Reviews with content warning for Gore - 1984

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1984 by George Orwell

51 reviews

james1star's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

How to summarise my thoughts? Umm… I honestly don’t know! I didn’t necessarily enjoy 1984 but I respected its importance and impact I’d say. In Orwell’s novel we follow Winston Smith who lives in London in a dystopian 1984 where ‘the Party’ and ‘Big Brother’ is always watching you, controlling you, controls the past, present and future. Smith commits thought-crime amongst other things and Yhh I don’t want to explain the plot too much but basically it’s his journey.

What I did like was the tension and eggarness to read on in how Orwell writes. The world building is continuous and vivid that you can theorise this dystopian world with pretty realistic characters. However, I personally though this detail and repetition of certain events, ideas, ‘facts’ and the like are very tiering and long. This was very apparent in Goldstein’s thesis being plastered into the middle of the book taking up a huge chunk of repetition that is seemingly never-ending that I despised. Why was it so long and drawn out? No thank you! Also, the characters do all lack depth and a likeness so in some sense you don’t care about what happens to them no matter how horrible it is - but then again they do live in a world built on terror and control so to find positivity is hard enough… but Yhh I didn’t warm to them. They’re also kinda annoying but I was still intrigued enough to read on. A LOT of it was also quite confusing with contradictory phrases and stuff I dunno - yes this was good in terms of world building the messed up nature of the society and party but still my brain was a bit whirled up.

Overall, I didn’t like the story, plot or characters (not really my vibe) and was far too repetitive and long in my opinion. However, it was written mostly well, kept me intrigued and has became a staple due to its importance where many takes and comparisons to ‘our world’ can be made. So a solid 3 starts from me.

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smadoca's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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manu_k's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Beautifully horrifying, this book is a ride from start to finish. We know it has been a cornerstone for the dystopian fiction genre, but reading it makes me realize just how much this book has shaped this genre.

On the writing style: I thought it was very beautifully written, descriptive but not very much so, the exact kind of thing I like. The way it was written and the analogies and the non - linear storytelling in some parts came together so well, it was immersive in the best way.

On the story:

the first part was almost boring, which I thought was the point. It showed us how the regime worked, some background to Winston, but didn't actually contribute to advancing the story line as such. The second part was much more fast paced and actually exciting in regards to the advancement of the story, and by far some of the chapters in this part are my favorites. I didn't appreciate the whole 'I love you' debacle in the beginning, but I guess it shows how much sexually and emotionally repressed these people are. I believe it seems very fitting that Julia is introduced as a central character at the start of the second part and her role ends at the end of the second part. The third part was one of the most difficult parts to get through, despite me having experience with reading torture scenes (I read The Surgeon when I was 15, it still haunts me). It was brutal no holds barred kind of writing, with the descriptions, O'Brien's almost - almost - loving teacher like treatment of Winston, and then the change in the way of Winston's thinking, how different it was from the other two parts. The ending was surprising to me, despite knowing that it won't end happily as other dystopian books I have read.

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librarymouse's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

1984 is a deeply upsetting book. It does not give me hope for the future. By the end of this book, the reader is left with the feeling of having finally reached a handhold at the top of an almost insurmountable summit only to have the bones in your hands systematically crushed by someone you had assumed loved you.
1984 almost makes the unwavering patriotism/belief in a singular person/undefined political ideology, that some of my older family members feel understandable. To see the hero worship for an untouchable ideal that contradicts itself and causes harm without room for critique or progress is painfully relatable for me as an American reader in 2022. I think that crushing dread that there may never be a better world than the one you currently live in with all of its flaws and hardships has been one of the few, traumatic, incorporeal heirlooms that's been passed down for generations.

I really enjoyed the character of Mr. Charrington. I loved the idea of someone lovingly curating ephemeral garbage from generations passed to create a museum of unsellable antiques, and I loved that that persona was an artfully constructed façade for a nefarious character. Orwell drew a brilliant parallel between the telescreen being concealed behind one of the few truly valuable antiques and the thought police officer being behind the studious looking façade that made him look almost like a relic from the past. Behind one of the last few images of the long dead world Winston longed for, which gave him hope for the future, was the symbol and force of the omnipotent presence they thought they were momentarily free from.
I was genuinely convinced that Winston's fear of rats was going to have stemmed from his baby sister being eaten by them. The repeated mentions of proll women not leaving babies unattended for fear they be eaten by rats combined with the thing Winston had been blocking out, the poverty his family lived in in his early childhood, and his mother and sister's disappearance made that thought a tangible possibility.
Winston's character development before his time in prison was quite interesting. Initially, he was internally quite violent and held a deep hatred for the people around him, especially the women. His dreams of bashing in Julia's skull and his distaste for his neighbor's wife mixed with his misogynist internal monologue made Winston an intensely unlikable character for the first part of the book. Julia's complacency with party rules and regulations so long as they didn't interfere with her sex life, her zealously performed orthodoxy that she performed fluidly and without thought made her similarly unlikable at the beginning. Their pre-prison development made them into almost beautiful people, in terms of personality. They were both developing forms of self expression and learning to appreciate the small joys afforded to the prolls that their stations did not allow. Winston's longing for familial past he could barely remember and Julia's desire to break the rules slowly morphed into a tentatively explored new way of life and love that pulled from both the pre-party way of life and engsoc orthodoxy. The total destruction of their sense of selves during and after their time in prison was upsetting to read, but gave the book a satisfying ending. Winston's breaking point being something so benign and mortal as rats humanized him in such a way that it felt like the culmination of his characterization throughout the book. To have the thing that shatters his psyche be something so ingrained into him that all the mind tricks and double think in the world couldn't erase was weirdly oxymoronic. O'Brien's promise was that they would want to confess and die for the party and the love of big brother before they would be killed, and Winston's descent into truly believing party orthodoxy happened in a way that is recognizable in the real world in the reactions of people with zealous, deeply held belief systems.

I'm glad I didn't read this book in high school. I had too much optimism for the fate of the world then. It would have gone right over my head.

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