Reality control
Finished reading George Orwell's 1984 in two days.
I can tell you more about the book than what I heard in the undang seminar on Thursday. Heh.
Sleepy. I'm one of those nutters willing to stay up the whole night if it means finishing a book.
Anyway, the book. Very good. And extremely depressing. Even more depressing than The Bell Jar, and that at least was hopeful towards the end. 1984 starts off bleak and hopeless, almost despairing; the middle becomes slightly hopeful, and then it ends very bleakly, very depressingly and definitely hopelessly.
Even Damien Rice isn't as depressing as the tone in this book. I'm not kidding. Rice would be singing about Why you left me, whereas this book will get you thinking Why do I even bother about the reason that you left me because life is pointless anyway.
And the first line catches your attention - "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."
*flails arms because I don't know what else to say*
Don't want to tell you more. Wouldn't do it justice. Even the Wiki article isn't enough, though it is really detailed.
Much, much more disturbing than Lois Lowry's The Giver. But the ways in which the societies disposed of their citizens were somewhat similar. And family life and emotions were basically non-existent because they were deemed unnecessary for citizens to fulfill their functions and responsibilities. The Party were even attempting to suppress the sex instinct; procreation was solely for the purpose of producing children, and was done as "a duty to the Party" (doing it for any other reason was a crime and therefore punishable by death). And you were watched 24/7 by telescreens.
And the way that history was continuously altered (never "falsified", because history is true at any given point in time, whatever the changes consciously made to it) was seriously, seriously scary. History is biased - even now, true, but in 1984 it was changed every day, and lies are consciously used to change what might not even be the truth in the first place. Displaces one's sense of reality. Yet the Party members (something like the middle class in this society) accept all the changes without question by using doublethink. Interesting concept, that.
One of the scariest things in there - the new language, Newspeak, was an ongoing effort to reduce the number of words in English, thereby making intelligent, independent thought impossible by degrees as meanings and old words were discarded systematically. And even the works of Shakespeare and Byron and etc etc were changed, to the point of being unrecognizable. *goes into shock* Can you believe that?!
One of the best books I've read this year. Yeah hah. Go read it.
Don't blame me if it gives you nightmares.
I can tell you more about the book than what I heard in the undang seminar on Thursday. Heh.
Sleepy. I'm one of those nutters willing to stay up the whole night if it means finishing a book.
Anyway, the book. Very good. And extremely depressing. Even more depressing than The Bell Jar, and that at least was hopeful towards the end. 1984 starts off bleak and hopeless, almost despairing; the middle becomes slightly hopeful, and then it ends very bleakly, very depressingly and definitely hopelessly.
Even Damien Rice isn't as depressing as the tone in this book. I'm not kidding. Rice would be singing about Why you left me, whereas this book will get you thinking Why do I even bother about the reason that you left me because life is pointless anyway.
And the first line catches your attention - "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."
*flails arms because I don't know what else to say*
Don't want to tell you more. Wouldn't do it justice. Even the Wiki article isn't enough, though it is really detailed.
Much, much more disturbing than Lois Lowry's The Giver. But the ways in which the societies disposed of their citizens were somewhat similar. And family life and emotions were basically non-existent because they were deemed unnecessary for citizens to fulfill their functions and responsibilities. The Party were even attempting to suppress the sex instinct; procreation was solely for the purpose of producing children, and was done as "a duty to the Party" (doing it for any other reason was a crime and therefore punishable by death). And you were watched 24/7 by telescreens.
And the way that history was continuously altered (never "falsified", because history is true at any given point in time, whatever the changes consciously made to it) was seriously, seriously scary. History is biased - even now, true, but in 1984 it was changed every day, and lies are consciously used to change what might not even be the truth in the first place. Displaces one's sense of reality. Yet the Party members (something like the middle class in this society) accept all the changes without question by using doublethink. Interesting concept, that.
One of the scariest things in there - the new language, Newspeak, was an ongoing effort to reduce the number of words in English, thereby making intelligent, independent thought impossible by degrees as meanings and old words were discarded systematically. And even the works of Shakespeare and Byron and etc etc were changed, to the point of being unrecognizable. *goes into shock* Can you believe that?!
One of the best books I've read this year. Yeah hah. Go read it.
Don't blame me if it gives you nightmares.
posted by Lynn at
10:05 am
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