"We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end."
Good Evening Comrades!
1984 is a highly rated, well-known classic which I'd wanted to read for ages - for those of you who don't know, this book originated the ideas of both Big Brother and Room 101. I finally got around to giving it a try in February, but I'm not going to lie, I found it really boring and gave up on page 60.
I was bewildered because, how can a novel so highly rated, which inspired multiple successful television programs be so rubbish? I spoke to a few people about my frustrations with the novel, and they insisted it was fantastic and worth reading, so I was determined to give it another try (after all, 60 pages out of 336 isn't exactly a good basis to criticise a book.. a fitting idiom comes to mind*). On my second attempt, I jumped in with both feet, managed to get through what I read in January quite quickly and went on to finish the book, hurrah!
Here's a brief summary of Orwell's 1984 (spoilers omitted), courtesy of CliffsNotes:
"Winston Smith wrestles with oppression in Oceania, a place where the Party scrutinizes human actions with ever-watchful Big Brother. Defying a ban on individuality, Winston dares to express his thoughts in a diary and pursues a relationship with Julia."*
SO, on with my thoughts. 1984 is written in thirds, which I think will be the best way to review how I felt while reading it.
ONE
Jumping back in, I found that no, I'm not crazy, the storyline is very dry for the first 33*%. It's just paragraph after paragraph of Winston waking up, going to work, working, eating his dinner, then coming home - so as exciting as you'd expect. It introduces the boring, bland characters, and sets a very mundane scene while explaining the extent of the totalitarianism - think Hitler's Germany, pushed to the extreme. Everyone has an intense "you're spying on me, I'm spying on you" mentality. In essence, this third does what you need, but not what you want.
My thoughts: "This is rubbish and I'm bored, get on with it so I can read something else."
TWO
During this third, the story gets far more exciting... until you reach "The Book". For approximately 2 chapters, Winston Smith reads a book titled, 'The Book'; it's all very meta. These pages I honestly felt like skipping, they were just hard to read and it felt boring again - it had just gotten exciting, haway man. I stuck with it though, and I found it helped significantly to listen to an audiobook (I listened to this one) while reading along - otherwise I felt I was reading the words but not digesting any meaning, and what's the point in that, I may as well skip it.
Eventually I did manage to understand what was being said, and it was really interesting - albeit a bit l o n g. The Book is mainly an analysis of 1984's society, and while a lot of it is somewhat obvious, it is also highly helpful in the understanding of the most common Newspeak words, doublethink and such, which you need in order to understand a lot of the talking points in the final third, so read it.
My thoughts: "Oo Winston you little rebel, this is getting exciti- Oh. I have to read this? Really?"
THREE
Epiphanies, epiphanies everywhere. This third was fantastic, and well worth the wait. I don't want to spoil anything major for anyone, so I won't go into too much detail. My only criticism of this book is that I wanted more about Room 101! It made my skin crawl and I had to stop reading every few paragraphs for feeling sick, but that just goes to show how well written it is.
My thoughts: "Holy *insert your favourite profanity here*, it's brilliant!"
Now, I'm going to attempt a conclusion of this book without blabbering on too much - believe me I've blabbered on about it enough to my boyfriend, who half-listened while I ranted and raved about my realization during the final third.
I'm rating 1984 a 4/5. Yes, the first third might be bland, as are the characters, but this is part of the beauty of it - it makes it so relatable. I don't know about you, but my day to day life is fairly dull and wouldn't make for good reading, much like the first third of 1984. Winston could be any ordinary man or woman, an innocent bystander in a world of power-hungry adversaries.
1984 teeters on the edge of being creepy - I've seen a number of people say it should be listed under the horror genre. While I don't completely agree, I can't say it's not spooky when considering that it was written all the way back in 1948, and many of the issues brought up in 1984 are so relevant to issues we're facing today as a society - so much of the analysis, particularly in "The Book", made perfect sense applied to the way we still live now. The link between 1984's telescreens and our smartphones/social media isn't a leap by any means - how many apps do we let run in the background that track your location or spy on what you're searching for online? It would be so easy in this modern world for a government similar to that in 1984 to take over and control our thoughts and actions - an issue that came to light recently regarding Facebook's influence over America's 2016 election. This book should absolutely be read as a warning.
* Don't judge a book by it's cover, anyone?
* Despite their relationship being a prominent storyline, this is NOT a love story.
*(cont.) .3333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333...
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