1984

★ ★ ★ .5

Note: review contains spoilers

This is the first book I've read that made me feel so queasy I had to lie down or risk fainting. Must be getting soft. I'll blame it on pregnancy. But seriously, Part III needed to cut me some slack. It was more than just the physical torture, it was the fact that it went ON and ON, getting more and more grungy and depressing, and then ending at a point of total hopelessness. I was glad to finally close it.

Much like Animal Farm, 1984 is a piece of political writing. It's not a particularly good novel as far and plot and characters (and even writing) are concerned (although it's better than Brave New World in this sense). However, Orwell does an excellent job at making his message clear: a lot of power in the hands of a few = not a lot of anything good.

I was really into it to start with. The following quote by Julia to Winston about halfway through the book made me hopeful: 'It's the one thing they can't do. They can make you say anything--anything--but they can't make you believe it. They can't get inside you.' I was hoping that Winston would, in the end, prove that quote to be true. It reminded me of Viktor Frankl, jewish concentration camp inmate during Nazi Germany. In his 1946 book Man's Search for Meaning he writes the following: 'everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.' Making a statement like that, after what he must have been through, is really saying something. And yet, despite my hopes, we're left with...

'He loved Big Brother.

The End.'

Haha. Awesome. Orwell wins the prize for hammering his point home to the last. Big Brother and INGSOC--so out of control (or in control) that there is just no chance of anyone overcoming them, ever. That's some serious power. Hardly realistic, but it is a work of fiction. I think that Orwell's appeal for human freedom is clear and genuine, and I am a big fan of anything that speaks out against control and manipulation in any form that it may take. So, despite the fact that this book is insanely black and gritty, and didn't quite meet my expectations, I give it 4 stars for 'anti-control factor' and 'founding-giant of political dystopia status'. I do think I preferred Animal Farm though, so maybe 3.5.