English language
Published July 24, 2018
Nineteen Eighty-Four
4 stars
(780 reviews)
Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, often referred to as 1984, is a dystopian social science fiction novel by the English novelist George Orwell (the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair). 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 centres on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and repressive regimentation of persons and behaviours within society. Orwell, himself a democratic socialist, modelled the authoritarian government in the novel after Stalinist Russia. More broadly, the novel examines the role of truth and facts within politics and the ways in which they are manipulated.
Also contained in:
Novels (Animal Farm / Burmese Days / Clergyman's Daughter / Coming Up for Air / Keep the Aspidistra Flying / Nineteen Eighty-Four)
Novels (Animal Farm / Nineteen Eighty-Four)
Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, often referred to as 1984, is a dystopian social science fiction novel by the English novelist George Orwell (the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair). 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 centres on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and repressive regimentation of persons and behaviours within society. Orwell, himself a democratic socialist, modelled the authoritarian government in the novel after Stalinist Russia. More broadly, the novel examines the role of truth and facts within politics and the ways in which they are manipulated.
Also contained in:
Novels (Animal Farm / Burmese Days / Clergyman's Daughter / Coming Up for Air / Keep the Aspidistra Flying / Nineteen Eighty-Four)
Novels (Animal Farm / Nineteen Eighty-Four)
Malte reviewed 1984 by George Orwell by George Orwell
Review of '1984 by George Orwell' on 'Goodreads'
Once this was the go-to book if you wanted to understand surveillance society. It still holds, but contemporary surveillance has also moved past this into a new kind of dystopia, that does not rely on men sitting behind cameras watching your every move without you giving them permission. Contemporary surveillance relies on our own participation, that we make our own lives available in data that is then easily made into statistics and profiling. The figure of the Citizen, that voluntarily desires surveillance as in Facebook is one example that 1984 never understood. Goodreads is part of this regime too of course. Contemporary surveillance tries more to prevent crime (through so called "pre-crime") than punish those who did it in the past. That's why profiling and computer-based warning-lists are more important for it (have 30 dubious books on your Goodreads and you are certain to pop up on some surveillance list). …
Once this was the go-to book if you wanted to understand surveillance society. It still holds, but contemporary surveillance has also moved past this into a new kind of dystopia, that does not rely on men sitting behind cameras watching your every move without you giving them permission. Contemporary surveillance relies on our own participation, that we make our own lives available in data that is then easily made into statistics and profiling. The figure of the Citizen, that voluntarily desires surveillance as in Facebook is one example that 1984 never understood. Goodreads is part of this regime too of course. Contemporary surveillance tries more to prevent crime (through so called "pre-crime") than punish those who did it in the past. That's why profiling and computer-based warning-lists are more important for it (have 30 dubious books on your Goodreads and you are certain to pop up on some surveillance list). For a story more up to speed, we should probably go to 'Minority Report' and the novel it was based on. It shifts the terrain and makes new kinds of resistance possible too, which are still to be invented.
Jens reviewed 1984 by George Orwell
Review of 'George Orwell\'s "1984"' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Reading this in 2024 was definitely... an experience. Smarter people than I have written about which parts of the world of "1984" have become part of our reality since its publication. Let me just add that I sometimes had to put the book down because it felt as if I was reading a newspaper.
The plot itself is not the star of this novel - the world we visit in it is, as is arguably the protagonist's view of it. An irritating (and violent) journey into the mind of an Oceanian citizen, not the best choice for the faint-hearted reader.
Recommended if not required reading for everyone who is trying to make sense of our world.
I read this for the second time after my first visit to "Oceania" when I was around 20 - definitely a different experience for reasons both personal and, well, civilizational. I picked it up …
Reading this in 2024 was definitely... an experience. Smarter people than I have written about which parts of the world of "1984" have become part of our reality since its publication. Let me just add that I sometimes had to put the book down because it felt as if I was reading a newspaper.
The plot itself is not the star of this novel - the world we visit in it is, as is arguably the protagonist's view of it. An irritating (and violent) journey into the mind of an Oceanian citizen, not the best choice for the faint-hearted reader.
Recommended if not required reading for everyone who is trying to make sense of our world.
I read this for the second time after my first visit to "Oceania" when I was around 20 - definitely a different experience for reasons both personal and, well, civilizational. I picked it up again to prepare for reading "[b:Julia|86508927|Julia|Sandra Newman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1680077531l/86508927.SX50.jpg|94140994]" by Sandra Newman, which portrays the same story from the perspective of the major female character in "1984". If you "liked" Orwell's version and want to feel more miserable, give "Julia" a try too.
Stefany GG reviewed 1984 by George Orwell
Review of '1984' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Relectura
Lectura conjunta
naught101 reviewed 1984 by George Orwell by George Orwell
Review of '1984 by George Orwell' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Required reading.
Stephen Hayes reviewed George Orwell's 1984 by George Orwell
None
4 stars
I read it in 1959, when South Africa was becoming more and more totalitarian, and so it was one of the scariest books i had ever read. I had recently read [b:Brave New World|5479|Brave New World / Brave New World Revisited|Aldous Huxley|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1331315450s/5479.jpg|39947767], which was equally dystopian, but it concerned the distant future, and so felt more like a remote threat. The menace in [b:1984|40961427|1984|George Orwell|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1532714506s/40961427.jpg|153313] was immediate.
