“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be
understood.”
Should you read this book? Definitely! Not only
is this book a classic and references to it all the time in media, pop culture
and everyday life but it is surprisingly entertaining and easy to read. From
the beginning, I understood everything and I was actually invested in the
story, I say ‘actually’ because the classic novels are not always so accessible
to modern teen readers and this was an exception. Although, I have to warn any
future readers, that the ending is not a happy one and while this was necessary
to prove Orwell’s point, I am never one to be satisfied with a sad ending.
George Orwell uses the novel to warn the
readers of that time about communism and totalitarianism in general. George
Orwell sets the story in 1984 - only 35 years after the publication date – so to
warn the English public that this could easily happen to them if they didn’t
ward off totalitarianism. The Cold War at that time had not escalated yet and
so there were still some academic supporters. As Orwell put it, “Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has
been written directly or indirectly against totalitarianism and for Democratic
Socialism as I understand it." Orwell was against the communist up rise in
Russia and Spain and so sought to warn the British and Americans of this. Personally,
I agree with Ben Pimlott’s introduction (Penguin publication) which stated that
this book was also an attack on the direction of the British Labour government,
at that time, into state socialism. Orwell may have been a democratic socialist
but I don’t think he was pleased with the direction the Labour government was
heading in. Mostly, because the name of the government in 1984 was IngSoc, meaning English Socialism in Newspeak. This meant
that England/Britain was still the power house of Oceania; it wasn’t another
country such as a Russia who had taken over England and turned it communist. [NOTE: Going back now, I really think George Orwell wrote about Totalitarian Russia. As I am studying Russia in Stalin's period, I see more and more similarities about the past Russia and 1984 - it is really shocking. Things like the no persons, trials for people who used to be part of the party and even thought crime occurred in Russia.] 
Something else I found really interesting was
the idea that”, “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls
the present controls the past.” As I wonder about this, it makes
more and more sense. The past isn’t something tangible, so what is it? In
school I learnt the difference between history and the past. The past is the
facts and history is a representation of the past, but isn’t everything just
history. How can we ever be sure that something truly happened and that even a
date was the truth? In 1984, the
Ministry of Truth just falsified documents all the time so that they were creating
the past all the time and after a while people would have no reason to suspect
against it. The human memory is so easily distorted, and as time goes by the
memories fade. Memories easily change as other people tell their versions of
events, as we see pictures or even just because we force ourselves to remember
something that we cannot remember. If you find this just as interesting as I
do, go to https://webfiles.uci.edu/eloftus/Morris_AJP_Galley06.pdf?uniq=-j2g7sq
or http://agora.stanford.edu/sjls/Issue%20One/fisher&tversky.htm
for interesting articles on the human memory. What also shocks me is how I
never expected governments of Western society who fight for ‘freedom’ would be
censoring just like in 1984, but I
stumbled across this article a few days ago http://time.com/59567/facebook-countries-censor-report-india/.
It’s about how countries have asked facebook to censor some things or have
accessed facebook for the private data of some people. I was shocked to find
that Germany and France restricted some content. While, they probably restricted
something that would upset people and is ultimately against the law of their
countries, I don’t see how it can be 100% justified. The government is just a
body of people, how can these people be allowed to make decisions on what
others can or can’t see. And, it is no surprise that the USA topped request on
user data. While, this is mostly to search people who have criminal records or
are possible threats to the country, the US has gone over some hot water for
these snooping which apparently is always for the ‘right’ reasons. If you want
to read more into this, http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-04-03/the-nsa-spying-machine-an-interactive-graphic
and http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/brazils-president-condemns-nsa-spying/2013/09/24/fe1f78ee-2525-11e3-b75d-5b7f66349852_story.html
<-- though Brazil is nearly as bad as the USA when it comes to the
government requesting people’s data in social media.
Overall, I really did enjoy reading this book.
I especially liked how even though this is set in an universe that never happened
and seems impossible that it will ever happen it still contains some relevant
ideas. As you can see from the links to articles, the book allowed me to branch
out from its ideas and find modern day equivalents. It’s also so interesting to
read from the origin of popular words such as Big Brother and thought crime. I
don’t think it’s the most developed plot or characters but 1984 has some very interesting ideas.
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