The Well-Read Woman Book Club discussion

Our Classic Pick for April 2020 is 1984 by George Orwell.

What has motivated you to read this book? Have you ever read this before? Do you have any expectations or assumptions? Based on what you've heard from others, what are your thoughts?

I read this several years ago, and I remember it being intense but not caring for it much. Has anyone read this and Brave New World? I always think that's an interesting discussion: is our world today more like 1984 or like BNW?

This book has been in my tbr pile forever. Can’t wait to start reading it with you 📖

I'm curious how a dystopian novel will read differently now that all of us are in the midst of a pandemic and most of us are quarantining!

I have only just started it today. I’ve had three people tell me not to read it now cause it’ll feel like the world is coming to an end and this is the wrong time to read it. Which naturally made me want to read it more 😂

Where I live they’re wanting us to have an app now for making sure there aren’t big groups of people together. I get why, I really do with this virus thing going on, but still, when I opened this book I though I can definitely draw some parallels to our living situation at the moment. Very excited to read it. Hope there is a good group that will start reading it at the same time so we can discuss it as we read along. Especially while we are all confined to our own homes mostly we should be able to get some reading time in

I have read Brave New World and I'm excited to see the parallels between the two. When I started the book, it definitely gave some BNW vibes, but with a different consciousness from the narrator. I really like Winston, I want him to break free and find an ACTUAL comrade, not a Newspeak comrade.

I've just reached Part 2, and so far the most hard-hitting aspects to me were the discussions of dictionary edits, limiting people's vocabulary without their knowledge so that words slowly starting becoming synonyms for the same items, and also the editing of production numbers in sales and statistics. I used to work in DC and one of my clients was a research company who compiled these very types of statistics, and although I know how they do it, it seems impossible to have any sort of unbiased real number as far as world numbers, especially if based on opinions of people.

I really enjoy how Orwell must have been observing his own mind in ordinary life occurrences to notice the types of things that we mostly continue on without thinking about.

Are there any items from Big Brother's agenda that hit home for you or made you aware of something that you weren't before? Do you find any "good" behind Big Brother's agenda, do you think it could have been perceived as theoretically beneficial from anyone with a free mind?

What do you guys think of the book?

Helene wrote: "I have only just started it today. I’ve had three people tell me not to read it now cause it’ll feel like the world is coming to an end and this is the wrong time to read it. Which naturally made m..."

Wow, I haven't heard of anything like this yet! It's funny to me how people have such a different perception of control, and how control itself can be perceived as an illusion in many ways until it becomes a physical control.

I've heard that it's a rough read during this time too, which also made me more apt to want to read it. I'm enjoying that the beginning of the book takes place in April and it was our April book pick also :)

I found that I relate more to the concepts in Part 1 than in Parts 2 or 3. I understand the political concept that he was (in my opinion) shoving down our throats, but I found his opinion on women in Part 2 a sort of acceptance of "the man", generally speaking. I understand that it is Julia's choice in how she acts and that by being against the totalitarian society she is free to choose to live her life how she likes, but how do you feel about her being portrayed as a rebel "below the waist"?

How do you feel about the tone of the novel in Part 2 in terms of Winston and Julia, and what Julia accepted from men in general?

Finished reading a week ago. The first time I read it a few years ago, now the perception is a bit different, especially in a pandemic. It so happened that during the distance studying, we were given the task of writing an essay on any of the books of the indicated authors, and George Orwell was on this list. I did not think for a long time and of course I chose the book 1984. The topic was arbitrary, so I found interesting examples of essays on the book at https://studydriver.com/1984-essay/, and decided on the topic of power and politics and try to tell it in my own way.