1984

The new novel by George Orwell is the major work towards which all his previous writing has pointed. Critics have hailed it as his "most solid, most brilliant" work. Though the story of Nineteen Eighty-Four takes place thirty-five years hence, it is in every sense timely. The scene is London, where there hsa been no new housing since 1950 and where the city-wide slums are called Victory Mansions. Science has abandoned Man for the State. As every citizen knows only too well, war is piece.

To Winston Smith, a young man who works in the Ministry of Truth (Minitru for short), come two people who transform his life completely. One is Julia, whom he meets after she hands him a slip reading, "I love you". The other is O'Brien, who tells him, "We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness". The way in which Winston is betrayed by the one and, against his own desideres and instincs, ultimately betrays the other, makes a story of mounting drama and suspense.

Aside from its high literaly qualities, Nineteen Eighty-Four has profund implications for our times. It points the path towards which society may now be heading, and leaves the reader with the shocked feeling that there is no single horrible feature in the world of 1984 - only two generations away - which is not present, in embryo, today. In the final section of the novel George Orwell spells out, for the first time in literature, how the spirit of every man living may be broken in Room 101, and how he can be made to avow - and believe - that black si white, two plus two equals five, and evil is good.

When George Orwell's Animal Farm was published three years ago, critics compared him to Jonathan Swift. Nineteen Eighty-Four justifies their virdict. This distinguished novel will be remembered as one of the most important and moving works of fiction to be published in this generation.