Nineteen Eighty-Four

Nineteen Eighty-Four
George Orwell
Penguin Classics

1948
355 pages

I'm sure this book needs no introduction to some people. It is the classic depiction of a totalitarian dystopian future -- one planned, rather than accidental -- and it has proved so powerful and enduring because it is so very, very plausible. Some of the things predicted in Nineteen Eight-Four have indeed come to pass, while it has also given us things like Room 101 and Big Brother, etc. I ask you not to hold that last against Orwell -- gormless goons locked in a house, being watched by other ... ahem ... was not quite what he imagined.

The eighties were quite different in most regards to what Orwell imagined, perhaps even partly because of what he wrote, but that doesn't really matter in the end. The date isn't that important. Unlike some science-fiction written in the late 40s and 50s it is utterly in account with modern times. None of the technology is farcical or out of date, or unimaginable, or even wildly before it's time -- so often in utopian, almost eudæmonist, visions of the future written in those times, by about the 1990s humanity has conquered all plagues and illness and lives in shining castles in the air, with happy animals and people frolicking and lolloping around -- this is not the case in Nineteen Eighty-Four. The technology, simple things like bugs and telescreens which watch you in your house all the time, is not nearly as powerful as the atmosphere of mistrust and fear which has been inculcated, particularly in the minds of the young -- so that, as in Hitlerian Germany, and other régimes, parents have more to fear from their children, forced into Nazi Youth type meetings, etc., than they do from any watchful eye of the state. But enough of that...

Nineteen Eighty-Four is set in what was once the British Isles, now called Airstrip One and a province of Oceania, and tells the story of Winston Smith, a worker in the Record Department of the Ministry of Truth. Government departments often seem to be named opposite to their function (except, of course, in Dickens' Little Dorrit, where the Circumlocution Office is very aptly named) and this time is no exception. It is Winston's job to rewrite the past so that it fits in with current Party propaganda -- and once the past is changed, everybody is meant to forget that the current version of history is nowhere near what happened... And they do. They have no other records to consult to discover that, for example, Oceania has been at war with Eastasia for only a short while, rather than the forever the Party has told them -- and their own memories are not to be trusted.

It was much more fun to read than I expected. One of the messages of the book, if it can be said to have messages, is that language is power, and that if you control the language used by the people, you control the thoughts of the people -- political gobbledygook, in Orwell's opinion, only serves to oppress and hinder, rather than help. As a result, Nineteen Eighty-Four is written in very clear, simple prose, eschewing unnecessary obfuscation, as it were, and I would definitely recommend it.

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two equals four. If that is granted, all else follows.

Further information:

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