1984: The Dystopia that Never Was

1984

     1984 is a strange book. Due to the book's popularity it has receive many new publications. The version I read was the Signet Classics edition, Signet is a great source of new copies of classic and recognized books. 

Background:

   1984 was originally released in 1949 and was written by George Orwell the pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair. Orwell (as he will be referred to from now on) saw a dark future for the world based off his interactions in the Spanish civil war, as a journalist, and living through World War II. He wrote this book as a warning of a future he said to come.

Review

   This book is good, butt it does have some flaws. It depicts the perfect dystopia, a place where the party rules and controls everything through the eyes of big brother. The book is dark and truly makes you think about the world we are and the world we are becoming. The book always keeps you on your toes by creating an equally engrossing and disturbing atmosphere. 

   One of the things I must praise about this book is its plot and underlying ideas, parallelisms and tone. The book takes a fair amount of jabs of modern day, circa 1949, continuously pointing out much hypocrisy of society.The mottoes of the Party are a great example of this oxymoron (hypocrisy): War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength. I will not spoil the plot butt I will say that the twist is one you will see coming and yet won't expect.

   This all being said the book does have its flaws. First off the book has dated a bit, mostly because the future year depicted has already come and pass, butt more than that some of the political commentary is lost to the void of time. Other than that the writing style is rather long. It is not late 1880's style of describing every last detail in even grater detail and then some, butt some parts to drone on for a little too long. For instance: towards the end of the second of three books there is a section spent on Goldstein's book that keeps going on and on and on. I will admit that I got so bored reading this section that I skipped it. This is the worst offender butt there are other are like it.

  Overall this is a fairly good book, I would say you should read it, especially if you like dystopias or books that make you think. I give this book a 7 out of 10.

     

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1984