Book Cover

There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.

# Review

I first read this book in high school and recently reread it after being more knowledgeable about the world and its ways. The book was frightening when I first read it in high school and it’s even more so now.

The story follows Winston Smith, a resident of the dystopian version of London where a totalitarian government monitors and controls every aspect of a citizen’s life. The conditions of living are abysmal due to the constant warfare and everyone lives in perpetual fear of both enemy states and of their own government. Winston meets Julia and the two begin an illicit affair which puts them directly in the crosshairs of the state.

Orwell paints a grim world devoid of colour and joy, a world where the citizenry’s very thoughts are not their own but are products of government propaganda and gaslighting. The scariest aspect of the story for me was the portrayal of subtle truth manipulation, where the validity of facts no longer mattered and no one noticed or cared enough to pursue the actual truth. Orwell does an excellent job portraying the mob mentality and the bombardment of government propaganda necessary for truth to be ignored. This is especially so for children, as children are most susceptible and thus easier to indoctrinate. In the novel children are seen as some of the state’s most eager apparatus in enforcing the government’s rules; the children betray their own parents and create an atmosphere of paranoia even within one’s private dwelling.

There were many themes conveyed in the book; one of my favourite is the impact of language on thought. The examples are obvious, such as the creation of “Newspeak”, a hugely simplified and dumbed down version of English, where there are no words to express complex (and dissenting) thoughts. Words in Newspeak, such as “doublethink” are simple enough to be understood by everyone but are vehicles for the government to control the citizenry’s thoughts (“doublethink” encourages cognitive dissonance, for instance). Another example is the bureaucratic arm in charge of censorship and creation of false news being ironically named the Ministry of Truth, implying that the censored and false news is truth.

A theme that is still very relevant today is the surveillance being carried out by authorities; nowadays, as our lives become increasingly digitized, it becomes easier and easier to invade the privacy of individuals, either by governments or by corporations. Orwell predicted almost perfectly the modern surveillance state.

Some of the other themes I enjoyed reading about is the state’s program on sexual repression (as sex may create conflicting loyalties to the Party), the contrast between being a Party Member and a relatively freer Prole, and Goldstein’s analysis on the dystopian world, such as war is necessary to control the populace and to use up abundant resources.

# Conclusion

A seminal book that was ahead of its time.

# Overall rating: 8.4

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