I've never read 1984. Should I?

George Orwell should be reinstated to the school curriculum, drop some of the pointless subjects/classes and have an Orwell and Huxley hour every week.

Lauren Laverne tweeted Orwell : some thoughts on the common toad yesterday [/url], I’ve not read it for years so I’ve dug out all my Orwell books and I shall be spending the next few days working through them

Read it late, brilliant whilst disturbing, number one on the “books that knocked you sideways” list.

Don’t think we did The Crucible at school (All My Sons instead, IIRC) not Sunset Song, but maybe that’s the key, went to see The Crucible when I was about 20/22 bowled me over, same for reading A Scots Quair (shame on you onehundrdthidiot..) Pretty resonant and melancholy to me.

Other school books were I think Animal Farm – can’t recall others at the moment.

I read 1984 when I was 12 – it really turned me onto books and politics generally – never looked back. I did it for o-level English Lit as well.

Brave New World was on the GCSE list when I was at school, as was Under Milk Wood. I’m not sure about 1984, but I read it anyway and have copies of that, BNW and Fsrenheit 451 (all read to within an inch of their life on my bookcase.

I think I lent my copy of Farenheit 451 to someone along with my copy of Fear and Loathing On The Campaign Trail. I should get them back.

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:

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.