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- Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, often published as 1984, is a dystopian novel. A startling and haunting novel, 1984 creates an imaginary world that is completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the novel's hold on the imaginations of whole generations, or the power of its admonitions—a power that seems to grow, not lessen, with the passage of time.
- George Orwell's timeless and timely allegorical novel—a scathing satire on a downtrodden society's blind march towards totalitarianism. The book tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. Ultimately, however, the rebellion is betrayed, and the farm ends up in a state as bad as it was before, under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell's masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.
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"1984 is an iconic book. If you haven't read it already, please, do so, especially at 35 cents. At the very least, you'll have an idea of what people mean when they say "literally 1984" as a joke or when they reference the book as an illustration of a phenomena or event that is occurring. Ideally, you'll also become familiar with some of the less obscure references so when somebody mentions wrongthink, newspeak, or thought crimes, it'll be more of an "a-ha!" moment.
That being said though, the book has taken on an almost mythical quality, and it can be a bit hard to process it in a useful fashion. Whether you've already read it, or plan to, here's a few things that might be helpful when reading or interpreting it:
- There are several other novels similar to 1984 that are also excellent, and you should definitely read them! Fahrenheit 451 has already been mentioned and is good, but Brave New World and It Can't Happen Here are also excellent reads. Brave New World is the book that 1984 is most often compared against and it's both very interesting and very informative to see how the books complement each other.
- It hasn't suddenly become 1984 within the last few years. It's not as if a switch for authoritarianism has been flipped on; people have been relating current events to 1984 for over half a century and likely longer. The TIME magazine article published in 1983 on the book (because of the year 1984 being around a month away at that time) contains several references to the 1984 comparison trend, some going back to the 70's. That being said, that does not mean comparisons to 1984 are valueless; the reason it constantly seems as if 1984 is becoming more true by the day is because the lessons it shares through its story are very broad and readily applied to reality now and historically. It's a very timeless book, much to its credit.
- Orwell's post-1936 works were written, in his own words, "against totalitarianism" (Why I Write - Orwell, 1946); he stated this about a year after Animal Farm was published. They were not specifically aimed at any economic or cultural axis but rather against the far end of authoritarianism, regardless of which form that may take. The reason he chose that date specifically was because of his experiences fighting in the Spanish Civil War (which he detailed in Homage to Catalonia, published in 1938) from late 1936 to mid 1937. If you're not familiar with it, the Spanish Civil War lasted from 1936 until 1939 and was between the Spanish left-wing faction (supported by communist Russia) and the Spanish right-wing faction (supported by Nazi Germany and fascist Italy); the right-wing faction won, leading to the Francoist regime. Which leads me to the next bit...
- Orwell was pretty comfortably on the left. His book The Road to Wigan Pier is a very good look at what his beliefs and concerns are as far as politics are generally concerned and is an excellent read in general. In the Spanish Civil War, he fought in the Worker's Party of Marxist Unification (by chance rather than choice; he identified as a socialist rather than Marxist) on the left-wing side of the conflict, but himself admitted he "would have liked to join the Anarchists" in the conflict. The full sentence from the "against totalitarianism" reference above is actually "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.". 'The Book' mentioned in 1984, as well as its author of that book, are more or less direct references to Trotsky. Much of Orwell's specific distaste for totalitarianism came from his experiences with how communist Russia suppressed and controlled components of the left-wing resistance in the Spanish Civil War, which is a big part of the reason why his criticisms in later books tend to be most clearly reflected in the policies and actions of the USSR. The only reason I make this clear is because I've seen several very odd instances where people use Orwell's work in defense of, or alongside support of capitalism, which is unusual to say the least.
- There's a lot that gets overlooked when reading 1984 - so please take your time and consider each passage carefully! While the themes of thought crimes, surveillance states, rewriting history, and other forms of totalitarianism are well recognized, several other important elements in the book tend to go completely overlooked. Some that come to mind for me are the 'Two Minutes Hate', the extreme enforced chastity/prudishness of the society, the suppression of international communication, and the rigid hierarchical class system.
- 1984 currently is, and has been, a commonly prescribed reading for high school students. I'm not aware of any pushes from any individual or political party to suppress or ban the book, and given that public high schools are funded by each level of government but still prescribe 1984 despite that, I don't see any push to ban it occurring any time soon. That isn't to say that you shouldn't read it, but rather that fears that it will be banned seem extraordinarily unlikely. Most of the current push around restricting access to books has been focused on content in schools that may be objectionable to some parents.
I apologize for the essay; I hope some of this has been informative or useful, and does not come off as partisan. 1984 and other novels like it are extraordinarily important as a critique of and warning against authoritarianism and totalitarianism, but despite how much attention 1984 receives, I fear that it is rarely fully appreciated within the context of both the entire setting of the book and Orwell's life and other works."
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