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A review by multimindz
1984 by George Orwell
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.75
Orwell can't write women worth a toss. Really marred the importance of the book to me. Just wanted to start with that.
Many times I wondered to myself "how did this book become so famous?" I meant I get it to some degree, the "this is how one can be controlled by the state and why that is bad" part is so dead on, I would haved suggested this work to Chinese protesters as a primer of what they are up against - if there wasn't so much anti-Asianness (they're not the only historically marginalize group shown in an problematic light - it is almost fair to say that if Orwell and Lovecraft knew each other, Orwell probably wouldn't find too much issue with him, with exception to "I find him and his work a bit creepy but he's rather okay". Lovecraft would probably think Orwell some "dainty snowflake, but I would still call him a friend"). I'd rather find another work that conveys the same and with less racial animosity. Those works exist.
I wouldn't super mind the racist stuff if it were part of the tale, in the way of "this is how the state corrupts and creates scape goats" but nope. It's regular degular "you're reading a literary work penned by a White person, what were you expecting?" level. I don't care for the "it was his era" excuse, he just saw Nazism and wrote a book inspired by, what were then, recent events, he had the brain cells to do better. Thus I super minded the racist stuff (and the gender stuff, he knew women in his life, no excuse).
Winston is a character I found, well, to use a modern term, a walking incel. Old (but wants young women), selfish (he's married and doesn't care about his wife nor the sex worker he bought ... when he found out the sex worker wasn't young. Definitely doesn't care about Julia outside of "someone who I want to touch my dick"), lives by the Reggie Watts lyric of the song "F*ck Sh*t Stack": "I like women. I like women. I like the concept of a woman. Turn that concept into an object." Pathetic, awful, cowardly, useless, pointless and a sheer bore of a human that made me think "please tell me he kills himself or someone brutally murders him". Even the torture scene wasn't enough for me, I had and still have zero sympathy for such a character as Winston. [Sarcasm] Oh noes, he found out that pain is real and standing up for something can have unpretty consequences. Ah alors, what ever, what ever shall Winston do? [/sarcasm] He is the way he is and the life he lives by sheer choice and will. Magnificently small minded, awed easily due to his own sheer stupidity as if he is something special now that he has a Pretty Young Thing and a Secret Book by his side. Oh, and a feeling he had of "The state should be overthrown! - by the people beneath me, I don't wanna do it, I could die. It's fine if the proles beneath me die, that's what they're there for, to die so I may just sit here, muse and pretend my redundant life is worth something." Common feeling of the middle class and up, I get it, but as someone from the working class: screw you, bro. Die for your own cause. If it means that much to you, you should be okay with potentially pushing up daisies over it. Otherwise, just be honest and say "It isn't that I dislike the system, I love it a lot - I just don't like my place in it"
Winston is alive by sheer luck of being surrounded and picked up by genuinely smarter people, such as Julia (she could do better) and others. His dawning of realization that something was amiss in the world he lived in was the simple fact that he couldn't bink Julia due to the red sash on her waist that meant she dedicated her virginity to the state. Really? Orwell couldn't think of something better?
Everything made this book a chore to read. Even the book referenced (and read out) in the book could easily fall under "White Guy Diatribe".
Long story short: The book sucked. I can see why works like these make teens and adult fall out of love with reading. It's dry, unintriguing, angering for all the wrong reasons (the racism and sexism in the work, which isn't there to help illustrate the issues of being in a totalitarian, surveillance state, it's just there because, welp, a White guy wrote it). I get the cultural importance of 1984 but that importance is heavily diluted with the story being as pathetic as it was. I just was left so many times wondering "how did this book become so famous?" This book was an absolute chore to read.
I would have given it a 1.75 star if it weren't a famous work. It has some noteworthy cultural value (aka, it gets referenced everywhere things get dystopian). The work gets one (1) star for that
Many times I wondered to myself "how did this book become so famous?" I meant I get it to some degree, the "this is how one can be controlled by the state and why that is bad" part is so dead on, I would haved suggested this work to Chinese protesters as a primer of what they are up against - if there wasn't so much anti-Asianness (they're not the only historically marginalize group shown in an problematic light - it is almost fair to say that if Orwell and Lovecraft knew each other, Orwell probably wouldn't find too much issue with him, with exception to "I find him and his work a bit creepy but he's rather okay". Lovecraft would probably think Orwell some "dainty snowflake, but I would still call him a friend"). I'd rather find another work that conveys the same and with less racial animosity. Those works exist.
I wouldn't super mind the racist stuff if it were part of the tale, in the way of "this is how the state corrupts and creates scape goats" but nope. It's regular degular "you're reading a literary work penned by a White person, what were you expecting?" level. I don't care for the "it was his era" excuse, he just saw Nazism and wrote a book inspired by, what were then, recent events, he had the brain cells to do better. Thus I super minded the racist stuff (and the gender stuff, he knew women in his life, no excuse).
Winston is a character I found, well, to use a modern term, a walking incel. Old (but wants young women), selfish (he's married and doesn't care about his wife nor the sex worker he bought ... when he found out the sex worker wasn't young. Definitely doesn't care about Julia outside of "someone who I want to touch my dick"), lives by the Reggie Watts lyric of the song "F*ck Sh*t Stack": "I like women. I like women. I like the concept of a woman. Turn that concept into an object." Pathetic, awful, cowardly, useless, pointless and a sheer bore of a human that made me think "please tell me he kills himself or someone brutally murders him". Even the torture scene wasn't enough for me, I had and still have zero sympathy for such a character as Winston. [Sarcasm] Oh noes, he found out that pain is real and standing up for something can have unpretty consequences. Ah alors, what ever, what ever shall Winston do? [/sarcasm] He is the way he is and the life he lives by sheer choice and will. Magnificently small minded, awed easily due to his own sheer stupidity as if he is something special now that he has a Pretty Young Thing and a Secret Book by his side. Oh, and a feeling he had of "The state should be overthrown! - by the people beneath me, I don't wanna do it, I could die. It's fine if the proles beneath me die, that's what they're there for, to die so I may just sit here, muse and pretend my redundant life is worth something." Common feeling of the middle class and up, I get it, but as someone from the working class: screw you, bro. Die for your own cause. If it means that much to you, you should be okay with potentially pushing up daisies over it. Otherwise, just be honest and say "It isn't that I dislike the system, I love it a lot - I just don't like my place in it"
Winston is alive by sheer luck of being surrounded and picked up by genuinely smarter people, such as Julia (she could do better) and others. His dawning of realization that something was amiss in the world he lived in was the simple fact that he couldn't bink Julia due to the red sash on her waist that meant she dedicated her virginity to the state. Really? Orwell couldn't think of something better?
Everything made this book a chore to read. Even the book referenced (and read out) in the book could easily fall under "White Guy Diatribe".
Long story short: The book sucked. I can see why works like these make teens and adult fall out of love with reading. It's dry, unintriguing, angering for all the wrong reasons (the racism and sexism in the work, which isn't there to help illustrate the issues of being in a totalitarian, surveillance state, it's just there because, welp, a White guy wrote it). I get the cultural importance of 1984 but that importance is heavily diluted with the story being as pathetic as it was. I just was left so many times wondering "how did this book become so famous?" This book was an absolute chore to read.
I would have given it a 1.75 star if it weren't a famous work. It has some noteworthy cultural value (aka, it gets referenced everywhere things get dystopian). The work gets one (1) star for that
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical trauma, War, Torture, and Physical abuse
Minor: Sexual content