1984

I have another book checked off on my 888 list!  Actually, I finished 1984 a couple of weeks ago, but I have been waiting to do my review until after we met for book club so I didn’t give anything away.  Plus, I needed some time to process it.  My initial reaction was that I hated it and couldn’t believe it was considered a “classic”.   It was very disturbing.  I knew it would be dark, but I don’t think I was prepared for the yuckiness.  Sadly, I was the one who chose this book for book club.  I really didn’t know much about the book except that I kept hearing it referenced in a number of other works I was reading.  Most recently I read about it in Approaching Zion, by Hugh Nibley.  (That book is fabulous by the way.  I can’t wait to finnish it.  That review will be a much easier one to write...)  When I read about it there, I finally decided I needed to find out what all the fuss was about.  

This book is labeled as a “negative utopia”.  It was written in 1948 and was a, then, futuristic view of the year 1984.  In this world everything is controlled by “the party”.  All actions, emotions, relationships, everything, down to the minutest detail, is under the observation and careful scrutiny of “the thought police”.  Anything out of the ordinary is noticed, and those people who do not conform are “taken care of”.  The book is about one man’s plight to discover truth in a world where truth is almost impossible to find.  

The premise of the book, and the ideas it brings out are fascinating.  I loved the theme presented in the book of “the minority of one”.  The main character struggles with the question of ‘If you are the only one who believes something is true, but you are certain that it is, does that make you insane?’  It was a captivating idea, and one that I sometimes feel I can relate to, so I appreciated it all the more.  I also found the parallels to our day very compelling.  There was a device that everyone had in their homes and were unable to turn off called a “telescreen” (remember this was written in the 40’s...).  The telescreen filled their days and nights with information and told them what to think and believe about the party and the life the party was creating for them.  Sounds a lot like television doesn’t it?  We might have the ability to turn it off, but the statistics show that most people don’t most of the time.  Another parallel is the way the party uses doublespeak to describe its’ inner workings.  Basically, they call good evil, and evil good.  We see plenty of that happening in the world today...  

Most of the reviews I have read about this book either praise it or condemn it because of its warning against communism or totalitarianism.  While I think those warnings are clear and true, the greatest warning I saw in the book was against the “dumbing down” of society.  The party’s whole objective was to create an unthinking populace who did whatever they were told.  That was how they gained power over the people.  That was the scariest and most timely message in the book to me.  Scary, because that is where I see our society headed in a fast and seemingly unstoppable way.  We swallow what we’re fed, and rarely question if it is what is good for us or not.  From our public education system, to our “public policies” in most any form.

All of these ideas and several others were very poignant to me.   I just wish that Orwell could have left out the sex and violence.  It was probably tamer than most modern novelists would treat this subject matter, but there were many times when my spirit was offended.  I have been struggling to reconcile the relevance of the message with the questionable content and I’m not sure if I can.  Would I recommend this book to others?  I don’t know.  I think the story was very captivating, and the message was extremely significant, however I have a hard time recommending a book with shady material. 

Writing this review has been very therapeutic for me.  In fact, I wish now that I would have written it before our book club.  There are so many ideas that we didn’t discuss that I wish we would have.  I have to admit I actually like the book much more in retrospect than I did while I was reading it...