1984 -- George Orwell (2)

I don't really know how to describe this book.  I guess I could do so in several different ways, but I think I'll aim in two, just to narrow down the focus.  Hmm.. that word coming from me in that way..

Politically, it seems almost as if this book is slowly materializing, or has already and maybe always has been materialized in and among anyone sitting under any form of government.  Most governments, however well they hide the secret of the fact, devise some means to control the thought processes of those under its rule.  In the book, a quote that stuck out to me (among hundreds of others) was one O'Brien says while Winston is being tortured:

"In the old days the heretic walked to the stake still a heretic, proclaiming his heresy, exulting in it. Even the victim of the Russian purges could carry rebellion locked up in his skull as he walked down the passage waiting for the bullet. But we make the brain perfect before we blow it out. The command of the old despotisms was 'Thou shalt not'. The command of the totalitarians was 'Thou shalt'. Our command is 'Thou art'."

It wasn't so much punishing for the doing and stopping the doing, or forcing the doing, but causing some sort of change within the man to make him be the doing. If success is found here, there is nothing else that needs happen. If a power could change the world-view of its subjects, it would be able to remain in power indefinitely as shown in the book. During the course of the book, facts were added and changed frequently, and through a process called doublethink, the populace believed the new fact as if the old had never existed.


I can see this going on in society as a whole now. There are entire populations of people, maybe not gathered into one place (though in the age of the Internet does it really matter?) who say the Holocaust never occurred. We know it occurred. We can go and look at photographs, we can walk through the remains of the concentration camps and there are huge storylines of people who came through it and passed down the tale to their families. But for reasons as varied as the people who tell them, there are those who believe the factual occurrence never happened. And they don't say it because they want to believe it didn't happen, they believe it didn't happen. At that point, the person is an atheist in that particular belief and their world-view shapes the framework of their believing so that even in light of incredible evidence, they will stand against it.


This could be much longer, but I've already posted a few things about the book as I read, so I'll keep it short and head on to the ratings portion of the program.


Flow - 8 (I sometimes thought I'd missed a page when new chapters started. That's why I didn't give it a 10)
Believability - 9
Suspension of Reality - 7
Message - 10
Intrinsics - 8
Total - 42 of 50


Back in high school, I'd played the part of O'Brien's servant in the school play, though the screenplay of this seemed far different than the actual novel. Now, thinking back, I imagine it probably wasn't, though I'm a little older now and understand quite a bit more than I did then about the subtle meanings and differences placed in the books. I even now understand what happens after the "The End". He tells you if you read carefully enough.


So for now, barring any masterful performances by other novels, I'll place this one at number 2. I'm sure something will pull a 45 out of 50.. but I'm trying to be strict in my ratings and have an actual reasoning to give it the numbers I do.