1984 by George Orwell

As an aside, anyone who found his thoughts provoked by 1984 should have a look at Koba the Dread, a nonfiction book by Martin Amis. It's about Stalin specifically and Russian Communism generally. Reading it, I felt like I was looking at a gloss of 1984; except Orwell didn't go as far in fiction as Stalin went in fact.
Orwell might have been attacking totalitarianism in general, but the species of totalitarianism he has the most contempt for (and fear of), and the greatest influence on 1984 is clearly the Russian model.
And Koba is also a great book in its own right, so check it out.
 
I was deeply inpressed by this book.I was living in a country,where the Minstry of Truth tries to take control of the mind of everyone.Just now I searched the word 真理部(which means the Minstry of Truth in Chinese) in Google.Now I cannot log in that website.
This is a book which makes me desperate.
 
1984 is the scariest book I have ever read.

The novel is filled with episodes that give you an uncomfortable feeling in your stomach. The Two Minutes Hate is a classic one. Other scenes are more dramatic, such as the vision of the pyramids of the Ministries of Truth, Love, Peace and Plenty that tower over the rest of the city. There are scenes that are a bit comical as well, such as the mandatory morning exercise and Winston’s job as a modifier of documents to change records of the past, but never funny. Instead these scenes have a terrible sadness in them.

I appreciate how Orwell systematically blocks all hope for the reader that the world will ever get better. The fascist state Winston Smith lives in will stay that way forever and the rest of the world is no different. The world exists in a balance that is maintained by three states, which keeps it forever turning. It is a nightmare without end; the future forever ruined. Even the past is lost to memory and destroyed by lies. It makes you want to bury your face in your hands and hide far away. To quote one of Orwell's characters: "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."

It is a story that will never get old. It is immensely powerful and alarming and as a call to freedom it will always remain relevant.

Fahrenheit 451 is a different sort of book I think. It is a dystopia, but it takes another road.

It is a world were everything is backward, twisted, yet eerily familiar. People are discouraged to think, only talk about empty things and live like zombies, continuously entranced by empty popmusic and empty reality series on TV-walls. It is kind of distressing that some of Bradbury’s predictions have become recognisable in our modern times. This twisted world that he describes wasn’t the result of a twisted government, but it was the general tendency of the times. It was the overcrowded world, high on mass production and fast living. Fahrenheit 451 is about the loss of thinking, leading to the loss of books. It is more similar to Brave New World.
 
Said it before, and will say it again. Nineteen Eighty-Four is nothing compared to the book that inspired it:

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yeah yeah yeah. somehow I doubt it. :p 1984 is in my top 3 best SF in the history of forever.
We is on the pile. I will probably read it between now and two weeks.
 
Don't get me wrong, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a good book, but I (personally) feel it's incredibly overrated. Orwell takes a lot of the concepts of We and he does twist them and the overall feeling is a lot darker, but in some ways We is a lot more "evil".
 
they're both great, We deserves a lot more credit, but it could easily be argued that 1984 was the better book. and vice versa really.
 
I am almost halfway in Zamyatin's We and I am very impressed. :) Despite being a short novel in page number it isn't really a quick read. It is almost like a poem here and there. I can see how one would rate We above 1984, although I wouldn't, hehehe. The two are actually hard to compare. Zamyatin sure has a way with words.
 
I just read 1984...scary book! I don't read science fiction that often, so when I do it usually ends up scaring me like this :rolleyes:! Somehow, I always end up picking out the dystopian ones...

A good book, though I don't like Orwell's writing much (due to school...picking apart Animal Farm until it meant absolutely nothing is the major reason for this) and realistic enough to be frightening. I might have liked it more, had I not had to read it for school. The second half was the worst...all that doublethink and stuff was scarier than physical violence would have been.

I'm probably just too easily scared by books :o But it was very compelling. Despite not liking Orwell so much, I read through the book in about 5-6 hrs straight, which is saying a lot for an author I don't generally like.
 
Jeroen said:
I am almost halfway in Zamyatin's We and I am very impressed. :) Despite being a short novel in page number it isn't really a quick read. It is almost like a poem here and there. I can see how one would rate We above 1984, although I wouldn't, hehehe. The two are actually hard to compare. Zamyatin sure has a way with words.
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In my opinion, there's a lot of parallels between "We" and "1984", and it honestly made me wonder how much of '84 was Orwell's own work and how much he'd taken from other books (I've "Brave New World" was also an influence, but I've not read it so I can't give my thoughts), and that did sort of make '84 seem a bit poorer in my eyes.

The basics of the story are one thing I'm referring to. He's there in the setting, he comes across a member of some "resistance" (who is also female in both books, I believe), he umms and ahhs over it for a while, decides to go through with it whilst hiding from the Government, tries to escape (physically in We, mentally in '84, IIRC), fails and captured, with the book ending after their "reprogramming" by the Government.

There's also recurring themes such as the "head of state" (Big Brother in '84, forgotten who it is in We), no privacy (glass houses in We, telescreen things in '84) and there's the odd other thing, none of which come to mind right now.
 
I read this in high school as part of the reading curriculum, and loved it (and have since read it at least twice).

The part that sticks in my mind is when they are first caught by Big Brother - I could almost feel the fear. From memory they're lying in bed in the hideout room, and are talking about the Prole woman saying she is the future and we are the dead. Julia repeats "We are the Dead". Then Big Brother's voice booms "YOU ARE THE DEAD"!

Still freaks me out.
 
I hereby predict and conclude that, no more than a decade or two from now, we will see a drastic change in the way we use our personal technologies; specifically phones, computers, and even credit cards. In fact, we are already witnessing the very change Im speaking of in the form of a merging between cell phones and computers. The ammount of items we have to carry on us on all times is shrinking as fast as the size of the items themselves, and it all seems to point in only one direction.
Think about the amount of things you carry with you wherever you go. Naturally the number will usually be higher for women because a lot of women carry purses, but think about only the things that you actually need most often. Lets say a wallet/pocketbook, set of keys, and your phone. you may also bring a laptop or breifcase. Soon, all of these items will be put together through new inventions and technology. We alreadys see less and less difference between phones and laptops and more and more things can be done using them, and the future is looking even more like something out of a science fiction movie.
first, one device will be created with the ability to perform the tasks of every one of our necessary items. For literary purposes I have dubbed this device "The Card". the card will be the size of a standard credit card and the front side will consist of the phone. It is a touch screen that takes up one entire side of the card. The touch screen is also a method of using the card as a computer; getting online, playing games, doing everything you can do on a computer today and of course since its in the future, there will be even more activities that the card can perform that we havnt even thought of yet. The back will be the camera, holographic projector, and speaker. All of these are inlaid in the card and do not protrude outward in the slightest. the projector is the second method for using the computer and it can be used to video chat over the phone in 3D and to scale, and the camera uses over ten megapixels and provides an extremely clear photo. Embedded in the card will be a magnetic strip just like you would see on an average credit/ debit card which gives you direct access to your bank accounts and can be used to purchase items as well as withdraw money. The card will contain a very small battery which will not run out of power in its owners lifetime, which is extremely convenient considering that most people will keep their same card for decades if not their entire lives. When there is only one card brand there is very little reason to ever buy a new card until a better model is released.
we will recieve our own personal card at a very young age. It will contain an identity test that could allow a person to ensure nobody uses their card, and to provide evidence to someone receiving a message from a persons card that it was in fact that person that sent the message, In this way we could evern vote in federal elections simply by using our card. In response to that the number of federal votes will increase as we will begin to utilize a nationwide vote for every single law or bill that goes through congress and the power of the government will really be given to the people, but thats a different story.
 
I think 1984 is without a doubt the scariest, most awe-and-dread-inspiring novel ever written by humankind. It made me cry.
 
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