Well worth reading. If you have a kindle you might want to think about getting the complete novels for £8.99
just looked at buying those but before i hit the buy button, can i just ask..... are 'wigan pier' and 'paris and london' not his novels then? says complete set of novels, but then you have to buy those separately.
thanks
Never read it either, did O Level Eng Lit, but it was full of Dickensian dross (I hated Oliver Twist, too long and dull) and a bit of Shakespeare (bearable).
Been meaning to read this for a while so just purchased on the google play store for £1.28. Should keep me occupied on the train home tonight.
are 'wigan pier' and 'paris and london' not his novels then? says complete set of novels, but then you have to buy those separately.
No, you're right, they're not included and you would have to buy separately - they were largely factual.
as already mentioned though - the whole lot is available free online
Yes read it, then read Burmese Days and Homage to Catalonia both of which are essential reading imo.
yes, at 12 I found it harder going than Animal farm, but really enjoyed it. Maybe a re-read should be on the cards.
I'd really stress to all the importance of not overlooking the essays
Particularly Politics and the English Language, and of course how to make tea.
Make sure it's the complete version with the "appendix"
read 1984 in 1984 so would have been 12 too
re-read it about 10 yrs ago pre-ipad/facebook
reckon a re-read might be in order
did animal farm in school too, about the same time.
are they not free on project gutenberg?
Farenheit 451
+1 on that too. Similarly insightful as 1984 and Brave New World IMO.
So to steer the topic slightly off course (since I think we've clearly answered the OP's question), what current book is going to offer similar insight for the situation in 50 years' time?
It's such a good book. Also buy copies of 'Politics and the English language' and leave them lying round at work, or force them into the mouths of local 'business speakers'.
As for Stoners earlier comment I read Lord of the flies for GCSE also, I still love that book, so not all enforced texts are dire!
Neil Postman's 'Amusing ourselves to death' is a good and interesting read too.
I heard on a radio programme that Anthony Burgess suggested Orwell originally wanted to call it 1948, as he was so disillusioned with post-war society, on what grounds he made the assertion I'm unsure.
Ironic that we can now buy the book from Amazon, one of the most exploitative and de-humanising organisations in the modern capitalist world.
Well that was enlightening to start with, then very heavy after Smith got captured and was being "re-educated" by O'Brien.
I'm amazed as the way Orwell very effectively describes our society. I guess we are in the capitalist phase now where he describes "...every has a house, car, children in school and plentiful food on their plates... ...and politically there is no absolute party in power because there is nothing to offer to the prole except what they already have..."
And with so many people now being persecuted from their public content, I can see the internalisation of communication happening also.
Could this mean we are heading toward the realm of the book? Scary thought.
1984's a novel, bugger, I thought it was the Haynes manual for government!
It's superb, as is the film. Agree with comments on Fahrenheit 451, Road to Wigan Pier, Animal Farm - depressingly prophetic accurate writing.
Good book. Not Orwell's best but a good introduction to him. Don't stop at that though, he's and incredible author, probably my favourite.
Not very interesting fact alert: John Hurt plays Winston in 1984 but has graduated Adam Sutler in V for Vendetta, a work that is heavily influenced by 1984.
1984 is heartbreaking. It's a love story above everything, I think.
Down and Out In Paris and London is worth a Billion 20 year old multimillionaire footballer/publicity whore/vacuous twunt autobiographies.
Yes. Read 1984.
Down and Out In Paris and London is worth a Billion 20 year old multimillionaire footballer/publicity whore/vacuous twunt autobiographies.
It's worth far more than that.
I'll get around to reading it as soon as I have found,and read a copy of 1983.
I'm amazed as the way Orwell very effectively describes our society.
That really is total bollocks.
It's extrapolating from the early Cold War situation based on Stalinist Russia, which is absolutely bloody NOTHING LIKE the current privacy/security issues we are facing in the UK/West, and is a bit of an insulut to those millions who suffered there, tbh.
Saying that is like saying you understand how starving people in third world countries feel because Starbucks had run out of almond croissants this morning.
The novel isn't prophetic at all. The title is suggesting that as the cold war rumbled on, in 30 whatever years time (from writing) we'd all end up in this situation. We didn't, the cold war ended, without a nuclear war. I think the book is a warning rather than a prophesy anyway.
I wonder if this bloke read it:
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Thank you Molgrips
Now you've read 1984, get yourself some Noam Chomsky... Fun fact; his aren't novels unfortunately
Faranheit 451 is probably the more prophetic, its more relevant to the sort of world we live in these days
1984 is a brilliant book and some of its elements do indeed resonate with the moden world, but as Molgrips says we are a long way from the totalitarian nightmare it describes.
To me shame I've never actually read Brave New World though.
OP go and read Catch-22 now if you haven't read it.
Was a tad too young when I first gave 1984 a try. Have just grabbed a copy of it, along with Wigan Pier + Paris from the library based on the discussion above. Nice one chaps.
molgrips - Member
I'm amazed as the way Orwell very effectively describes our society.
That really is total bollocks.It's extrapolating from the early Cold War situation based on Stalinist Russia, which is absolutely bloody NOTHING LIKE the current privacy/security issues we are facing in the UK/West, and is a bit of an insulut to those millions who suffered there, tbh.
Saying that is like saying you understand how starving people in third world countries feel because Starbucks had run out of almond croissants this morning.
The novel isn't prophetic at all. The title is suggesting that as the cold war rumbled on, in 30 whatever years time (from writing) we'd all end up in this situation. We didn't, the cold war ended, without a nuclear war. I think the book is a warning rather than a prophesy anyway
Calm down dear.
Which bit isn't then?
a) The fact that we are monitored by CCTV wherever we go?
b) The fact the revelation of your actions/thoughts/opinions might lead to your prosecution?
c) The fact that war is used for political muscle flexing, rallies of patriotism and financial / scientific progress?
d) That some classes of society are treated/viewed differently to others?
e) Greater use of helicopters by the military 😉
f)The fact that without and established and powerful mechanism to determine absolute rule, we have no single political party that with absolute conviction stands out as the ruling party, certainly in the UK?
g) The fact that we've gone from a socialist to capitalist phase in the majority?
And other stuff. Can't see how my opinion is disrespectful TBH, I think your applying one blokes opinion and blowing it out of proportion.
First read 1984 in about '80 then again about 10 years ago. I was intrigued by both how my perception of the book had changed and how reality had become closer to Orwell's fictional world. Reckon it's about time I gave it another go.
Thanks to this thread I now also have a list of other re-reads and must-reads to work my way through.
Kryton - I think that while your rebuttals have some foundation, they're all very much at the extreme - for example, yes, we're on CCTV a lot of the time but we're not actually monitored as such, only if something happens. Similarly, yes you can be prosecuted for opinions if they incite hatred but not for things that are true free speech - criticising the government for example.
And don't worry about molgrips, he's just got his knickers in a twist as usual. He'll be off on another car thread soon enough 😉
Of course they are extreme, even I'm not that paranoid. As Nobby and you allude to though, there are some startling parallel's of "today" from a person that lived and breathed in 1949.
I'm interested though in a Goldstien/Bin Ladin comparison conspiracy theory I found on the internet the other day 🙂
Kryton57 - Member
e) Greater use of helicopters by the military
We wish! Have you not heard we need more of them?
Did you not see my winky?
Hmm Kryton - personally I think that the country we live in today is better represented by the bureaucracy and institutional ineptitude of Brazil rather than 1984
a) The fact that we are monitored by CCTV wherever we go?
Sitting in my room now, I am not being monitored by CCTV, unlike in the book. And even in town nothing happens unless I break the law. And the law in our country is just a smidgen more permissive than in the book. We don't have thought police, and no-one is going to come and disappear me if I say something un-British. Don't you think that's a bit of a difference?
b) The fact the revelation of your actions/thoughts/opinions might lead to your prosecution?
As above - only if I break a law, and those for the most part are reasonable. And I also get to go to court, unlike in the book.
c) The fact that war is used for political muscle flexing, rallies of patriotism and financial / scientific progress?
Nothing like on the scale of the book.
d) That some classes of society are treated/viewed differently to others?
We have laws that explicitly PROHIBIT that. The opposite of the book.
f)The fact that without and established and powerful mechanism to determine absolute rule, we have no single political party that with absolute conviction stands out as the ruling party, certainly in the UK?
Good thing too. Democracy in action, unlike the book.
g) The fact that we've gone from a socialist to capitalist phase in the majority?
So what? Again democracy in action, the opposite of the book.
how reality had become closer to Orwell's fictional world
Ask someone Russian, Polish, Estonian or Hungarian if they think the world is now more like the book or less like it.
Again Molgrips and as previously identified, you are taking a literal view of some extemist comments.
All your points could also be argued the other way, but someone that has more education in topic and time than I.
Really though, try getting out of the other side of bed tomorrow.
I'm not cross, I'm just engaging in debate. I apologise if my language is a little strong, but really - suggesting the modern UK is ANYTHING like Stalinist Russia or 1984 is pretty ridiculous.
Who suggested it was like Stalinist Russia? Not me. I was drawing comparision's between Orwell's prophetic future and the world we live in today.
anpr? records that track where you have been.
e-passport tracking with enhanced intergovernmental tracking in an apparently more "liberal" society?
big screen in your house tracking everything you do? not literal, but there is a big screen that brainwashes most into divulging their private lives to zuckerberg, in a jurisdiction that can force them to hand over that info to a government.
laws to monitor all email, phone etc. contact and stored "in case they are needed".
may not all be literal but there is an authoritarian - liberal paradox via the use of screens with cameras.
One of the greatest works of literature in the English Language. Anyone who hasn't read it by early adulthood has been educationally deprived, in my opinion. I've read it several times, as a child, a teenager and at various times during my adult life. It resonated with me at each reading, in different ways.
Scour some second hand shops, get a paper copy, and download it for free. The idea that you can get it on Amazon, as already pointed out here, would have Orwell spinning in his grave.
What set Orwell apart from his contemporaries/similar authors, was that he imersed himself in the situatios that affected his subjects, and whilst his familial wealth always offered him sanctuary, he chose instead to shun that, and live the lives of others as his own. Which gave him an incredible objective and subjective perspective, rather than the flaneuristic approach of most other writers who focus onthe condition of the dregs of society without ever having experienced it.
The bit that always stood out for me, was the account of how Smith, as a chid, stole his younger sister's meagre chocolate ration, which sparked off a series of events which led to his mother and sister's abduction by the authorities. Utterly, utterly heartbreaking.
Molgrips; I think you need to read 1984, maybe several times. And maybe then it might make sense.
Sitting in my room now, I am not being monitored by CCTV, unlike in the book.
using the internet, what you're doing is being logged. didn't you know that?
I haven't read any of the above - but I have managed to get a copy of "Make Room, Make Room" by Harry Harrison (my favourite author) which I am enjoying a lot - basically about overpopulation and diminishing resources and is quite scary so far.
Soylent Green was based on it (the film) IIRC.
I think there are done very interesting and obvious parallels that one could draw.... It's not just CCTV though, web cams baby-cams, traffic cams, dashboard cams , satellites, drones, google earth and street view.
3 wars that we've "won" supported not by the population, but very much by corporations, and those "interests" that are served by such. "War on terror" "War on drugs" "War on poverty" ever increasingly growing economy. The continuing and resolution of EVERY political debate into the financial. Dwindling newspaper sales, e-books being downloaded, revisionist interpretations of historical events, the fear of Communism replaced by the fear of Islam
None of that has happened at all...
not literal, but
So in other words, not at all like it, unless you really screw up your eyes and try.
using the internet, what you're doing is being logged. didn't you know that?
It MAY be being logged, but almost certainly no-one is scrutinising it. And I can say ALMOST anything I like without fear of repercussion. Let me demonstrate:
Cameron is an arse! Obama is an arse! Britain is shit! The government are crooks! Start a revolution!
And of course, aside from the NSA listening intently to STW it's obviously being logged because I am posting it to a public website where it'll be indexed by Google.
Molgrips; I think you need to read 1984, maybe several times. And maybe then it might make sense.
Well it did make sense at the time, of course, so I'd expect it to make sense still. I'm not sure how much Cold War social history you are aware of though - this is after all the context of the book. It's a warning about communism, not privacy in the 'free' world. If the same book had been written now it would constitute a different message.
revisionist interpretations of historical events, the fear of Communism replaced by the fear of Islam
None of that is new either. And dwindling newspaper sales are only a consequence of increased free consumption in other media.
Fear of Islam now isn't the same as fear of communism was then. A lot of people, including politicians, a large section of the population and media had watched communism form an empire across a huge part of the globe and thought there was a very real risk of it either continuing to subvert countries, or the Soviet empire taking up arms and invading the free world in a traditional war. Whereas now most people are simply concerned about random acts of terror. Now it's small groups of fanatics, then it was governments and hundreds of millions of people, potentially.
*post reported*
*moves away from Molgrips*
Molgrips who?
It's a warning about communism, not privacy in the 'free' world.
Such a naive interpretation.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25005703
http://uk.video.search.yahoo.com/search/video;_ylt=A9mSs3EAJZdT.woAhRdLBQx.;_ylu=X3oDMTB1Mzg2czUyBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2lyMgR2dGlkA1NNRVVLMjdfMQ--?p=Blacklisting+2013+-+The+Workers+Strike+Back
Your names on the list, you're not coming in...
Fear of Islam now isn't the same as fear of communism was then.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/nov/14/pressandpublishing.religion
https://www.islamicity.com/articles/Articles.asp?ref=IC0111-360
http://www.radianceweekly.com/75/962/presidential-elections-in-turkey-a-positive-sign-towards-change/2007-09-09/anti-islam-bias/story-detail/us-media-politicians-demonise-muslims.html
