1984, by George Orwell

My friend loaned me this book about a year ago. Finally, I have finished it.

George Orwell, writing in the 40s, shares his feelings about the social climate of his time with this striking futuristic satire. A political commentary, and a dark one at that, 1984 is about one man's experience of life living under governance of The Party ruled by Big Brother in Oceania, one of only three super-countries left in the world.

In this world, Oceania is constantly and forever at war with the other two super-countries: Eastasia and Eurasia. There are three classes of people in Oceania. Inner Party Members, the ruling class, run the party, enjoy more of life's comforts than most, and make up a tiny percentage of the population. Outer Party Members, to which Winston Smith, the protagonist, belongs, are lower level grunt workers who serve the Party but live on limited rationed food and daily goods. The Proles make up the poor masses. They are outside the party and seen as a nuisance which must be controlled while simultaneously ignored.

Somewhere between socialism and communism, life under the party is bleak. Thought Police monitor party members 24-hours a day. Arrests are made for impure and disloyal thoughts before any action is ever carried out. Privacy is non-existant (except among the Proles), and families are so disjointed that children who turn in their parents for thought-crime are rewarded and admonished.

The world that Orwell creates is terrifying indeed, and his run in with interrogation techniques is disheartening, intriguing and down right depressing. Not knowing enough about my mid-20th century British politics, I must confess I'm not quite clear on the greater point the author was trying to make to his original audience, but at the same time I am in awe of this social commentary and can appreciate that it packed a punch 50 years ago and still does today.

Freedom is a huge theme in the book; however, one of the most interesting concepts Orwell introduced was called Doublethink. Here's an excerpt which provides a description of doublethink:

To know and not know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself--that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word "doublethink" involved the use of doublethink. (p. 35)

The writing is very good. Orwell can be a bit longwinded and over-descriptive at times. But, the absurdity of his somehow-believable fictitious future keeps you coming back to it. I would recommend this book to anyone (if, like me, you didn't read it in high school though it was assigned) wanting to be a well-rounded reader. It is a classic that people will most likely come up in book talks for many generations.