Nineteen Eighty-Four

Title of Book: Nineteen Eighty-Four
 Author: George Orwell
 # of Pages 315
Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆ 
Why This Book has Value:

George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'(1984) is one of the most influential books of all time. Read the 'influences' page on any good writers' website, and you'll probably see 1984 on there somewhere.

Yet, somehow, I'd never managed to read it. And even though I didn't think it'd be able to, it lived   up to all of the hype. George Orwell paints a description of a society that hardly seems believable, yet it is showing its influence in our modern society. Even though this book is almost seventy years old, with the increasing surveillance we see in our society, it is as relevant as ever.

This book doesn't pull any punches. The place, Airstrip One(Great Britain, now part of the country 'Oceania') is bleak. People have no ambition, and are watched at every moment. People are paranoid, and constantly turn each-other in for imagined crimes. A man named Winston falls in love, and fights the government.

The government has a goal: to control everything. It is almost comical in its attempts to control people, yet the people are so afraid that they do absolutely nothing.

There are three separate groups, and they have heavily different living conditions, though, oddly enough, the lowest class(the proles) have the most freedom.


While it isn't that bad today, we need to be weary of this kind of place sneaking up on us.  Our rights are violated everyday, and, just like in the book, we hardly care.

As the New Statesmen magazine put it, "I do not think I have ever read a novel more frightening and depressing; and yet, such are the originality, the suspense, the speed of writing and withering indignation that it is impossible to put the book down".

The Listener also called it "The most arresting political novel written by an Englishman".

I would agree with these quotes. While I expected a lot, this book surpassed expectations.

I give it a 5/5.