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    1984
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    1984
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    1984
    Ebook382 pages7 hours

    1984

    By George Orwell

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    About this ebook

    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 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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMariner Books
    Release dateOct 17, 1983
    ISBN9780547249643
    Author

    George Orwell

    George Orwell (1903–1950), the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, was an English novelist, essayist, and critic. He was born in India and educated at Eton. After service with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, he returned to Europe to earn his living by writing. An author and journalist, Orwell was one of the most prominent and influential figures in twentieth-century literature. His unique political allegory Animal Farm was published in 1945, and it was this novel, together with the dystopia of 1984 (1949), which brought him worldwide fame. 

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    Reviews for 1984

    4/5

    23,607 ratings592 reviews

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    • 4/5
      never trust fear news
    • 4/5
      Engsoz, Neusprech und Doppeldenk brauchen eines ganz sicher nicht: eine weitere laienhafte Rezension oder Interpretation des Romans. Was es aber dringend braucht: Dass möglichst viele in unserer Gesellschaft dieses Buch (wieder) zur Hand nehmen, um zu erkennen, wie aktuell die Thematik in der heutigen Zeit ist. Damit Krieg nicht Frieden, Freiheit nicht Sklaverei und Unwissenheit nicht Stärke wird.
    • 4/5
      what happens when we let truth slip away
    • 3/5
      1984 blijft, zelfs na de val van het sovjetcommunisme, een indrukwekkend boek. Het toekomstbeeld dat geschetst wordt is hallucinant tot in detail uitgewerkt. Er zijn amper zwakke kanten: de romantische verhaallijn is wat mager en sommige documentaire gedeelten zijn aan de saaie kant. Maar dat wordt ruimschoots goedgemaakt door de spanningsopbouw die uitmondt in de wrede martelscenes en de ontnuchterende "genezing" van de hoofdfiguur
    • 5/5
      A famously written account of a future dystopian world where 'man' & 'woman' really are just pawns for massively all-powerful global supra-states.Orwell's premonition of the way the world was headed post-WW2 - a ghastly tyrannical mind-sucking uniformity of thought & deed - has been cited many times since as presaging the so-called East-West/Communist-Capitalist 'Cold War' divide etc., opinions differ as to its actual accuracy - for sure 1984 was not the end of humanity & individual freedom: however, the sharp, distinct style of the author must be read as a masterful example of setting words & scenes to match the tone of a grimly sombre storyline. Winston & Julia are the book's lead characters, but nothing about them is heroic in the classic sense & why would they be when the all-embracing State & Big Brother, its ever-looming, ultimate figurehead of all-knowing dominance pre-determines & watches over their every move & sets the entire agenda for their minds' thought every minute of every hour of every day of their lives!
    • 5/5
      Obviously I can't say anything that hasn't already been said, but absolutely loved 1984. The story is terrifyingly timeless, much of the Newspeak and doublethink is relevant even to today. Gaslighting and controlling the past wasn't something I had a notion of in terms of how to brutally control a population. The fact that this was written 69 years ago and is perhaps more important that ever before speaks to how genius Orwell was and how brilliant this book is.
    • 5/5
      Great book
    • 5/5
      Superb book full of insight into politics and human nature.
    • 4/5
      Winston Smith is a low-rung member of the Party, the ruling government of Oceania. He works in the Ministry of Truth, the Party's propoganda arm, where he is in charge of revising history. He is but a small brick in the pyramid that is the Party, at the head of which stands Big Brother. Big Brother the infallible. Big Brother the all-powerful. In a totalitarian society, where individuality is suppressed and freedom of thought has its antithesis in the Thought Police, Winston finds respite in the company of Julia. Originality of thought awakens, love bloosoms and hope is rekindled. But what they don't know is that Big Brother is always watching...
    • 5/5
      Brilliant!
    • 4/5
      Very scary.
    • 3/5
      In this piece of social science fiction, Winston Smith lives in the mega-country Oceania [which, I just realized, I have been mispronouncing in my head this entire time]. He works at a branch of the government called the Ministry of Truth where he busies himself with the daily task of correcting all manner of written records as per order of the Ministry. His office is one of four, standing alongside the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Love and the Ministry of Plenty, each representing a different aspect of the Party's control over the people. Lording over them all is the shadow of Big Brother, the origin and guiding light of this vaguely named Party. As a change of pace in Oceania, Winston begins to doubt and internally rebel against the Party and searches for a way to damage their totalitarian regime. However, he must be far more careful than any other malcontent trapped in any other regime, for he is constantly under surveilance via the telescreen, always on, and the Thought Police, who could be anyone, anywhere. Honestly, I'm still unsure as to how I feel about this book. Technically, I enjoyed reading it, and frequently had difficulties putting the book down...but still. Yes, it is possibly because [spoiler] the book did not end happily. I don't think so, though. Another possibility is that it is the extensive political exposition presented in almost a textbook format. I can see why this book is read up one coast and down the other, in high school and in college. I can see why it is read for classes regarding politics, communication, sociology as well as literature. I think, though, that it is a book I will have to read again, later in life, before I can really feel out anything. As well as, hopefully, discuss it. What I can say is that the book did impress me. Not just in the sense that it made a sort of vague impression, but I was actually impressed by the text. It was a creatively handled extrapolation of the social standings to examine the possibilities of human growth and change. We are well past 1984 by now, but the same questions that are raised and examined in the text still plague us now. Questions of the role of the government and the acceptable extent of privacy, surveilance and general control. Questions on the goals of those in power. Big Brother is watching. War is peace. Baffling thoughts, really, but thoughts that need to be around.
    • 4/5
      So good. So scary (in a figurative sense). 1984 makes you think. About government, knowledge, power, control. I lament that it took me so long to finally read this. Final words: Read this book.
    • 5/5
      I can honestly say that since reading Orwell's 1984, my life has changed, perhaps only temporarily while the paranoia dies down a bit but it has changed nonetheless. Despite being written so far in the past, this novel completely catches our sense of the present where every shop and street corner is installed with CCTV and everyone's movements are tracked with GPS and Facebook!
      What is really interesting is the mixture of science fiction, the different institutions, Newspeak and the change in which our world and its countries are split apart. This story of a totalitarian run world and human degradation is written so matter of factly and masterfully that if it didn't specify which year it was set, you would be worried for our own future!
      Very scary, very thought-provoking and definitely recommended!
    • 4/5
      Winston Smith is a middle-age bureaucrat in the then future London assisting the government in its propaganda. He has developed a hatred for the omnipresent Big Brother, which is the public manifestation for the totalitarian government. Harboring revolutionary dreams, he fears being arrested for a thoughtcrime. When I first read this book before 1984, America and Russia were involved in the Cold War and I couldn't help placing Orwell's novel in the Russia However, at times I have seen evidence of 1984 like behavior in our own country, including political correctness, political doublespeak, an ever-encroaching government, and manipulation of historical events. The book was as good as remembered when first read, however, I had forgotten how descriptive the torture scenes were.
    • 5/5
      George Orwell's classic dystopian novel 1984 presents a harrowing totalitarian society, a world turned upside down, where "war is peace," "freedom is slavery," and "ignorance is strength." Orwell effectively describes this brutal nightmarish world, the techniques used to control reality, and crush the essential humanity in men and women; and the struggle of those who dare to think freely, maintain sanity, recognize truth - and resist. But it is Orwell's brilliantly nuanced details that provide the strikingly realistic substance within these broad strokes: sights, sounds, smells, textures, facial features (indeed the human sensory elements of this perpetually dehumanizing world); and fascinating insights into the hows and whys of the epic psychological duel: the manipulations required to control minds and the mind-bending mental gymnastics necessary to counter the omnipotent forces.This is essential reading, particularly in this age of "alternative facts" and the calculated blurring of reality in which fiction is taken for fact, the truth is denounced as fake news, and historical facts are altered to suit the current executive narrative.
    • 5/5
      Wow, what a story. Fear. Instinct. (mis)Information. I'm not sure what to say except that, not unlike the experiences of protagonist Winston Smith, the weight of the world Orwell creates surrounds and overpowers and, with only slight glimpses of hope along the way, crushes into dust.
    • 5/5
      You know... I'm not entirely sure that I actually did read this as a child. I swore I did, but I think I may have been confusing it with "Brave New World." Reading this as an adult living in a Trump run country was extra terrifying and made the book that much more powerful. This is one of those classics that is absolutely timeless. It only gets better with age. One of the finest examples of a dystopian future that I can think, Orwell does a masterful job painting a bleak picture and casting a poor hapless soul as the protagonist. Winston is not quite happy with life under Big Brother. He goes through the motions but he wishes things were different, he has no freedom because - "Freedom Equals Slavery." I don't want to say too much more and spoil the plot, but suffice it to say that this is required reading!
    • 5/5
      I'm a little ashamed to say I had never read this before. I now have a much greater understanding of references to big brother, doublethink, and the like. The book is set in a totalitarian society where Big Brother seeks control over even people's thoughts. We follow Winston as he begins to rebel against the system, and the consequences that follow. The ending is excellent, and utterly terrifying. To be honest the whole book is pretty scary, especially as we move towards a more controlling form of government in many countries these days. The whole concept of newspeak is very well thought out and the appendix satisfied the geek in me.
    • 4/5
      It had been a long time since I read 1984, but I did so in preparation for taking a shift in a public reading this spring. It was even more strikingly frightening now than when I read it years ago (not surprisingly, alas). Walter Cronkite's chilling preface was a great addition to the text.
    • 5/5
      1984 is a compelling tale of an individual's physical and intellectual battle against a totalitarian political system. Orwell renders this world convincingly, and this together with the parrallels to certain present day regimes is what makes this book so absorbing and terrifying. There are a lot of profound ideas here, relating to liberty and personal freedom, the nature of language and thought, political ideology, the structure of society, and population and individual psychology. The richness of ideas, the horror of the alternative reality, and the page turning story all contribute to setting this apart from other novels. There are very few books that everyone ought to read, but this is perhaps one, if only so that such a future could be avoided, and our present circumstances appreciated (though perhaps there is also the danger of this book being used as a manual for oppression).
    • 5/5
      One of the most important and influential books of the 20th century.
    • 5/5
      Describes very aptly, the future we are headed towards. Although it is horrifying to think of how we get there but given the recent exposures of various state surveillance agencies, it is plausible that by 2084 or maybe 2184 we will certainly be there if we don't make the right choices now.
    • 5/5
      Big Brother is watching you. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. Can you imagine a world like this? Of course you can. If you can count the amount of times you're picked up on camera everytime you leave your house, you'll find your life isn't much different from Winston's. I love this book.
    • 3/5
      Really depressing...
    • 4/5
      If I had not read Solzhenitsyn's Gulag archipelago series I would have a hard time swallowing this one-even if it is fiction.
    • 4/5
      Soul crushing. Important.
    • 3/5
      1984 blijft, zelfs na de val van het sovjetcommunisme, een indrukwekkend boek. Het toekomstbeeld dat geschetst wordt is hallucinant tot in detail uitgewerkt. Er zijn amper zwakke kanten: de romantische verhaallijn is wat mager en sommige documentaire gedeelten zijn aan de saaie kant. Maar dat wordt ruimschoots goedgemaakt door de spanningsopbouw die uitmondt in de wrede martelscenes en de ontnuchterende "genezing" van de hoofdfiguur
    • 5/5
      you are missing something if this is not in your read list this is a must . I do have to say big brother is less threatening then , then now had we read back then what we are capable of now we would have been horrified
    • 5/5
      I love this book. I just read it again and it seems to remind me more and more of our present world. This is terrifying, but also interesting to compare and contrast. I would recommend this book to everyone. Seriously, if you haven't read it, you need to read it. Period. This is classic. Hoopla- Audio

      First read in 2004
      Last read 8/2015