1984

I always avoided Orwell after watching a horrible animated version of Animal Farm year after year in school.  When it actually was 1984, I thought about reading 1984 but I was busy with other things.  It seems like when I was growing up, everybody referenced this book.  Apparently, the title gave its relevance a built-in expiration date since I haven’t heard anyone mention “Big Brother” in a long time.

Read this book.  Now.  It is just as relevant now as it was in the late 1940’s.  The fear of a controlling government should be of interest to everyone (regardless of political affiliation) and 1984 can give everyone a common language in discussing the evil of power.

Our real world 1984 was happier than this fictional 1984!

Winston shows us the details of his life and his work (the state says they should be the same thing) and how he goes from being curiously disgruntled to becoming a true insurrectionist.  Along the way, he educates us in Newspeak, the new language.  Newspeak seems to me a bit too much like the “texting” abbreviations that have spilled into emails, writing, advertising and the rest of our lives.

Winston ponders the hypocrisy of politics; Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.  Apparently, in 1984, the politicians just gave up pretending.

The book reads well giving us enough background to figure out how the world got to be so messed up (Orwell’s fictional world, not our real one.)  Good or bad, the characters are real people even when they make no sense.  There are two-dimensional characters but they are the sheep who follow blindly…yeah, don’t get me started.

It bogs down toward the end with a lot of brow beating…we get it, Big Brother is bad.  The very end (spoiler alert) seems to be a nod to the short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.

1984 fits the bill as relevant reading.

Next Week:   More riffing on the future world with A Clockwork Orange