The Elektron

The book I just finished

George Orwell: 1984

I must have skipped class the day that we were supposed to give a book report on this, because it seems like everyone else on the planet has read this in school.

Written in 1949, the story takes place in the mid-eighties, The fictional Oceania is a totalitarian regime that seems to have successfully controlled the populace in such a way that its inhabitants have no sense of reality other than what is dictated by the state or 'Big Brother'. The story is seen through the protagonist, Winston Smith, who is sort of the 'everyman' kinda guy who struggles with his own personal reality which is in conflict with the one the party is trying to force upon him. Things end up going pretty badly for Winston and after a stay in the Ministry of Love ends up changing his views on what reality is and is not.

While I found this book very visceral and gripping, the story itself is extremely dense and complex. Orwell is relentless in his descriptions of this totalitarian state. You can really feel the intensity at some points, but on some occasions I felt it may have been too wordy, too many descriptions of the same themes. I think this book does a great job at invoking a primal feeling like hate and compassion for the characters in this novel. I am also impressed how some stories can be timeless in its nature, this is one of them. While some elements seem dated, the underlying story plays towards everyone's fear of losing inherent base freedoms.

Due to it's popularity, this book has become quite ingrained in modern culture, I must assume that I have become quite callous to the notion of 'Big Brother' entities, 'Orwellian' themes, etc. I certainly believe that had I read this book in the early fifties, I would have grabbed a baseball bat, ran to my bedroom, made a mattress fort, and donned a tin-foil hat and stayed there until I was reassured that two plus two still equaled four.

I think its interesting that even though things aren't nearly as bleak as the conditions of Oceania circa 1984. Our sense of freedom is still all relative to what we can compare it too. Torture and mind control still exists whether we want to recognise it or not even in our modern state (see MKUltra and torture practices during modern war times). Organizations still intend to shape and alter history for their benefit (who controls the media? Censorship?). Human rights are a fickle thing (suspension of Habeas Corpus? Patriot Act?). Very thought provoking and relevant even in this day and age so for that I give Eric Blair (a.k.a. Geroge Orwell) mighty round of proppz.