Name: Matthew Jackson's review of 1984 by George Orwell
Item: 1984
Rating: 4
Author: Matthew Jackson

George Orwell

Written more than 70 years ago, 1984 was George Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever...

Winston Smith toes the Party line, rewriting history to satisfy the demands of the Ministry of Truth. With each lie he writes, Winston grows to hate the Party that seeks power for its own sake and persecutes those who dare to commit thoughtcrimes. But as he starts to think for himself, Winston can’t escape the fact that Big Brother is always watching...

A startling and haunting novel, 1984 creates an imaginary world that is completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the novel’s hold on the imaginations of whole generations, or the power of its admonitions—a power that seems to grow, not lessen, with the passage of time.

1984

George Orwell’s 1984 takes on new life with extraordinary relevance and renewed popularity. “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.

anne

Die Massen revoltieren nie aus eigenem Antrieb, und sie revoltieren nie, nur weil sie unterdrückt werden. Solange man ihnen die Vergleichsmaßstäbe entzieht, werden sie nicht einmal merken, daß man sie unterdrückt 

Wäre ihm der Kontakt mit Ausländern gestattet, würde er feststellen, daß sie ganz ähnliche Menschen sind wie er und daß das meiste, was er über sie gehört hat, Lügen waren. 

a novel

Nineteen eighty-four

Luca Stromann

Talking to her, he realised how easy it was to present an appearance of orthodoxy while having no grasp whatever of what orthodoxy meant. In a way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane.

𖠋

‘Who controls the past, ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’ And yet the past, though of its nature al- terable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. ‘Reality control', they called it: in New-speak, 'doublethink.’

Ghanshyam Kabra

Orthodoxy means not thinking-not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.

Atli 💗🧚🏽‍♀️

Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act.

Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime 

Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull.

How could you make appeal to the future when not a trace of you, not even an anonymous word scribbled on a piece of paper, could physically survive?

it's kinda crazy how this isn't even the first time in the book whereby sex with a woman is described to be this egregious, harmful act.

He would tie her naked to a stake and shoot her full of arrows like Saint Sebastian. He would ravish her and cut her throat at the moment of climax.

All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching. 

welp, this is still relevant. i mean why do we always have to be at war with "the other side?" like who tf even is "the other side?"

Igor Lanko

The weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism. Do you die when you cut your fingernails?

Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer.

It must be so; how could the immortal, collective brain be mistaken? By what external standard could you check its judgements?

里森

You must get rid of those 19th century ideas about the laws of nature. We make the laws of nature.

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.

We shall turn you into gas and pour you into the stratosphere. […] You will never have existed.

O’Brien had tortured him to the edge of lunacy, and in a little while, it was certain, he would send him to his death. It made no difference. In some sense that went deeper than friendship.

‘E could 'a drawed me off a pint, grumbled the old man as he settled down behind his glass. A 'alf litre ain't enough. It don't satisfy. Anda 'ole litre's too much. It starts my bladder running, Let alone the price.' You must have seen great changes since you were a young man,' said Winston tentatively.

Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.

There is a word in Newspeak, said Syme, I don't know whether you know it: duckspeak, to quack like a duck. It is one of those interesting words that have two contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it is abuse; applied to someone you agree with, it is praise.

The revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.

Matthew Jackson

Cristhian Tilleria

I love these kind of books which finish with a very subjective end. Loved it from the beginning and its fame is completely understandable 

Martin

Zisan Bas

Wish I read it earlier but I am glad I read it at this age

not really my vibe,, the first half was sooo slow amd boring but then it got kinda good,, there were some plot teists and sentences thst got me thinking but I prefer more action 

taci

GODDAMN IS THERE ANY BOOK THAT IS MORE HEARTWRENCHING THAN THIS???

Anna 

1984 je rozhodně kniha, kterou by si měl přečíst každý. 
pojednávání o totalitních režimech tak těžkých, že přestanete věřit vlastním vzpomínkám. o tom přesně tahle kniha je a já si myslím, že orwell psychiku člověka žijícího v tomto režimu popsal úžasně. 
sledujeme zde winstona, který odjakživa ví, že celý ten systém nedává smysl, a tím víc ho štve, že to ostatní nějakým způsobem s klidem přijímají. proč tomu ale tak je? proč se jednoduše nevzbouří?
toto dílo se mi líbilo moc, i když bylo v druhé polovině už o dost těžší co se politiky a vnímání týče. rozhodně jsem ale ráda, že jsem se k němu dostala, protože něco takového napsat v padesátých letech je prostě.. pokrokové. až tak moc pokrokové, že orwell popsal následující události, o kterých ještě nemohl ani vědět, zároveň skvěle ukázal sílu moci. když se vám naskytne příležitost ovládnout polovinu světa, ať už to její obyvatele stojí cokoliv, většina lidí by na to zřejmě kývla. a to je strašlivě smutná realita, kterou si při čtení 1984 uvědomíte.
popisy angsockého systému mě nutili přemýšlet nad tím, jestli se náhodou v některých ohledech nynější politici neinspirují právě touto knihou. je až neskutečné, jak některé z těch věcí platí i v této době, v této společnosti. a ještě horší je, že si myslím, že lidi by se zachovali přesně tak, jak se chovají v knize. 
1984 je hodně depresivní kniha plná triggers, takže vás dopředu upozorňuji, že pokud si jí budete chtít přečíst, prosím, vyhledejte si, co všechno obsahuje. i mně při čtení nebylo zrovna nejlépe.
.
4*/5*, rozhodně je to zajímavé pojednání jak o totalitních režimech, tak o lidstvu a společnosti obecně. dalo mi to mnoho nových myšlenek a teď budu určitě několik dní filozofovat nad tím, jak moc se dnešní společnost podobá té orwellově. a zda se vůbec dá takovéto společnosti předejít.

Ícaro Morbeck

A narrativa de George Orwell é brilhante não apenas em sua construção de mundos, mas na forma como manipula as nossas emoções. Por nos colocar na visão subjetiva de Winston Smith, enxergamos a situação através de seus olhos. A opressão, a solidão em um mar de pessoas ignorantes, a chama da esperança de ver um mundo melhor no futuro, e a angústia de ter esta expectativa arrancada de você de forma violenta.

O grande debate deste livro é o conceito da verdade. Afinal, como sabemos que dois mais dois são quatro? Ou que a força da gravidade funciona? Ou que o passado é imutável? Se o passado e o mundo existem apenas na mente humana, e se a própria mente é controlável, o que acontecerá? Por isso eu me assusto ao terminar este livro e olhar para o mundo, encontrando várias pessoas que acreditam na verdade como um conceito volátil e mutável. Se estas pessoas se tornassem maioria, nossa realidade não estaria muito distante de se tornar algo como o que vemos neste livro. Este é um pensamento burro, e como visto nestas páginas, a forma mais eficiente de subjugar a sociedade é mantê-la burra. 

Testemunhamos uma lavagem cerebral generalizada que, diferente de outras histórias, essa é possível. A história humana é reescrita e ressignificada. Ideias são vaporizadas, filosofias extintas, levando consigo o patrimônio de gerações. Pessoas e coisas não apenas se tornam obsoletas, mas são deletadas da existência.

Isso mexeu comigo pelo fato de que tudo o que já foi, existe por causa da memória. Apagando a memória, o que resta? Quem foram as pessoas do passado? O que elas defendiam de verdade? Obras de arte perdem seu sentido original, e acontecimentos históricos objetivos, factuais e concretos se tornam subjetivos, ou excluídos. 

É genial ler este livro depois de "A revolução dos bichos", e perceber o quanto as duas obras são complementares. Dessa forma, quando vamos ler 1984, já temos uma compreensão sobre como as coisas neste universo podem ter chegado a este ponto. Há paralelos fascinantes entre as duas obras, como os membros do partido interno sendo referenciados como "porcos" em diversos momentos ao longo do livro. Dentre outros.

armoni mayes

Orwell just is not for me but that is okay. I read animal farm last year & obviously just finished 1984 and both kind of missed the mark for me.

Abigail Marie

Timeo Williams

George Orwell very well may be my favorite writer to date. Outstanding book, with themes and metaphors that have great relevance to our world today.

Library Edition

Nineteen Eighty-Four

I read the new Audible version and it was very theatrical. I loved the immersive experience. I will say there were some spicy bits and some gruesome aspects that made it unsettling. (There is a warning about this before you start the book). Story wise it was great. The ending is unexpected and not at all what you want but it sends a powerful message of fear about losing our freedoms.

Camron Swartzendruber

Léa

did I really read it ? no, not really but I read a few summaries and A LOT of analysis and even analysed it in class lmao. I also had to write a wholeass essay about it and I most probably failed but oh well

I remember struggling with this smack, it was a constant fight between dnfing for the plain misogyny or continuing for the political commentary (what did I expect from a white man)

I finished this book years ago and it has still stayed with me. Absolutely amazing, one of my favourite books ever. The plot, prose, and characters are immaculate. 

Chloe Dawson

Hanna Rybchynska

This book is not simple nor it has an amazing story. For me, it has an interesting message and I wanted to know what the writer wanted to say and not how the story will progress. I know that this story is an extreme example but there are a lot of connections between our world and Orwell's world. 
I recommend this to those who like complex reading, also to those who enjoy a good book about social and governmental manipulation.

I had a sudden hankering to reread 1984 and I will neither apologize nor explain that any further… thank you goodbye..

Katie Buchanan

ebrar

I wish this book didn't sound so familiar

Elif Türker

I just love the world building here, reading it while listening to the audiobook makes me shiver. I don't think because it's chilly in the morning, it's the part when you can vaporized because you look incredulous when a victory was announced. 

What if you look sad on hate week, because you sympathize to the thought criminals? It really doesn't matter. Because... 

The Big Brother's really wants to make the people of Oceania to be stupid. 

Angelica Blanche Salva 

Morning read:

I just love the world building here, reading it while listening to the audiobook makes me shiver. I don't think because it's chilly in the morning, it's the part when you can vaporized because you look incredulous when a victory was announced. 

What if you look sad on hate week, because you sympathize to the thought criminals? It really doesn't matter. Because... 

WAR IS PEACE 

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY 

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH 

The Big Brother's really wants to make the people of Oceania to be stupid. 



I listened to the audible version and it was really amazing. It’s currently free with your membership and I would highly recommend 

Sophie Keast

Really really great. I few oages were boring but except for that I loved it. And it's just unbelievable how intelligent it is even though Its really old

Gwenifer

camille paradis

read this sophomore year of high school… why is this referenced so much george orwell needs a grip!!! no rape fantasies are not love thank you so much <333

It’s so hard to read… to finished it.

Amna A.

1984, a novel in which George Orwell predicts a rather horrifying future. A future of terror, where people are put under constant surveillance, where they abolish you for being a criminal of thought by carrying radical beliefs, where they control the media and alter the truth. The further I got in the book, the more horrifying it became, the more I realized how familiar 'they' seem to be. I realized that Orwell's novel almost hit the bulls eye in it's prediction, for many are already living in this state of terror, and worse yet, some don't even realize it. 

This was a disturbing book. This was a book that kept me up all night after the night of finishing it. This, to me, was more a masterpiece of a warning than it is of a book.

Matthew Jackson &
1984 by George Orwell

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Matthew Jackson &1984 by George Orwell

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1984 by George Orwell