Recently, I had a quick fleeting recommendation to peruse George Orwell's 1984. Its increasing relevance in today's time period as social media sites and technology aim to do precisely that which is described in this book contains more forethought than one would expect from a writer during the industrial revolution. So I picked it up, as in, I downloaded an epub file from the internet and employed my trustee Google Books app to create a simulation of the book on my phone and completed it in a mere 5 days. Without giving too much away, the base premise basically describes modern-day China. In that, every single person living is under a regime that is constantly watching them. 1984 has a slight bit of confusion though.
Before it can really embed itself upon me as genuinely being a good book, it first has to decide what kind of book it is. 1984 takes ample time and liberal descriptions to describe each and every contemplation of thought that goes on in our protagonist's mind while simultaneously frequently referring to a police force quite literally called the 'thought police'. This contradiction while complements the book's consistency, it doesn't add up to the part where I have to describe it. It engages in writing a biopic of the surrounding world and effectively juxtaposing it with our own world of false beliefs, but then it also incorporates a doomed story of love and hope. It shows us that where there is injustice there will be some sort of upheaval, and where there is trust there will be betrayal. All these contradictions again, complement the themes within the book. The governing bodies, for example, are named the Ministry of Truth (that alters past and reality), the Ministry of Love (that tortures 'criminals'), the Ministry of Peace (facilitates war), and the Ministry of Plenty (facilitates depleting rations). The whole book relies on the concept of claiming to be something and being something else, and that involves this book itself, claiming to be a work of fiction but providing a very real description of our world today.
From my own personal knowledge before actually reading the book, I knew some knowledge about it, by which I mean I knew most of the stuff the book revolves around. See, the world the story is set in is somehow more powerful than the actual story. A quick summary, the book opens with an introduction of our protagonist; Winston Smith leading a particularly borish life, but it was all about to change as Winston takes up the crime of writing down his thoughts (gasp!). Well, according to the book even having those thoughts was a crime but Winston was (apparently) quite good at hiding it. From there Winston dreams of rising against the regime and breaking all the systemic abuse and malpractice employed by the 'Party'. The rest is a story you may explore if you wish as I wouldn't want to give away plot points even if they are to be honest, quite underwhelming.
You may however, read 1984 for the vivid descriptions of the world inhabited by people like Winston. The intricate details and deep understanding of a dystopia pretending to be uptopia very comfortably mix with each other to produce a world that is quite literally China right now. As described above the whole world runs on contradictions, and there is even a point in the story when the protagonist gets a hold of a handbook for rebels and it contains within it long descriptions of lies that speak against the party. In hindsight, the purpose of that scene and situation miss me now because it made no sense for him to be in that situation at all but alas, I assume George just wanted to flex just how deep he could dive into his own fictional world and pretend like he was the God running each and every strand of the world in 1984.
All in all, this is the book for you if the book you are looking for is a lengthy description of a world you may soon come to experience. If a good story is what you are looking for though, Je desole. If you are an author, I guess it would do you some good as you can always take pointers in world building from George Orwell.
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