1984 Review
It Begins: “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
And it Ends with: “It was chiefly in order to allow time for the preliminary work of translation that the final adoption of Newspeak had been fixed for so late a date as 2050.”
It was 312 pages and took me 10 days.
I would recommend this book to every American high school aged and above. I loved this book.
What I got out of this book is an eerie awareness of where are world may be headed… and I don’t mean back in time. It also, FINALLY, has brought me to the point where I will understand references to ’1984′ or ‘Orwellian’ or ‘Newspeak’ or ‘Big Brother’. And that fact alone makes me happy that I read the book.
Going into this book I had absolutely no idea what it was about. Orwell depicts a society of ultimate negativity and governmental control, where people are merely labor unless they are in the party at the top. There is no privacy, governmental buildings are named oppositely of their purposes, and history is literally erased and rewritten when Big Brother wishes it to be changed. Lastly, it is written in such a way that makes you want to finish the book, you want to see if today’s notion of justice will prevail.
Had Orwell’s book been titled “2084,” its impact on me would not have been as strong. It was published in 1949 and its title suggests that 35 years of post-WWII mindset and technology could very well have turn into the utopia described in the book. While it hasn’t happened… it could. Recent policies of the US government along with the widespread use of the GPS are lead-ins to 1984. And everyone’s opinions are plastered all over the internet. That should make the Thought Police’s job much easier.
