Nineteen Eighty-Four

325 pages

English language

Published March 7, 2008 by Penguin Books.

ISBN:
978-0-14-103614-4
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Goodreads:
3744438

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4 stars (10 reviews)

Which One Will YOU Be IN the Year 1984?

There won't be much choice, of course, if this book's predictions turn out to be true. But you'll probably become one of the following four types:

Proletarian--Considered inferior and kept in total ignorance, you'll be fed lies from the Ministry of Truth, eliminated upon signs of promise or ability!

Police Guard--Chosen for lack of intelligence but superiour brown, you'll be suspicious of everyone and be ready to give your life for Big Brother, the leader you've never even seen!

Party Member--Male--Face-less, mind-less, a flesh-and-blood robot with a push-button brain, you're denied love by law, taught hate by the flick of a switch!

Party Member--Female--A member of the Anti-Sex League from birth, your duty will be to smother all human emotion, and your children might not be your husband's!

Unbelievable? You'll feel differently after you've read this best-selling book of forbidden love …

145 editions

reviewed Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (The Complete works of George Orwell -- v. 1)

Review of 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' on 'Storygraph'

5 stars

There are a few things that I find riveting in 1984:
- The idea that information control can shape reality. I first read 1984 in college, before algorithms played such a huge role in our lives. Today the notion that influencing information access can shape a populations' perception of the world, encourage opinion, shape our behaviors is all too real.
- The sense of hopelessness is absolute. I've never felt so mournful finishing a book. At the end, the world of individual liberty and hope has just completed fading from view. As Winston capitulates, the state continues its inexorable march to consuming the whole of the human experience, subverting romantic relationships, subverting the relationship between children and parents, even purging language of unorthodox concepts.

I probably shouldn't read books like this on the road. What a downer.