Everyman's Library, #134 (US/CAN), 326 pages
English language
Published Jan. 1, 1992 by Alfred A. Knopf.
Nineteen Eighty-Four revealed George Orwell as one of the twentieth century’s greatest mythmakers. While the totalitarian system that provoked him into writing it has since passed into oblivion, his harrowing cautionary tale of a man trapped in a political nightmare has had the opposite fate: its relevance and power to disturb our complacency seem to grow decade by decade. In Winston Smith’s desperate struggle to free himself from an all-encompassing, malevolent state, Orwell zeroed in on tendencies apparent in every modern society, and made vivid the universal predicament of the individual.
Serving to lay out a well-told plan for complete cultural dominion via "thought police."
Distopía escrita por George Orwell en los años cuarenta del siglo XX, 1984 ha marcado nuestra concepción, nuestra comprensión de lo que es un totalitarismo. Y no solo el soviético estalinista al que alude de manera más obvia con ese Gran Hermano con bigote cuya mirada en los carteles parece seguirte, sino también a otros totalitarismos más sutiles, vigentes, que afectan íntimamente nuestra esfera privada.
Para quien piense que es una exageración que nuestra sociedad también esté, al menos en parte, retratada en esa novela, le traigo una anécdota de lo más ilustrativa: hace unos años Amazon, por problemas con la editorial de varios de los libros de Orwell, eliminó de todos los dispositivos Kindle, a distancia, precisamente 1984 y Rebelión en la Granja. Y lo hizo sin necesidad de entrar casa por casa, sin necesidad de quemar papel. Fue cuestión de que un tipo en un edificio lejano apretara …
Distopía escrita por George Orwell en los años cuarenta del siglo XX, 1984 ha marcado nuestra concepción, nuestra comprensión de lo que es un totalitarismo. Y no solo el soviético estalinista al que alude de manera más obvia con ese Gran Hermano con bigote cuya mirada en los carteles parece seguirte, sino también a otros totalitarismos más sutiles, vigentes, que afectan íntimamente nuestra esfera privada.
Para quien piense que es una exageración que nuestra sociedad también esté, al menos en parte, retratada en esa novela, le traigo una anécdota de lo más ilustrativa: hace unos años Amazon, por problemas con la editorial de varios de los libros de Orwell, eliminó de todos los dispositivos Kindle, a distancia, precisamente 1984 y Rebelión en la Granja. Y lo hizo sin necesidad de entrar casa por casa, sin necesidad de quemar papel. Fue cuestión de que un tipo en un edificio lejano apretara un botón. Uno de los pilares del universo de la novela, uno de los fundamentos de la ideología Ingsoc, es la “mutabilidad del pasado”, la capacidad del sistema para borrar todos los registros de los hechos y falsificarlos para que todo sea acorde al presente que le conviene al régimen. Desde esta perspectiva, ¿no nos debería inquietar que cada vez confiemos más en buscadores como Google para consultar cualquier duda de los hechos que queramos conocer, hasta tal punto que la pérdida de memoria es generalizada? Y pronto no solo será ir a una web para mirar cómo acabó tal o cual hecho histórico. Cuando seamos viejos el relato de quienes fuimos lo contarán los registros que dejamos en las redes. Registros que, en realidad, no nos pertenecen a nosotros sino a las grandes empresas que a fin de cuentas nos gobiernan. Entraremos en Facebook para rememorar nuestro propio pasado, y Facebook nos “ayudará” a reinterpretarlo.
Y luego está otro aspecto todavía más sutil, muy bien tratado en la novela. Narra el proceso mediante el que la represión doblega la voluntad de una persona, llegando a entrar en la esfera íntima de su mente, allí donde al comienzo de la novela el protagonista pensaba que era intrínsecamente libre e invulnerable.
Y por el camino explica procesos psicológicos que cualquiera puede observar en dinámicas enfermizas de nuestro día a día, como el doblepensar. Y lo hace con buena literatura, con mucho mayor alcance que si Orwell hubiera escrito un erudito ensayo de diez mil páginas. En el libro dice, por ejemplo:
“… la facultad de creer que lo negro es blanco, más aún, de saber que lo negro es blanco y olvidar que alguna vez se creyó lo contrario.”
“Decir mentiras a la vez que se cree sinceramente en ellas, olvidar todo hecho que no convenga recordar, y luego, cuando vuelva a ser necesario, sacarlo del olvido solo por el tiempo que convenga, negar la existencia de la realidad objetiva sin dejar ni por un momento de saber que existe esa realidad que se niega…”
Me atrevería a afirmar que 1984 influyó toda la crítica a nuestra cultura de la segunda mitad del siglo XX. Desde la psicología a la filosofía o la sociología. Menciona el panóptico, el modelo planteado por Foucault treinta años después, con una elegancia y una sencillez aterradora. Y que conste que no es un clásico solo por su contenido “social”. Es una obra bellamente escrita, con momentos llenos de significado, poesía y humanidad. Una novela muy bien planteada de principio a fin, lectura necesaria a la que se debe volver con la madurez, cuando uno está en situación de entender mejor el alcance de la Policía del Pensamiento, su poder, y su verdadera intención.
Excellent, yet depressing book depicting a dystopic society that has way too much verisimilitude. A must-read.
There is much to love about this story, and the morals and messages Orwell tried to illustrate with it, but the use of <spoiler>rape/sexual violence imagery</spoiler>, although maybe used to illustrate the extent of this world, has a very undesirable effect in that it seems to normalise the idea that ideas of <spoiler>rape</spoiler> are commonplace and should be embraced.
I was pleasantly surprised how much of the story I had retained from junior high. Probably because the novel is remarkably short, a trait I had forgotten.
In [b:Amusing Ourselves to Death|74034|Amusing Ourselves to Death Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business|Neil Postman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1568871230l/74034.SY75.jpg|2337731] (1985), media theorist Neil Postman reflects on the influence of television on public discourse. ‘We were keeping our eye on 1984’, he writes, warning the West not to lose itself in fear of a dystopia according to George Orwell’s 1984 (1949), based on a system of information control and surveillance: in the end, Postman argues, a ‘show business society’ is more likely to lead to a dystopia according to Aldous Huxley’s [b:Brave New World|3180338|Brave New World|Aldous Huxley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1551151249l/3180338.SY75.jpg|3204877] (1932), based on contentment and ignorance.
There is, however, an objection to the comparison. It struck me how much 1984 is actually related to Orwell’s earlier work [b:Animal Farm|56730514|Animal Farm|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1611001402l/56730514.SY75.jpg|2207778]. Especially the passages on propaganda and the rewriting of history made me realise that the novel …
In [b:Amusing Ourselves to Death|74034|Amusing Ourselves to Death Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business|Neil Postman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1568871230l/74034.SY75.jpg|2337731] (1985), media theorist Neil Postman reflects on the influence of television on public discourse. ‘We were keeping our eye on 1984’, he writes, warning the West not to lose itself in fear of a dystopia according to George Orwell’s 1984 (1949), based on a system of information control and surveillance: in the end, Postman argues, a ‘show business society’ is more likely to lead to a dystopia according to Aldous Huxley’s [b:Brave New World|3180338|Brave New World|Aldous Huxley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1551151249l/3180338.SY75.jpg|3204877] (1932), based on contentment and ignorance.
There is, however, an objection to the comparison. It struck me how much 1984 is actually related to Orwell’s earlier work [b:Animal Farm|56730514|Animal Farm|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1611001402l/56730514.SY75.jpg|2207778]. Especially the passages on propaganda and the rewriting of history made me realise that the novel is primarily a critique of totalitarianism in the Soviet Union. Orwell’s choice to set his story in London triggers the mind, but I still missed a cultural-historical context. Orwell does not ask how or why; therefore, it remains questionable whether 1984 should be read as an ominous prophecy. Unlike Huxley’s novel, I wouldn’t label it ‘science-fiction’ either. Orwell stayed pretty close to the state of art, referring at most to an extensive network of surveillance cameras and microphones.
Whatever of this, the novel is an absolute 5-star read. Orwell’s atmosphere is so grim and sinister that the reader instinctively knows that Big Brother is watching. There are several ‘details’ that emphasise the creepiness of the totalitarian system, such as the ‘shrinking’ language Newspeak and the segregation between proletarians and party members, who are both free and imprisoned in different manners. I could reread this book many times without getting bored.
Seemed like an appropriate last book to close the year of 2016. I first read 1984 in the year 1984, but I was only 12 then, so rereading it now gave a much deeper appreciation for the depth of Orwell's insight. If you'd asked me 10 years ago I would have said Brave New World had come closer to anticipating our modern problems, but after watching the proponents of Brexit and the Trump campaign flat out lie and deny the truth with no accountability or consequence, I'm no longer so sure that Orwell didn't come closer to the mark. Considering the book was written in 1948, that's no small feat.
Two quotes that struck me as particularly relevant:
"Talking to her, he realized how easy it was to present an appearance of orthodoxy while having no grasp whatever of what orthodoxy meant. In a way, the world-view of the Party …
Seemed like an appropriate last book to close the year of 2016. I first read 1984 in the year 1984, but I was only 12 then, so rereading it now gave a much deeper appreciation for the depth of Orwell's insight. If you'd asked me 10 years ago I would have said Brave New World had come closer to anticipating our modern problems, but after watching the proponents of Brexit and the Trump campaign flat out lie and deny the truth with no accountability or consequence, I'm no longer so sure that Orwell didn't come closer to the mark. Considering the book was written in 1948, that's no small feat.
Two quotes that struck me as particularly relevant:
"Talking to her, he realized how easy it was to present an appearance of orthodoxy while having no grasp whatever of what orthodoxy meant. In a way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird."
"DOUBLETHINK means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them ... DOUBLETHINK lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word DOUBLETHINK it is necessary to exercise DOUBLETHINK. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of DOUBLETHINK one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth."
Two words recurrently came to my mind while I was reading the book – “Hauntingly beautiful”.
That’s how brilliant this book is. I would’ve given it 10 out of 5 stars, if I could. Orwell delivers a masterful stroke of fiction – or is it fiction? It seems more like a premonition of sorts, a guide as to what could possibly happen in future if we’re not careful. I had heard about what a genius Orwell was - and though I got a taste of it in “Animal Farm” – “1984” was kind-of-a full blown force hitting your face!
In short, this is a story of the world in a dystopian setting, where a Totalitarian empire presides over much of humanity, controlling them in every aspect possible – down to their thoughts. A world where every action of yours is recorded and monitored by the “Telescreen” – not unlike the …
Two words recurrently came to my mind while I was reading the book – “Hauntingly beautiful”.
That’s how brilliant this book is. I would’ve given it 10 out of 5 stars, if I could. Orwell delivers a masterful stroke of fiction – or is it fiction? It seems more like a premonition of sorts, a guide as to what could possibly happen in future if we’re not careful. I had heard about what a genius Orwell was - and though I got a taste of it in “Animal Farm” – “1984” was kind-of-a full blown force hitting your face!
In short, this is a story of the world in a dystopian setting, where a Totalitarian empire presides over much of humanity, controlling them in every aspect possible – down to their thoughts. A world where every action of yours is recorded and monitored by the “Telescreen” – not unlike the “All-Seeing Eye” from Lord of the Rings.
With all of the debate surrounding the FBI vs. Apple case and NSA and privacy, I fear we are slowly reaching towards the Orwellian universe. With that in mind, I think this line summarizes it the best – “1984 was a warning, not an instruction manual”.
An extraordinary view of a future (or past) that perhaps its not so far... It questions our fundamental rights as freedom or privacy, and how the human condition can be altered.
Really loved it.
This book was more disturbing than I thought it would be. While well written, I couldn't really get enjoyment out of the story. I guess I like to believe that mankind is mostly good and will always rise over evil. So, I guess I prefer books that reinforce those beliefs. And this was certainly not the book for that.
The ultimate in dystopian novels. Beautiful and depressing at the same time. Everyone should read this, if only to understand the countless references to it in pop culture.
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.
Fascinating and horrifying, but vaguely unsatisfying.
Required reading.
dark.. disturbing.. utterly depressing.. is this where we're headed? :(
(still a great read, though..)
