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Nineteen eighty-four

By George Orwell

(2475)

| Mass Market Paperback | No ISBN

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'Nineteen Eighty-Four' by George Orwell

For those of you who have never read Orwell's masterpiece (a term I don't use lightly), it's set in London in 1984. The city, which belongs to one of the world's three superstates, is under Totalitarian rule and at perpetual war. Everyone lives under ... (read full critics)

readingmatters published on Tue, 28 Sep 2010

Plain English

Orwell took little care of his manuscripts. He didn’t anticipate that collectors of such things would pay real money for them, and that universities would think it a privilege to turn a writer’s bits and pieces into an archive. The typescript used in ... (read full critics)

lrb published on Fri, 3 Sep 2010

65 Reviews

5 people find this helpful

Due to personal reason, I re-read it in 2006. Still capture the very nature of totalitarianism and the claims come to its truest moment ever in history. Striking, stunning, we should bear this masterpiece in mind as the surveillance it has mentioned become much easier with the help of foreign techno ... (continue)

Due to personal reason, I re-read it in 2006. Still capture the very nature of totalitarianism and the claims come to its truest moment ever in history. Striking, stunning, we should bear this masterpiece in mind as the surveillance it has mentioned become much easier with the help of foreign technology. And for the ruling power -- it's all about capitalism, you know.

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張小張・Cons said on Dec 19, 2006 about the Paperback edition | 2 feedbacks

3 people find this helpful

1984 is not a prophecy (I do believe and hope) but a representation of what hunger for power and lies can do when brought to their extremes.
Orwell's dystopia is fascinating because most of it is a picture - though an impossibly excessive one - of what world and politics really are.

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Simbul said on Jan 21, 2008 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

2 people find this helpful

• I believe that 1984 is so scary because it identifies some aspects of power that can be found not only in the Stalinist dictatorship in which Orwell was inspired, but also in our democracy, such as the relationship between power and communication tools (TV, radio, newspapers), or power, and histor ... (continue)

• I believe that 1984 is so scary because it identifies some aspects of power that can be found not only in the Stalinist dictatorship in which Orwell was inspired, but also in our democracy, such as the relationship between power and communication tools (TV, radio, newspapers), or power, and history (Kundera wrote in one of his novels that the powerful take control over the rooms where the story is written to control the future). This is a common practice to all dictatorships: the textbooks, especially, are altered depending on what suits the ruling class.

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Cappuccino 92 said on Apr 6, 2011 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

Da leggere

Un libro assolutamente da leggere

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Iorio Paolo said on May 31, 2012 about the Paperback edition | 1 feedback

Too much can be said about 1984, so I'll just focus on one aspect that pervades the whole novel: dehumanization.
All the extreme measures taken by the regime to subjugate its citizens (Newspeak, Thought Police, Two Minute Hate, Doublethink, etc.) ultimately have only one goal: to gain tota ... (continue)

Too much can be said about 1984, so I'll just focus on one aspect that pervades the whole novel: dehumanization.
All the extreme measures taken by the regime to subjugate its citizens (Newspeak, Thought Police, Two Minute Hate, Doublethink, etc.) ultimately have only one goal: to gain total control of every individual. And the only way to achieve this aim is to completely strip away every shred of humanity in people, such as love, pride, independent thought, and other inner capabilities. Every strength is quashed. Every decency is denied. Every positive quality is condemned. As a result, as we can see in Winston Smith, no trace of humanity remains after being thoroughly battered and brainwashed. Utopia is achieved - for the totalitarian regime.
George Orwell paints a truly horrible picture of absolute power gone extreme. But even more horrible is the fact that it is true after all; just look at North Korea. That is why I chose to re-read 1984 right after finishing Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick. I can only say this: I'm glad that North Korea is not rich or powerful enough to prevent its Winston Smiths from occasionally defecting.

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Holmes said on May 23, 2012 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback