A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick With extraordinary relevance and renewed popularity, George Orwell’s 1984 takes on new life in this edition. “Orwell saw, to his credit, that the act of falsifying reality is only secondarily a way of changing perceptions. It is, above all, a way of asserting power.”—The New Yorker In 1984, London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where … city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston Smith is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.
Lionel Trilling said of Orwell’s masterpiece, “1984 is a profound, terrifying, and wholly fascinating book. It is a fantasy of the political future, and like any such fantasy, serves its author as a magnifying device for an examination of the present.” Though the year 1984 now exists in the past, Orwell’s novel remains an urgent call for the individual willing to speak truth to power.
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It was ahead of it’s time. It predicted our current political system. A must read!
It took me a while to understand it, but overall a great critic to political management. It was as relevant as it was in the 1949 as now, in the 21rst century.
Review for the Portuguese reader. Livro curto, pode ser lido de uma sentada. Indispensável, principalmente para os imaturos bem intencionados que pensam que precisamos liquidar com “tudo o que há por aí” e recomeçar do zero. Essa é a chance dos ditadores oportunistas. Liquidar a democracia para acelerar a cura da sociedade é suicídio. Tem que ser …
Insightful perspective which seemed totally unrealistic when I first read in the 1970s, but seems spot on in today’s environment.
George Orwell only got the date wrong by a few years. Today Big Brother is watching and history is being changed every day. The man was a prophet!
Loved it when I first read it and loved it again.
For me, the reason why great books are the highest of all the arts is because they manage to expand your knowledge and consciousness and compassion in the midst of captivating and entertaining you. This story, Orwell’s masterpiece, would have worked solely as an excellent tale of science fiction. But it is far far more than that. The takeaway of …
I’ve read this one 3 times so far
A teaching moment about the knowledge and science hating/fearing that permeates American culture.
George Orwell wrote a great book in detailing what the world could be in the future and at this current state of the world, we are living in exactly what he wrote in 1949. This is a must read if you’re looking to understand the world and what it is becoming.
And you thought it was just a fable that could never happen? Think again.
Good book, but it’s been forty or fifty years since I read it.
I read this in High School, it was required reading. It was kind of out there when I was in High Scool, so that wben 1984 finally did roll around it was nothing like the Book. Thank God! But, the book had some very interisting topics & theorizes for it’s time. But, so did Clock Work Orange.
My throwback review of the day. 1984 has slipped from the teenage compulsory reading list somehow, but it’s more relevant today than ever. Set in London in a world where your every move is seen, recorded, where paranoia inevitably follows, where you’re safe nowhere except in your own thoughts, and even then it feels perilous. Orwell is, for me, …
Frighteningly accurate! This is a cautionary tale of what might happen when Political Correctness usurps an individual’s right to free speech, and government over reaches its role.
This will be short and sweet.
I’m not going to lie and say this book is great, magnificent and a must read.
This book was so far over my head.
I didn’t understand it.
I was confused.
I as lost.
And when finishing I was even more so baffled.
A literary quintessence. The book is ingenious. For a book written in is time, reading it in today’s world gives an enlightened and haunting perspective on what society is and what could be…
Impressive for it’s time.
1984 is not a fun read. But its reading should be mandatory.
Orwell describes a dismal future of unremitting misery set forty years in the future at the time of its writing. The protagonist, Winston Smith, lives in London, part of the former UK–now called “Airstrip One”–which is itself part of a superstate called Oveania, comprising both …
A classic—the story of government run amok. Everyone should read it.