belief in workers' rights and the possibilities that abound in revolution. It was not (as is it is sometimes read to be) an attack on the left, nor on socialism. It is a satire on the possibility of political tyrrany in the future; an attack on the betrayal of the left by those who were supposed to inspire fairness, of the communist elite who had forgotten what they were fighting for and of the labour government who had done so little for the rights and living standards of workers in Britain.

Political tyranny comes in many forms Urbane.....not all of them are collectivist. The system which Orwell saw as most culpable in the world was that of capitalism.

I read the beginning of Brave New World but stopped, I'm planning on finishing it sometime by the end of the year.

Good book, I actually don't know why I stopped. Supposedly their is a book called "We" that is like both "1984" and "Brave New World". Haven't looked into it yet.

Both Brave New World and 1984 are extremely powerful works, forming, as UG has said, two bookends framing the dystpias' of the human race. I read them both in my early teens, way back in the sixties, and from my perspective both have become chillingly prophetic, from Orwell's double-speak (the now de-facto mode for our current politicions) and mind-control to Huxley's geneteic engineering and designer babies.

"We" is interesting, but not as good a read as either Brave New World or 1984. Here is an online version. I briefly skimmed it, seems to all be there (I read a borrowed copy years ago myself, but I think I remember the salient points).

I finished BNW wishing our Government controlled us with soma.... I finished 1984 wanting to read everything that Geo Orwell wrote. Dana - Homage to Catalonia is in my Top 10 books of all time. I take it as a stand-by anywhere that I'm unsure of the travel time or the wait at the other end. I've read it waiting for so many job interviews over the years that it automatically has a calming effect on me now.

I prefer Voltaire, y'know? I don't know why...I guess I just like saying, "Voltaire."

Read Animal Farm (loved) read BNW (loved) and Atlas Shrugged (despised) but never 1984. Do the above reads exempt me from reading 1984?

What was it that you despised about Rand? Was it just AS or have you tackled the Fountainhead too?

I know a number of people who have a love have relationship with the book, as well as the philosophy therein.

I liked them - but I no longer agree philosophically with the books as I did when I first read them. I don't have the time or mental energy to dig into them again and figure out what changed about me. I wish I did, but I don't :(

Well, for starters, her Luke and Laura-like plot--man rapes woman and then raped woman falls in love with rapist. RIIIIIIIIght.

Hated FountainHead even more.

Hate her politics. Odious.

Ever read Nathaniel Branden's bio of her?

Read it. Read it for the story at least. It will round out the cultural allusions you've heard for years.

And bear in mind that many of the ridiculous shortages suffered by the populace were fact at the time Orwell wrote it. To an extent we still are subject to baffling shortages. As Bill Bryson noted in Notes From A Small Island - try getting bread from a British supermarket on a Saturday afternoon! Or in my experience, any kind of fruit at all after 14.00 on Sundays.

Not to hijack the thread, but if you haven't read Notes then I suggest you do - especially those of you with a sympathy for this sceptered isle. It's very affectionate rather than warts n all, but it made me laugh so hard I disturbed a whole carriage on the Circle & District line one drowsy weekday afternoon.

Brianna, the ones you've read are great books, but I think 1984 is a better story. The plot is genuinely engaging and the characters have a very three dimensional feel. The love story between Winston and Julia is beautiful and tragic. Well worth a read:)

I'll chime in here that 1984 is a good book. Actually good to read in addition to being important.

FYI: wolf inspired me to listen to the Eurythmics' 1984 movie soundtrack on my commute home last night. I love 80's synthesizer music.

Bowie's Diamond Dogs is better, IMHO.

Diamond Dogs :) Man I loved that album. I remember my best mate and I were mad into Bowie when we were about 15, and we found a copy of Diamond Dogs in a second hand record shop. We went halves on it :P

Vangelis, soundtrack to Blade Runner.

IMNSHO--Annie Lennox sucked!

Die!!!!! .......okay that might be a tad over the top, but c'mon.....St Annie?

Vangelis! what a fantastic score. I had that on tgape years ago, don't know what happened to it.....I really should download it sometime.

Thanks. Playing it right now.

You can't seriously mean that. You must have know someone evil in your childhood who resembled her, and you've transferred those bad memories to a very talented musician and singer. Surely, an unbiased review of her music would never lead to the conclusion you found.

if you like Vangelis, you'll probally like one of his earlier works, L'Apocolys des Animaux', from not long after he left Aphrodites' Child..

1984, Brave New World....

A Handmaid's Tale is a more recent addition to that particular bookshelf. By Margaret Atwood, it's very disturbing. But hard to put down and forget about.

I always thought Albedo 0.39 and Heaven and Hell were far superior to the Bladerunner soundtrack, and hands down better than Chariots of Fire.

Sorry, never really did like her. Fingernails on a chalkboard. Her voice, I mean...as far as musical talent I am not one to judge, but that song where she wails about some boat sinking makes me ill.

Sorry if I've offended.

i've seen the film (was it Dennis Hopper?!) but not read the book. the film was disturbing too.

Robert Duvall.

The book is better, but I was impressed by the movie.

Animal Farm too -- a metaphorical tale about human cussedness, really. And I'm about halfway through Zamyatin's We. In places, it's funny, in a creepy sort of way. If lives were made in an old-fashioned factory, they'd look like this.

And oh yeah -- Down And Out In Paris And London. That's the lot.

Hated Animal Farm, thought 1984 was enjoyable but a bit light. By the time I'd read either book I had already explored the socio-political content in other books, movies, discussions.

Orwell's style is kind of stilted too.

Freedom is Slavery. This is what causes apathy and self-destruction in many (upper-)middle class kids. When you have few worries and nearly limitless options for how to live your life it can be really hard to identify what to pursue. Life eventually batters the problem out of most people, but a glut of options can easily hidebound anyone (ever tried to configure or design a very complex system?).

Grant, well said.

Clearly, it would be necessary to the best adapted (in the psychological sense) psyche not merely to have an array of options, a large one or a small, but to actually bring them into being, to make them, each and every one.

This would be why self-made men so seldom suffer from that kind of anomie. It wasn't just that they were too busy.

And it would matter in what stage of your life you read 1984. I read it in adolescence, and Animal Farm also.