watermelanie's review against another edition
5.0
Loved it!!!! Started reading it without any idea of what it was about but was very satisfied in the end!! Loved how it didn't have a happy ending especially. Only thing I didn't like that much was the romance story, seemed a little forced but I guess that was the idea.
aiyaivy's review against another edition
4.0
4.5
I really liked this and I think I'll find myself reading analyses of this ending for quite some time. I never got to read this in high school and pushed it off till Alvin suggested reading it for our book club & I found myself going on a rollercoaster with Winston and the dystopia he lives in. It was dark and extremely realistic in world-building & everyone was the worst version of themselves.
A few analyses I stumbled across that I do appreciate are below:
1) The ending can be positive - is it really possible for a government to squash dissent or catch every individual that disagrees with the party when it took such extreme efforts to brainwash just one person (Winston) into acceptance of Big Brother? And the appendix written in standard English and not in Newspeak is a clear indication that this society does not continue further
2) Winston's metaphorical death comes when he betrays Julia in Room 101. The core philosophy of a totalitarian state is that it is okay to push atrocities on others to maintain one's own comfort and safety - thus, the realization that he is falling into the ideals that he was aiming to resist is what brings the "bullet" to his brain.
3) Is Winston "loving" Big Brother a form of resistance? Is he resisting through utilizing Newspeak? Because....love is hate.
Quotes
- Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it.
-The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible.
-The heresy of heresies was common sense.
-The obvious, the silly, and the true had got to be defended. Truisms are true, hold onto that! The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard, water is wet, objects unsupported fall toward the earth's center. With the feeling that he was speaking to O'Brien, and also that he was setting forth an important axiom, he wrote: Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-They remembered a million useless things, a quarrel with a workmate, a hunt for a lost bicycle pump, the expression on a long-dead sister's face, the swirls of dust on a windy morning seventy years ago; but all the relevant facts were outside the range of their vision. They were like the ant, which can see small objects but not large ones. And when memory failed and written records were falsified - when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested.
-In front of him was an enemy who was trying to kill him; in front of him, also, was a human creature, in pain and perhaps with a broken bone.
-But you could not have pure love or pure lust nowadays. No emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred. Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act.
- Life as she saw it was quite simple. You wanted a good time; "they," meaning the Party, wanted to stop you having it; you broke the rules as best you could. She seemed to think it just as natural that "they" should want to rob you of your pleasures as that you should want to avoid being caught. She hated the Party and said so in the crudest words, but she made no general criticism of it. Except where it touched upon her own life she had no interest in Party doctrine.
-"....So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing."
-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 were governed by private loyalties which they did not question. What mattered were individual relationships, and a completely helpless gesture, an embrace, a tear, a word spoken to a dying man, could have value in itself.
-"I don't mean confessing. Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn't matter; only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you - that would be real betrayal."
-If he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about them is lies.
-It must be so, because every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures.
-"Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness."
-It was his life, his death, and his resurrection. It was gin that sank him into stupor every night, and gin that revived him every morning.
-But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.
I really liked this and I think I'll find myself reading analyses of this ending for quite some time. I never got to read this in high school and pushed it off till Alvin suggested reading it for our book club & I found myself going on a rollercoaster with Winston and the dystopia he lives in. It was dark and extremely realistic in world-building & everyone was the worst version of themselves.
A few analyses I stumbled across that I do appreciate are below:
1) The ending can be positive - is it really possible for a government to squash dissent or catch every individual that disagrees with the party when it took such extreme efforts to brainwash just one person (Winston) into acceptance of Big Brother? And the appendix written in standard English and not in Newspeak is a clear indication that this society does not continue further
2) Winston's metaphorical death comes when he betrays Julia in Room 101. The core philosophy of a totalitarian state is that it is okay to push atrocities on others to maintain one's own comfort and safety - thus, the realization that he is falling into the ideals that he was aiming to resist is what brings the "bullet" to his brain.
3) Is Winston "loving" Big Brother a form of resistance? Is he resisting through utilizing Newspeak? Because....love is hate.
Quotes
- Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it.
-The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible.
-The heresy of heresies was common sense.
-The obvious, the silly, and the true had got to be defended. Truisms are true, hold onto that! The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard, water is wet, objects unsupported fall toward the earth's center. With the feeling that he was speaking to O'Brien, and also that he was setting forth an important axiom, he wrote: Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-They remembered a million useless things, a quarrel with a workmate, a hunt for a lost bicycle pump, the expression on a long-dead sister's face, the swirls of dust on a windy morning seventy years ago; but all the relevant facts were outside the range of their vision. They were like the ant, which can see small objects but not large ones. And when memory failed and written records were falsified - when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested.
-In front of him was an enemy who was trying to kill him; in front of him, also, was a human creature, in pain and perhaps with a broken bone.
-But you could not have pure love or pure lust nowadays. No emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred. Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act.
- Life as she saw it was quite simple. You wanted a good time; "they," meaning the Party, wanted to stop you having it; you broke the rules as best you could. She seemed to think it just as natural that "they" should want to rob you of your pleasures as that you should want to avoid being caught. She hated the Party and said so in the crudest words, but she made no general criticism of it. Except where it touched upon her own life she had no interest in Party doctrine.
-"....So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing."
-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 were governed by private loyalties which they did not question. What mattered were individual relationships, and a completely helpless gesture, an embrace, a tear, a word spoken to a dying man, could have value in itself.
-"I don't mean confessing. Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn't matter; only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you - that would be real betrayal."
-If he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about them is lies.
-It must be so, because every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures.
-"Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness."
-It was his life, his death, and his resurrection. It was gin that sank him into stupor every night, and gin that revived him every morning.
-But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.
adindasr26's review against another edition
5.0
Let's say this book haunts me for a whole week after I finished it, I also love the details on the food under Big Brother's totalitarian regime.
themtj's review against another edition
5.0
For some reason I was never assigned this book in high school or college. It is well worth the hype! It is one that will be worth revisiting many times in the future. Very similar themes to Fahrenheit 451 although I suppose I should word it the other way since this came first. Both are powerful illustrations of the tyranny of totalitarianism, the oppression of speech, thought, expression, and the arts.
berta_rozi's review against another edition
4.0
I would have enjoyed this more had I not listened to the audiobook.
genesiscollado's review against another edition
5.0
(4.8/5 ⭐️) if you told me this book was written inspired by the 2020's i would totally believe you. the fact that it was written in the 40s and it's still so incredibly accurate is mind blowing. orwell is a genius, his writing is flawless. the book blew my mind. i must admit that the last third of it was kinda slow, i felt trapped and anxious while reading the torture portions. but overall i really enjoyed this book
ayeryn's review against another edition
5.0
Such a great piece of work. Cannot quite put it into words.
jasminescorer's review against another edition
dark
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
anahaustaran's review against another edition
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Everyone should read this book at least once in their life.