Review: 1984

1984
by George Orwell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

1984 / 0-679-41739-7

Painful, frightening, horrific. What do you do in a world where your every movement, every gesture is watched carefully by the government? How do you live in a world where even the slightest departure from complete conformity will result in torture, dismemberment, death? What hope can you have in a world where there is no escape - there is no free travel, and nowhere to flee to since all governments are the same? You cannot even take the step of ending your own life, as the government which cannot supply the country with enough food, shoes, or clothes also fails to supply its citizenry with razor blades.

"1984" paints a picture bleak and terrifying, of a government that terrorizes its populace into quiescence, and of a populace that is too fearful, too hungry, and too uneducated to attempt the mass uprising that might save them. In a world where children are taught to spy on their parents and turn them into the police for the most minor (or imagined) of crimes, there can be no love, no one worth fighting for or protecting. How does it all end? Orwell doesn't believe that it can end - "1984" is a reminder for eternal vigilance against an impossible enemy: ourselves.

~ Ana Mardoll

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