on't help. Despite making you feel disturbed and occasionally grossed-out, it also makes you feel grateful that the book is (for the most part) fiction. And perhaps one of the powerful messages of the novel is to make sure it continues to be more fiction than reality.As I see it, Orwell isn't dealing with any "out-of-this-world" ideas. Rather, he's taking the ideas that are commonly tossed around in politics and progressive thought and pushing them just a few steps further or corrupting them just a bit. In this way, his novel acts less as interesting speculations than as a warning of what is politically and culturally only a few steps away. What are those steps? Perhaps the further dehumanizing of the human, or perhaps the continuance of a trend of the working class being less politically active. And combined with these a slack in the freedom of speech and a rise in propaganda. Yet as I look at this novel as a warning to the free world, the most disturbing part about it is that the use of the words "free world" already implies that there is a "not free world," which often resembles Orwell's vision more than we would like to imagine.
In the end, I prefer "Fahrenheit 451" (which is similar in many ways) over this book, if only because it's a bit more uplifting.
Genre: Fiction/Modernist Lit
1 comment:
Well, I have to say I'm an expert on this subject. Not because I read this book, but because I experienced that amazing year.1984. Yep, despite all the depressing reviews, there really were some great things that happened that year. We moved, twice, had one nice little girl and another on the way,(and she's pretty special to you now, huh?) and there was probably some other good stuff too. Anyway, I thought it was a good year, all in all.
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