Classics Without All the Class discussion

Here is the folder for the discussion of 1984, we are still looking for a leader. If you are interested in being discussion leader feel free to step up!

I read this 10 or so years ago. Although I have to give Brave New World for being first, I much prefer 1984. I think it is a harsher indictment of society and the ways that the state and the majority can control the outliers. The ways that we are recruited to brainwash ourselves. BNW, I thought, was the weaker book because if people didn't want that society, it was a lot easier for them to just opt out.

* Technically, We was first, but I haven't read that one yet.

This has been on my mental TBR for a long time, so I totally jumped at the excuse to pick it up from my bookshelf and dive in. I'm glad I did. I don't really know what to say that countless others won't have said in the years since it's been published, but Orwell's writing is exquisite, and the planning of this novel must have been immense. I found the descriptions of newspeak and doublethink absolutely fascinating and the highlights of this novel.

This was a tough read, as hopeless and grim as it was, but I enjoyed it and I'm glad I read it. I particularly liked the ending, as I thought it was pretty fitting given everything that came before it.

There are many similarities in 1984 to what we have today. Newspeak is what we're seeing in texting with shortened words and emojis. Fitbits are the voices from the telescreens shouting at them to exercise. One can only get a liter, or half a liter of beer, no more pints - reminds me of how in some establishments there are only medium, large and supersize drinks, no more small.

My favorite part was the "five minutes of hate" that they use to manipulate the populace by deflecting their anger away from their government and onto foreigners.

My favorite part was the definition of socialism and the political processes involved from the section where Winston is reading Goldstein's book. Those pages are a goldmine of enlightenment. They reminded me, so much, of our practices during the Vietnam era and looked like the same political meandering in our present wars on terror - keeping everything on the "outer rim" (Afganistan and Iraq) somewhere and staying out of other power's acreage of influence (ever wonder why the U. S. stayed out of Syria and allowed the Arab Spring to suffer a killing drought?).

What I find most compelling about this novel, is that every time I read it (usually with a few year's gap in between) I find that more and more of it is coming true. The technology we have now for spying on our citizens, the groupthink that seems so prevalent, etc.... it's very scary. It makes me want to shake everyone in government (and everyone voting for them) and go "Don't you see what we're doing?!"