Once you start it, you won't be able to switch it off!
How does it compare to similar audio books?
Excellent
How does it compare to audio works by the same author?
Excellent
Advantages:
Gripping story, great concepts
Disadvantages:
Scary vision of the future
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
1984 is very difficult to define. It can be viewed as a prophetic vision of the future, as pure science fiction, as political commentary or even a tragic love story. Its enduring appeal and its greatness as a novel is due to the fact that all these labels apply.
In order to understand the motivation behind writing 1984 we have to know a little about the author George Orwell and the times in which he lived.
THE AUTHOR
George Orwell was born Eric Blair in 1903, he described himself as ‘lower-upper-middle class’ although he had a privileged upbringing he never felt comfortable with it. From an early age he felt strongly about the oppression and tyranny that he saw around him.
On leaving private school and joining the British Burma police he developed a loathing for the strict authoritarian attitudes of the British colonial system. This coupled with bouts of serious illness led him to return to England and begin a career as a journalist and writer. In 1936 he published ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’ where he rejects the concept of capitalism and seems to favour a more socially egalitarian system of government embracing the then new ideas of socialism. He was a journalist in the Spanish civil war and he learnt of the brutality that the fascist forces were capable of. As he witnessed the rise of Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet empire Orwell’s views became firmly against any form or totalitarianism and this inspired him to write scathing thinly veiled attacks on those regimes with ‘Animal Farm’ in 1945 and finally with the publication of ‘1984’ in 1949.
1984 was born out of Orwell first hand knowledge of the horrors of dictatorships and totalitarian forms of government on either end of the political spectrum, and it remains even today fifty year after its publication one of the most powerful, horrific and compelling works of social commentary of the ‘dystopian’ genre..
PLOT
The central figure in the novel is Winston Smith a low ranking official in the ministry of Truth part of the political machinery of control based in London, which at this time is part of the super state of Oceania. This is a time when every aspect of people’s lives is controlled and monitored. History has been re-written, language has been re-invented as ‘Newspeak’ carefully eliminating all references to subversion or rebellion. Even certain types of thought are illegal and monitored by the thought police. Sex is controlled and individuality is seen as a crime. Everyone is constantly under surveillance. The Party under the leadership of ‘Big Brother’ is constantly watching through the obligatory ‘telescreens’ in everyone’s homes. Oceania is constantly at war with Eurasia and allied to Eastasia and the party line states that this has always been so.
Winston is an everyman figure he feels uncomfortable with the scrutiny and control that he experiences. In an act of dangerous rebellion he starts to keep a diary of his illegal thoughts. His work involves him altering historical record to fit the Party agenda, but personal doubts are beginning to haunt him. At work he notices a girl Julia who he is attracted to but he feels scared to let her know, worrying she might be an informant for the thought police. Eventually she reciprocates his feelings and they start an affair in a rented room in a seedy squalid quarter of the city relatively free from party monitoring.
As his hatred of the Party grows he seeks out O’Brien a powerful member of the party but also possibly a member of a secret faction called ‘the Brotherhood’ committed to overthrow the Party. O’Brien makes contact and reveals to Smith a way to break free of his oppression in the form of a secret book written by the legendary leader of the Brotherhood, Emmanuel Goldstein.
Will Winston find freedom? Will Winston and Julia’s love survive? Will the Brotherhood prevail against the power of Big Brother? Does humanity survive in the end? What lurks in Room 101? These are the questions that Orwell sets up and answers in an exciting and disturbing conclusion to the story…
MY OPINION
It is very indicative of the novels powerful effect that so many ideas from it have become everyday part of our language; Big Brother, Room 101, the thought police etc. Orwell intended the novel to be a warning and it is pointedly a criticism of the political systems that were evident in Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and later China. Hitler, Stalin and Mao could easily be thought of as Big Brother. ‘Ministries of Truth’ under different names did exist and both the Soviet Union and Maoist China did attempt to re-write history and promote propaganda to suit their own agenda. In both cases the ‘Party’ did rule every aspect of ordinary people’s lives.
Like Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ before it 1984 presents us with a terrifying vision of our future and although the obvious examples are the Nazi’s, USSR and China, Orwell was making a wider point and warning that this nightmare vision could happen anywhere.
The obvious theme in the novel is the danger of totalitarianism but the story also serves as a study of psychological control and thought manipulation. We have to remember that when it was written the concept of a telescreen spouting out propaganda in every home was very radical, TV’s were not yet affordable to the masses and yet now 50 years on we regularly hear about how TV programmes ‘brainwashing’ us with messages directing the way we think form what products to buy to which war to support. We are familiar with claims that TV news is biased towards supporting the State line. In Orwell’s 1984 this behavioural and physical manipulation is extreme, even unauthorised mannerism could lead to an arrest, but I wonder how Orwell would feel about the use of invasive and subliminal TV advertising that is all around us today.
Another major theme of the book is the use of technology and language to suppress free thought and monitor people’s actions. In 1984 a worldwide system exists connecting all house hold through the telescreen to the centralised authority, in many ways Orwell predicted the more benign advent of universal TV and Internet as a potential for communicating and influencing people’s thoughts and behaviour. Orwell makes a radical statement for his time, that progress in technology is not always a force for good but can be misused an concept that in our modern world of genetic manipulation, pollution and environmental disaster we have no difficulty in relating to.
Orwell instinctively knew that language is a powerful force in society. Language gives structure to human thought and allows those thoughts to be communicated. The use of language to achieve control was of obvious interest to Orwell as a writer. In 1984 the English language is replaced by ‘Newspeak’ in which ‘troublesome’ words are eliminated. In his own time Orwell was aware of how invading colonial powers often suppressed and discouraged the use of native languages in order to emphasize the dominance of their rule and to break the cultural unity of the oppressed people. We see today how the use of native languages such as Basque, Breton or even Welsh can make be a potent political statement. The extreme control of language that Orwell foresaw has not come to pass in our modern society but we do see language manipulated by politicians and spin doctors to suit their purposes thus innocent war victims become ‘Collateral Damage’, when troops are killed in action by allied forces it’s referred to as ‘Friendly Fire’ or when a company sacks workers to keep shareholder profits high it called ‘Downsizing’.
Orwell world in 1984 is a dark desperate place where fear rules. His narrative and descriptive style mirror this we find a grey soulless society, where people are unemotional. There is drabness to ordinary life while desperate squalor exists for those on the outskirts of society. From the very first lines of the book we get an indication of what a tragic existence our ‘hero’ is living. Winston Smith is described as frail and thin, with varicose ulcers, his apartment is dilapidated and the lift doesn’t work.
Orwell was familiar with the hardships of the poor in society and he translated that serve as a template for a wider society were freedom had been suppressed and hard work of the many or the ‘proles’ (as they are known in 1984) had been abused by the few. In contrast to Smith harsh existence we see the luxury that a high party official like O’Brien lives in luxury and have the ultimate privilege of being able to turn off the telesceen an action, which few could contemplate and that shocks Smith when he witnesses it.
We can easily argue that however brilliant his insight was or horrific his vision appeared at least it didn’t turn out to be true, even the Communist states he was directly attacking have largely either fallen or are gradually adopting more liberal systems of government…or can we?
Is Big Brother watching us in 2003? Do multinational companies keep computerised records of what food we eat, what clothes we buy, what insurance risk we represent. Do we not have an increasing number of CC TV’s monitoring us in town centres and spreading to the suburbs? Isn’t our government pressing for identity cards possibly containing fingerprint details or retinal scans? With the advent of gene technology, information about our health or potential for disease could be provided to insurance companies from samples taken at birth when this happens even our biological blueprint will cease to be our own…but then again if you have nothing to hide why worry…
Any novel that makes such a specific point of setting itself in such a specific moment in time runs the risk of becoming dated but in the case of 1984 this doesn’t matter. Originally the title was going to be 1948 since what Orwell was talking about was actually taking place in many parts of the world. It is a vision of the future but also a comment on the present. The dangers Orwell warned about are still there, they might be less obvious now, less clearly identifiable but they are all the more dangerous for it.
Beware…. Big Brother is watching you!
1984 is available in paperback (336 pages- Penguin Books; ISBN: 014027877X) for £3.99 (+p&p)
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