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    Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
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    Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
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    Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
    Ebook181 pages2 hours

    Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)

    By George Orwell and Matthew Dunster

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.

    Winston Smith rewrites history for the Ministry of Truth, but when he’s handed a note that says simply ‘I love you’ by a woman he hardly knows, he decides to risk everything in a search for the real truth. In a world where cheap entertainment keeps the proles ignorant but content, where a war without end is always fought and the government is always watching, can Winston possibly hold onto what he feels inside? Or will he renounce everything, accept the Party’s reality and learn to love Big Brother?

    ‘Dunster – both in his faithful take on the story and in his sometimes extreme but always enthralling adaptation – gets close to the heart of Orwell’s warning, pointing up but not overemphasising its current political resonances.… Newspeak, Doublethink, Room 101 and Thought Police take on a chilling reality in this compelling production.’ – The Independent

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOberon Modern Plays
    Release dateMay 2, 2012
    ISBN9781849433495
    Unavailable
    Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
    Author

    George Orwell

    Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell) was born in 1903 in India where his father was a civil servant. After studying at Eton, he served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma for several years which inspired his first novel, Burmese Days. After two years in Paris, he returned to England to work as a teacher and then in a bookshop. In 1936 he travelled to Spain to fight for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, where he was badly wounded. During the Second World War he worked for the BBC. A prolific journalist and essayist, Orwell wrote some of the most influential books in English literature, including the dystopian Nineteen Eighty-Four and his political allegory Animal Farm. He died from tuberculosis in 1950.

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    Reviews for Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)

    4/5

    23,057 ratings567 reviews

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    • 5/5
      One of my favorite books, hands down. Probably the top.Read it. Relate to it ('cause you really will). And start thinking.
    • 4/5
      After hearing about this book since 1984, I have been wanting to read it. As an adult, it was fascinating to read about George Orwell's version of the future which is now in the distant past. I actually believe the technology in the book with the telescreens keeping track of Oceania's residents is something easily imaginable in 2019 but would have been a stretch to imagine 35 years ago. Some of his forecasts were eerily true, especially in some parts of the world. Fortunately not all. The book really made you think and was a great discussion for book club. Personally I believe the book was a little dark (think terrible torture and brainwashing) and a lot of it will go over my daughter's head next year when she reads it for school as a high school sophomore.
    • 5/5
      2 2=5 stars

      That the choice for mankind lay between freedom and happiness, and that, for the great bulk of mankind, happiness was better.
      The Writing and Worldbuilding

      George Orwell is the greatest writer of all time. Fight me.

      This is so well written; it is consistently engaging, intriguing, and lyrical. I was never bored, even in long passages of solely exposition, because the world was so totally interesting. The first third of this book, constiting of part 1, was mostly exposition and set up, for example, but I was just as invested as I was at the very end. And the end, for that matter, was just as well-paced as the beginning, and the twists were expertly executed.

      The political structure was so harrowing and unthinkable, and yet, horribly believable. This book was meant as a warning and reads perfectly as one. The world doesn't feel like an inevitability, but an awful possiblity. And I absolutely loved it.

      Her feelings were her own, and could not be altered from outside. It would not have occured to her that an action which is ineffectual thereby becomes meaningless. If you loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love.
      The Characters

      Winston Smith: He was so real. A middle-aged paranoid intellectual cynic, Winston was the perfect protagonist for this book. He dreams of a better world, a world less bad at least than his current life, and does even what he knows will result in either nothing or in utter destruction because it makes him feel something other than existential dread, and for that, I commend him.

      "You're only a rebel from the waist downwards," he told her.

      She thought this brilliantly witty and flung her arms round him in delight.
      Julia: She was a very complex person, just like Winston, except that she joys in small rebellion and doesn't much dream of a better world, only in finding the better parts of the life she's been dealt. She's 20 years younger than Winston, and therefore sees the world through fresher, but also more sheltered, eyes.

      O'Brien: Oh my gosh I have too much to say, so I'm not going to say anything at all.

      "Only because I prefer a positive to a negative. In this game we're playing, we can't win. Some kinds of failure are better than other kinds, that's all."
      Conclusion

      I loved everything about this book. Literally everything, even the horribly depressing ending, because it's a book that makes you think, and makes you reflect on yourself and your world almost more than on Winston and his world.

      Farewell for now, proles. We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.
    • 4/5
      I liked the idea of the book. Ended weirdly.
    • 5/5
      I'm not sure what took me so long to read this one. It was very good. There are a lot of parallels between concepts like "double think," "crime stop," and "thought crime," and the what can be seen in the world today. If facts go against someone's political beliefs, they will often just twist, distort, or deny the facts just as the characters in 1984 would say they have "always been at war with Oceania." This makes the book continue to be poignant and relevant to the twenty-first century reader, and it will probably still be poignant in the thirty-first century. A lot of this is just human nature that the Orwell exposes for us to consider.
    • 4/5
      never trust fear news
    • 5/5
      This may be more timely then when it was written. Winston Smith is not following the Party's rhetoric. He is thinking and realizes he has other memories and thoughts than what the Party wants good Party members to have. He finally sees a way to rebel but the Party gets to him.There is so much in this book. It is a story of a regimen that controls everything including people's thoughts. It is also a story that can be likened to our day and society. Power and money are held by a few who control everything. Winston thinks the proles will one day rise up but those in power know they won't because they don't think for themselves. They listen to what the Party tells them and believe it and never question it. Those in the Outer Circle of the Party believe what is told them also. If they are caught thinking and remembering other pasts, they are arrested and tortured, reeducated, and eventually murdered so that they fall back into the Party line. I thought Winston would make it. I hoped Winston would make it. But the Party got him. It broke my heart.This is my first time reading 1984. I have to admit I wish I could write an essay about it and how our politics and society are becoming what Orwell was warning us about. He talks about the technology, the oligarchy, the Newspeak used, emotions voided, everyone thinking the same, . I see it so much of his vision happening today. We grow further apart from one another. We use technology instead of communicating face to face. Families are broken and fewer marry and have children. Education becomes rote because of teaching to tests. 1% of the population has more money than over half the lower income people. Corporations have more rights than people. Wages have frozen and backslid because of rising costs of housing, transportation, and food. The government does not help the proles. It keeps them downtrodden and poor. So much could be expanded upon.I also enjoyed this book because it made me think. It used 50 cent words. I had to use a dictionary. I haven't had to do that for a while. It is not a book I will forget any time soon. If you haven't read it, I urge you to read it. Wow!
    • 5/5
      I read 1984 in high school and didn't think as much of it as I do now, with the rise of populism especially in the US but also abroad. It's eerie how accurate Orwell's statements are in this book and how insanely applicable they are to those in power (and individuals' lack of willingness to stand up or to even understand what's happening around them).
    • 3/5
      I liked the book up until the point that Winston got arrested. I wanted them to overthrow big brother.
    • 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.
    • 5/5
      Frightening book. A must-read for fans of dystopian literature.
    • 5/5
      Awesome book. Still very relevant today what with all the privacy issues surrounding the internet and video cameras being everywhere and googlemaps taking pictures of everyone's house all the time. Big Brother really is watching. Someone is watching us all the time. But we haven't quite been taken over by the thought police yet.I really enjoyed the beginning when Winston Smith is trying to find a way to rebel without giving himself away, but towards the end it becomes rather violent which was a little too gruesome.The Gov't of Oceania is called Ingsoc, short for English Socialism. They have their own language called Newspeak, the purpose of which is to limit the number of words anyone knows such that it's difficult to think of anything heretical because there are no words for it. Including homosexuality. All possible crimes are covered by the word crimethink. The language bit is chilling.They are also destroying history and literature as part of a campaign to completely rewrite the past so that nothing can be learned from history. If there has never been another way of life than Ingsoc it's harder to imagine how to possibly rebel against it.
    • 4/5
      The classic dystopian novel about a Stalinist-like state that takes over England after some kind of cataclysmic war or revolution. Especially thought provoking today.
    • 3/5
      Do you think it matters greatly that Orwell may have plagearised a good portion of "Nineteen Eighty-Four" because of the significance of the novel? Funny how soon this novel has passed the 60 years mark and we're just now "finding this all out". In our world - the age of the internet, it seems these things are found out immediately.I was always aware that "Nineteen Eighty-Four" was about Russia/Soviet Union given his experience fighting on the communist side during the Spanish Civil War and all that entailed. Due to the Stalinists executing the Trotskyites (the POUM) on whose side Orwell fought, he left Spain after almost being murdered himself disillusioned with Communism altogether. Then he wrote and published "Animal Farm" and "Nineteen Eighty-Four". In the US, students in the 1960s and 1970s always assumed "Nineteen Eighty-Four" was about us in Europe. It became popular and a part of our culture to think Orwell had Europe in mind as the state on which his novel was based. Big Brother indeed has been alive and well, along with all the conspiracy theories we hold so dear to our hearts here (grassy knolls abound all over the country).Interesting that those authors who predict futures - Phillip K. Dick and J.G. Ballard are other examples - aren't the greatest of prose writers. The urgency to communicate their ideas must bypass the need to edit out the stodge/purple prose passages.I find all Orwell's books have that same problem - great ideas and images but solidly written rather than inspiring and then I think if he's managed to plant those ideas and images into the imagination - does it really matter? I'm not suggesting for one moment that artistry isn't vital but you do remember Orwell for the images rather than his prose style. I think writers are motivated in two different ways mainly: one is to entertain, the other is to represent life as truthfully as possible. The latter sort are usually interested/driven by social conditions of the time and seek to put their concerns into the novel form; they rarely make great novels but they do make good interesting ones.Charles Reader in “Never Too Late To Mend” did this and he seemed in doing it to be really a sociologist/philosopher who wanted to reach the mass audiences that were spellbound by Dickens. He produced a fair read revealing the inhumanity of the treadmill in a London prison, and the humiliations of the Australian gold rush. Social concern also is the driving force of “Mary Barton”, Elizabeth Gaskell's novel of the extreme pressures working class people were under in the throes of Industrial England. Not great literature but a most interesting read; a novelised pamphlet. Thackeray's “Vanity Fair” is a great work of literature because he manages to prioritise the aesthetics of plot and characterisation so that the social and political aspects don't come across as 'messages'.Orwell was political through and through but not a great novelist; he was more interested in revealing the class system as an exploiter of humans to the extent of degrading humanity to a pathetic degree. Many readers see this as more a service done to the reader; one feels that the eyes are opened to life as it really is. I thought the “Road to Wigan Pier” was a good book, and “Coming Up for Air” showing that he could be very funny about social change as well as deeply serious. But “Nineteen Eighty-Four” is really frighteningly relevant to today and one feels that he got it wrong only temporarily; it is slowly happening.'Plagiarism' is often used but seldom understood and it would be fairly impossible to 'plagiarise' a novel written in a different language since to plagiarise you would need to copy parts of the book word for word, which would be pointless if writing for an English readership. Happily, writers are free to use ideas they come across and make something of them in their own way but this isn't plagiarism. I think the only way this can be rectified in the future is to give both authors credit for having written “Nineteen Eighty-Four” with a portion of any royalties to Zamyatin's heirs if there be any.
    • 4/5
      what happens when we let truth slip away
    • 4/5
      I listened to this as an audiobook on my ipod while at work a few months ago. It took about ten hours, I'd say, though I didn't keep track.

      I didn't read "1984" in high school, like many of my friends did. Somehow, it just never showed up on a required reading list, and now that I'm a more mature reader I'm quite glad of it. It's a philosophical, meandering story that requires an open mind and lots of time to turn all the ideas proposed over in your head.

      I liked it a great deal, and it kept me from dying of boredom at work. :)
    • 4/5
      There are so many classic novels that don't hold up after many years and some that probably stunk in the first place and someone silly decided that everyone should read them. 1984 is what I think a good classic novel should be and I can understand it being on so many "must read" lists. You can tell it's a bit dated but it still holds up, it's creative and it has a good story to tell along with some life lessons. This was one of the classics that I was actually happy to read.
    • 3/5
      A man living in an oppressive, hopeless society is oppressed and hopeless.Okay. The characters don't feel real. The story arc is crap. But it's strongly evocative. Its importance is justified because it's really good at doing what it does. I'm just not sure that Being A Novel is one of the things it does.
    • 4/5
      I can't believe I had never read this book before now. The story was so familiar to me from simply being culturally-literate that there were no surprises. I enjoyed the story and could see the many allusions to Soviet era government. I thought the sections where the main character reads through the rebel "textbook" made the book drag. The conclusions from that section should have been obvious to any read at that point in the book. I think that if I was reading this at the time it was published, it would have hit me more deeply. Either way, I enjoyed it and am glad I read it.
    • 5/5
      Flawless until the final act, which seemed a little rushed, or at least slightly underdeveloped.Far more sophisticated than Brave New World - better written too - though maybe it's a little too despairing. The noir menace could've been a bit less heavy-handed, maybe. The sunlit field could've been a little less bright, too.
    • 3/5
      1984, while an iconic book, was not my cup of tea. The characters are all believable, I suppose, as was the plot, but sometimes it felt so...unreal, that it somehow broke my suspension of disbelief. At least when I read it for the first time.The second time, it made my skin tingle a little bit in it's accuracy of how media can manipulate society.
    • 3/5
      I hate reviewing books like this, they are famous and highly rated by so many people. Which leaves me thinking I must have missed something. I found the first 3/4 of this book a chore. The first 3/4 felt like instead of being in the world the book was trying to describe you were simply left reading descriptions of world. I couldn't help but skim through many of the pages just trying to get anything that wasn't pure description. The book picked up during the last 1/4 of the book, but for the majority I found it rather boring.
    • 4/5
      An important book, usually first experienced as required reading in high school. Unlike a lot of fiction of this type, it actually has a story and characters that seem to be more than simple didactic mechanisms. In sum, a talented writer making a strong case as to how the danger of political extremism will take us to a place where thought itself is forbidden.
    • 4/5
      I found 1984 interesting in that it takes place around 1950 and told about how are freedom and democracy are fragile and big brother is watching and the dangers of Soviet threat to the world which can still apply today. One quote I did like was: "Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." The book also cautioned against excessive power of mass media which is very prevalent with all the fake news that is coming out of our mass media today. I would recommend reading it as it is remembered as one of the the most important and moving works of fiction to be published in this generation.
    • 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!
    • 4/5
      I read this book in high school for a class and it was fantastic will never forget this book.
    • 4/5
      1984 is very well written and sends a very clear and important message to the world. Orwell crafted one of the best dystopian books I have ever read. The atmosphere absolutely chilling and every detail is wonderfully placed throughout the novel. There were, however, some short sections of the book that made is a little bit boring.The characters throughout the book are very interesting. 1984 follows the life of Winston Smith, a middle class man living out his life in the city of London. We follow his life as his thoughts, personality, and outlook change with encounters with events and other people. Only a few characters really make a prominent impact throughout the entire novel. However, these characters really help bring out the character of the book.The book sends a very clear message about authoritarian power and the problems of an over controlling government. The events throughout the book show how life could be like if the governments become powerful. The ruling elites establish absolute control over the middle and lower classes of society. Near the middle of the book, Orwell sneaks in passages explaining some sort of political theory that explains the situation in the world in 1984. This part adds to increasing knowledge imparted to us through Orwell's novel.There are some points throughout the book were I found myself trying to keep reading. The middle section of the book is a clear example of this. This part of the book really dragged on even though it was only a small section of the book. It started out pretty interesting but it begun to drag as it got longer.1984 is a very good book. The message is sends about the dangers of the power of the government is truly amazing and furthered my view on the world. It is clear that this book set the stage for other books just like it. However, it is not for everyone. Some of the nightmarish scenarios presented could turn off some people. 1984 is an amazing book and everyone should try to read it at one point in their lifetime.
    • 4/5
      I checked out this Signet Classic version of "1984" at our county library. I should have read the Appendix - The Principles of Newspeak, first. There is also an Afterword essay by Eric Fromm at the back of the book which could have served as an introduction. In light of the state of worldwide politics and particularly the results of the 2016 presidential election I thought it was well worth my time to read this fictional classic. I found reading the later pages of the book, about the torture of Winston Smith, particularly difficult reading. I recommend that young people and all voting citizens read this book.
    • 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.