1984: A Book Review

Depths of Pentecost ^ | April 29, 2017 | Philip Cottraux

[pcottraux]

I usually blog about the Bible or Christianity, but since I read "1984" for the first time I wanted to write a review of it. And since much of this is relevant to societal problems, I thought some FReepers might be interested.

(And I realize this was a bit lengthy so I apologize...but it's a great book!)

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[dainbramaged]

It is a great book - required reading in my tenth grade English class back in the 60’s. The film version with Richard Burton and John Hurt is very well done.

[DuncanWaring]

America today is enduring a racist witch hunt, our generation’s McCarthyism.

We're not seeing a resurrection of McCarthyism.

We're seeing a resurrection of the Brown Shirts, of the Rwandan genocide.

They want most of us dead, the rest of us in chains.

[supremedoctrine]

Thanks for that, sir. You might be interested in something I read on openculture.org
It’s a letter Aldous Huxley wrote Orwell on publication of 1984. Huxley had been an early actual
teacher of Orwell’s at school, and Huxley claims his vision of the future in Brave New World might
prove to be more accurate than Orwell’s.

[chuckles]

I'm 65 yo now and 1984 and Animal Farm were required reading back in my day. We spent time discussing the dangers of political spin and analyzed the language used to fool the people. In the '60's and 70's, these staples were replaced with "Rules for Radicals". A book dedicated to Lucifer. As we watched the Soviet Union dwindling, Castro driving his 1950's cars with 10lbs of rice and beans for a week, and East Germany boiling their water for a bath from coal dumped on the front sidewalk, everything we learned from 1984 and Animal Farm has been forgotten in less than one generation. Just look at Venezuela today. They use the same language that destroyed all the socialist countries in the past, but they keep saying the same phrases that destroyed half the world and murdered over 200 million in the 20th century. The same language is used in the Democrat party today. America is on the cusp of total breakdown if the people won't wake up. You can see that these "nice, kind, tolerant" people burning things and beating Americans and destroying property, just as was done in the 1930's with the Hitler youth and brown shirts. Instead of burning books, they just attack the book writers. Nobody reads anymore anyway. The only few citizens being turned out today come from private school or home school.

Another book being neglected today is the Bible. Without which there is no future for America anyway. The wisdom and principles in the Bible are the backbone of the United States. God does bless His people. It's time we decide if we are His people.

[Paladin2]

TOR Browser....

[yarddog]

We had to read it in the 10th grade too. That would have been 1963 for me. Also “Great Expectations” and “The Catcher In The Rye”.

I can’t remember much about any of them except a little about “Great Expectations”.

I do recall that “1984” was disturbing to me.

[Empireoftheatom48]

That Movie was very good, I think it was Burton’s last movie.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

That was one of the truest, most chilling, most damning and most thought-provoking piece I’ve read in a very long time.

Well done! :)

[Inyo-Mono]

I actually got around to reading it for the first time in 1983. It is an eye opener.

[digger48]

It’s truly mindboggling to see the Left now rush to this book and somehow see themselves as Winston

The really should use a mirror to read it.

[Reily]

It certainly dead on describes NORK Land.

[xenia]

Great job on your summary of the book. That book did much to mold my Conservative thinking. I read it as a teenager back in the 1960’s, along with animal farm. I preferred the black and white version of the movie, to the newer one.

The technological advances I read about in the news pretty much every day, remind me of Orwell’s prophetic thinking. I don’t think people have a clue how we are entering into an electronic concentration camp...willingly....where we are monitored even more closely than Orwell could have imagined. I fear for my kids and grandkids.

[Scrambler Bob]

The really should use a mirror to read it.
= = =

Maybe that’s why their Antifa Icon is mirror image.

[Verginius Rufus]

"Homophobia" and "homophobe" are good examples of Newspeak, but they are more than 15 years old.

I recall a conversation with a friend of mine, probably in the 1990s (he died in Jan. 2001 of cancer) about the word "homophobia" which he insisted was a valid word. He was a liberal college professor but not a homosexual (was married to a lovely woman to whom he was very devoted).

[Dr. Sivana]

Huxley claims his vision of the future in Brave New World might prove to be more accurate than Orwell’s.

Huxley was right as to the idea of making human romantic love irrelevant by by cheapening sex and making sexual play common from early childhood rather than trying to limit sexual relations to monthly encounters for procreation only. Huxley also was right on the idea of being able to dial back actual jail time and physical punishment over time through a soft tyranny instead of 1984's straight-on approach. Both authors anticipated future developments in technology that would help achieve the nihilist state's goals: ubiquitous cameras and screens (Orwell never thought that people would CARRY THEM AROUND!) and Huxley's Malthusian Drills (birth control pills). Huxley's explicit grade level class system has not come to fruition, at least not as he envisioned it. I do take a little issue with the writer of the piece. He maintains that the proles were kept "comfortable", as if they lived like Andy Capp and Flo. The proles were kept at bare subsistence levels and rocket bombs tended to hit their neighborhoods with some regularity to keep them in fear or Eurasia/East Asia. Huxley had one great book in him, and even that one is a bit jarring because the assumed protagonist, Bernard Marx, is replaced by the savage midway through the book. Unusual tale telling. Orwell is by far the better writer, and it was presumptuous of Huxley to say his book was better or more accurate. As the author points out, North Korea is very close to a literal rendition of 1984.

[yarddog]

I read an article a while back by Orwell’s (adopted?) Son.

He grew up on the nearly deserted Scottish Island of Jura. It was an almost ideal childhood. Hunting, fishing, hiking with his father.

Probably a great place to write a novel too.

[Kommodor]

Well written. Thanks for sharing.

[pcottraux]

I knew that line might draw some controversy, but I really meant McCarthyism as it”s portrayed by the left. The same people who derided it as a communist witch hunt are the same one’s who are themselves engaging in a racist witch hunt.

[pcottraux]

You’re welcome! Glad you enjoyed it!