Nineteen Eighty-Four | 
 enlarge | Author: George Orwell
Creators: Thomas Pynchon, Erich Fromm, Daniel Lagin
Publisher: Plume
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
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Rating:  70 reviews
Sales Rank: 2285
Media: Paperback
Pages: 368
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.4 x 1.1
ISBN: 0452284236
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780452284234
Publication Date: May 6, 2003
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Condition: Brand new item. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: B20081202223058T
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Product Description
Thought Police. Big Brother. Orwellian. These words have entered our vocabulary because of George Orwell's classic dystopian novel, 1984. The story of one man's nightmare odyssey as he pursues a forbidden love affair through a world ruled by warring states and a power structure that controls not only information but also individual thought and memory, 1984 is a prophetic, haunting tale.
More relevant than ever before, 1984 exposes the worst crimes imaginable-the destruction of truth, freedom, and individuality.
With a new forward by Thomas Pynchon.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 65 more reviews...
Through a dark mirrior, George Orwell's world of 1984 December 8, 2003
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
There are many different types of books out there: fiction, non-fiction, science fiction, fantasy, horror, history, and biography. But only a few of them have the same impact that George Orwell achieves in his book 1984. It seems part paranoid fantasy, part tribute to the malleability of the human psyche, and part historical allegory.
The issues, even presented in the outdated means that they are, still ring true for our modern society. The line between patriotism and nationalism is a thin one, and one that Americans look at each day. But in Orwell's world that line was crossed, and the result was a totalitarian government beyond anything most of us can imagine. With the government controlling all jobs, information, deeds, and actions, even to the smallest thought of their peoples, his world is stark and horrible to those of us used to a freedom. But the steps into that world are not that far away from our modern media control. In his world of 1984 the media serves the purpose of brainwashing the populace at large, and an ongoing war keeps the pressure on. And while some may claim that the media in our own country has the same control over us, in his world, the media is the government, and has no other agenda than that which the government sets forth.
The strange part is that all of this occurs to us, through the eyes of the main character, Winston Smith, as he falls in love with a young woman named Julia. In Oceania, the nation-state in which Smith lives, love is not allowed, and not tolerated. Winston Smith is, in essence, an insurgent in his own nation. He sleeps each night knowing that something is wrong, but not being able to say exactly what. As a reader we can see exactly the horrors to which he is made to endure, and though they might make us scream and shout, he is unmoved. But love draws him out of that sheltered reality, and into open insurgency against his own nation.
This is the beginning of the end for Wilson, as the romance, and the pleasures, are short lived. Like a terrible wave the police of the world he inhabits come crashing down upon him to break his spirit. The way they torture him is gruesome, and should offend anyone who values our human rights. But in the end, Wilson himself comes to love "Big Brother" the face of the state of Oceania. He forgets his insurgency, through a conscious adaptation of his logic processes. He has to know that whatever the nation does is right, even when it contradicts what he has experienced in the recent past. In Orwell's words, Doublethink.
These are just the surface issues that come across in Orwell's vision world the deeper issues are buried. As in, how could such a world come to exist? Well, he explains that after World War 2, there came a mighty nuclear war that wiped out most of the population centers of the world. And that out of the nuclear ash arose a political methodology that swept the nations, a kind of socialism that blended into totalitarianism. This totalitarian regime took hold and great purges, on the scope of the great purges in the early communist USSR, ran across the world as we know it. 3 stable nations were born: Oceania (The Americas, the Pacific Islands, Australia, and England), Eastasia (China, Mongolia, The Indonesian Peninsula, and Japan), and Eurasia (All of Europe save England, and all of the Former USSR). The rest of the world was in a constant state of conquest by one of these 3 super-nations, with the captured populations used as slaves. The constant state of war between the nations served to keep control over the people within the nations.
This is a world devoid of hope. Indeed, devoid of any emotions except hatred, fanatical delight in the war effort, and the obedience to the governments of the nations. This is the worst vision of what the Nazis in Germany hoped to accomplish in their conquests. A world without any laws, but what the government states to be true at that moment. A world where people disappear, but no one notices, or even cares, a world of total devotion to the state as a whole, without regard to creed, race, or social status.
It isn't often that the characters in a book become common usage in the world at large, but the phrase "Big Brother is watching you" has become synonymous with the government watching over its citizens. It shows up today in almost everyday speech. Especially when people are talking right to privacy issues. This seems apt, as privacy is one of the things that Wilson Smith never had, and will never have. Big Brother (the government) watched his every move of his life, recorded his every word, and rifled through his belongings at their leisure. This book is the origin of that phrase.
Orwell gives us a black and white view of the virtues of that world, and its drawbacks. The astounding thing is that it isn't still more talked about. We have, most of us, read this book. But how many too the time to understand the social and political ramifications it speaks of? I will from now on, that is for sure.
Fiction or Prophecy? June 1, 2003
J.H. (Beaverton, OR)
39 out of 45 found this review helpful
Winston Smith, member of the Outer Party, a small, petty cog in the great machination of "Big Brother", tries to step out from the shadow of his life in George Orwell's now masterpiece, "1984". Written over 50 years ago, this book was to serve several purposes, one being a warning to the present that a future like this, however fantastic and unbelievable, could be in the making should we allow for it to happen. Winston leads the dull life of a worker, not encouraged to think, or dream, for feel for himself. His whole life must be driven to support the Party, which promulgates an apparent non-entity Big Brother as the supreme one. Winston early on shows the spark of individuality that the Party so wants to extinguish; by daring to write a journal on his own, he seals his fate early in the story. Soon he meets Julia, another worker, who charms and dares him even further to enocurage having an affair. Together they make a lethal pair, and some lethal decisions, which leads to the great climax in the Ministry of Love. What lies in the story is an amazing prophecy of government gone mad. The Party believes in creating present truths by writing and rewriting the past on its whim. The Party understands in order to control the people, it must control the language, thereby, creating "Newspeak". The Party makes people simply vanish, eradicating them from existance. The Party realizes the people who follow are merely plebians in society, and therefore, should be encouraged to not think for themselves. In fact, the Party is able to directly lie to the people, using "doublethink", where they say one thing but mean the other. How much of Orwell's nightmare is something that can be true today? Do we have a government out of control, one that manipulates information for its own benefit, to justify war, ensure fear and terror reigns over the country; one that illegally detains people without trial, right to counsel, or even being charged with a crime; one that wants to extensively monitor our personal phone calls, e-mails, the books we check out of the library, the things we buy in stores. The dots are there to connect them; the challenge is, will you dare to do it, like Winston Smith dared? I believe 1984 is ultimately a hopeful book. Orwell wants to challenge humanity, that during times of crisis, we are able to rise up and change things, so the fateful prophecy so nobly and horrifyingly espoused in 1984 , will only stay between the covers of the book. The choice is up to us.
Life Altering April 12, 2005
Shane Heneghan (Europe)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Here is the book that first got me thinking about politics and philosophy.
This is Orwell's dystopia of how he feared the world would become run by a group of cahooting despots by 1984.
The main character, Winston Smith, lives in London in a dictatoeship run by "big brother". In this state there is no love but love for big brother. There is no excitment but patriotism. Chocolate is rationed and orgasms are banned. In this world smith somehow manages to fall in love.. and that's just the start of his problems.
1984 warns us to be wary of those who might take our freedom whilst trying to convince us we are actually gaining extra liberty. Buy it.
** HOW PROPHETIC ** January 22, 2005
Christine M. Tynes (Virginia Beach, VA)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
This is one of those classics that I never got around to reading while in high school (it was required, but I just didn't read it ;)... At the request of a colleague I picked this book up last year and was blown away by point of the book. In the chaotic and unclear times we live in, I recommend this book to anyone and everyone who wants to understand what the point of the elite is and what the point of government is. Everything is about control and power ... AND KEEPING IT. We live in the novel 1984 ... and that's scary. Should be required reading for all Americans.
Among the Literary Greats for Reason September 15, 2005
Melkor (Angband)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
It seemed so innocuous, just sitting there wedged between two other books on the shelf, collecting dust with the others on my "yet to read" list. I may have passed it by altogether had it not been for the fact that I needed to complete my three hundred pages for the second quarter of my junior year. Besides, I'd read this author's work before and knew that I enjoyed his writing fairly well. So, without realizing what I was plunging into, I picked up George Orwell's 1984; the most unceremonious beginning for a most extraordinary event.
As I unconsciously flipped the pages, not realizing that I was still me and not Winston Smith, the story's protagonist, barely cognizant, in fact, that this was a book and not reality, I was dimly aware that this was something special; something far beyond what I had been expecting. If Animal Farm was a slightly humorous, if morbid, look at communism, then 1984 was a ghastly, apocalyptic vision of a demented future. After reading the first twenty pages, I determined that this was the single most quotable book of all time.
The infamous Party slogans: "War is Peace," "Freedom is Slavery," "Ignorance is Strength."
"Thoughtcrime does not entail death; thoughtcrime IS death."
"I understand HOW: I do not understand WHY."
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."
Chilling words from what could have been, from an averted catastrophe in which the human race subjugates itself through ignorance. Yet who's to say this could never come to pass? None can honestly look another straight in the eye and say, "That is not the future." To presume so is vanity manifest.
The one enemy man need truly fear is himself. The notorious Big Brother, the faceless autocrat in charge of Orwell's nightmare world (incidentally, it is never established whether Big Brother is a single man or a surreptitious group superciliously dealing justice to the masses), mercilessly dominates life on Oceania, one of three nations in existence. These countries, Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia, are continually in a state of war with each other, in which Oceania and one of the others are allied against the last. Big Brother's control over his people is absolute, executed through a methodical censorship that keeps the facade of truth as a contorted mask. Big Brother has the power to efface any record of an event or person - to rewrite the past as he sees fit.
Perhaps less relevant as a prophecy today (1984 has come and gone and no dictatorship has arisen to consolidate the Americas and the United Kingdom into a single communist entity), 1984 remains a very real piece of culture, with its own voice in the way it challenges one's preconceived notions and ideals. My English teacher perhaps said it best, when comparing 1984 to Animal Farm: "Animal Farm hits you with gloves on; 1984 just smacks you bare-fisted." And it's no slap, no half-hearted jab; it is an in-your-face, force of a moving train blow to the jaw from which the reader reels for weeks, even months after. It is an illustration, as well, of the need of consolidation and the hopelessness that such a government can be beaten: Winston, after waging a personal crusade for his secret freedom, winds up a brainwashed pawn of Big Brother.
In the end, Orwell proves that, if the government so wills it, two and two really make five, not four, and no amount of protest is going to change that. This book was a life-changer for me in many ways, but mostly because it made me see a broader view of the world and made me appreciate life as I know it just that much more.
"He gazed up at that enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark mustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast. Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was alright, everything was alright, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."
Quotes taken from George Orwell, 1984, copyright 1949 by Harcourt Brace Javonovich, Inc.
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