1984 - Tak's Reading Room

Kindle Edition, 269 pages

English language

Published July 4, 2020 by Prabhat Prakashan.

(1 review)

It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final book completed in his lifetime. Thematically, Nineteen Eighty-Four centers on the consequences of government over-reach, totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and repressive regimentation of all persons and behaviors within society. More broadly, it examines the role of truth and facts within politics and their manipulation. First published in 1948, The present book 1984 is a dystopian novel by prominent twentieth-century novelist, essayist, and social critique Eric Arthur Blair under his popular pseudonym George Orwell. The novel is set in Airstrip One, a province of the superstate Oceania in a world of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance and public manipulation. The superstate and its residents are dictated to by a political regime euphemistically named English Socialism, shortened to ‘Ingsoc’ in Newspeak, the government’s invented language. The superstate is under the control of the privileged elite of the …

It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final book completed in his lifetime. Thematically, Nineteen Eighty-Four centers on the consequences of government over-reach, totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and repressive regimentation of all persons and behaviors within society. More broadly, it examines the role of truth and facts within politics and their manipulation. First published in 1948, The present book 1984 is a dystopian novel by prominent twentieth-century novelist, essayist, and social critique Eric Arthur Blair under his popular pseudonym George Orwell. The novel is set in Airstrip One, a province of the superstate Oceania in a world of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance and public manipulation. The superstate and its residents are dictated to by a political regime euphemistically named English Socialism, shortened to ‘Ingsoc’ in Newspeak, the government’s invented language. The superstate is under the control of the privileged elite of the inner party, a party and government that persecutes individualism and independent thinking as ‘thought-crime’, which is enforced by the ‘thought police’. this novel, in a way, criticizes the forced implementation of the colonial thought system and life onto various colonies by the great Britain.

91 editions

Keno Goertz reviewed Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

Review of 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

The contributions of this book are far too grand for me to go into all details here. To make it short, I believe that Orwell provided a fitting explanation of how individual thought is suppressed under totalitarian regimes. The principles of doublethink are also used in democratic states whenever it is politically necessary to hold two conflicting opinions. I even claim that it is a politician's most essential skill to perform this mental gymnastics convincingly.

However, this propaganda does not necesarrily manage to convince everybody. Regardless of the political system, it seems that generally, the people under its influence tend to root for it. But also regardless of the system, the capacity for subversive ideas can never be eliminated. Whether this capacity is actually of any use, though, depends on the system. The dystopian world of 1984 deals with subversive thoughts in such an efficient way, that revolutionary spirit is …

The contributions of this book are far too grand for me to go into all details here. To make it short, I believe that Orwell provided a fitting explanation of how individual thought is suppressed under totalitarian regimes. The principles of doublethink are also used in democratic states whenever it is politically necessary to hold two conflicting opinions. I even claim that it is a politician's most essential skill to perform this mental gymnastics convincingly.

However, this propaganda does not necesarrily manage to convince everybody. Regardless of the political system, it seems that generally, the people under its influence tend to root for it. But also regardless of the system, the capacity for subversive ideas can never be eliminated. Whether this capacity is actually of any use, though, depends on the system. The dystopian world of 1984 deals with subversive thoughts in such an efficient way, that revolutionary spirit is crushed before it even started to materialize.