1984 by George Orwell

1984 is one of those books I’ve been meaning to read for many years and just now got around to it. I read Animal Farm in 9th grade and really enjoyed it, and from reading political blogs I’d picked up a few of the ideas in 1984 (e.g. Newspeak) without having read it.

I enjoyed reading it; it was definitely gripping, but my feelings are mixed. When I got to the last couple pages, I sort of wanted to cry. It was so twisted, depressing, disturbing and hopeless. I guess that’s the point, but who doesn’t like a happy ending?

The English student in me wants to write an essay or two about different elements Orwell used in the novel, like the little rhyme about the church bells and the song the “prole” sings outside their window. Maybe another day.

There were some good quotable lines in the book; this, I think is my favorite:

“Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad…He feel asleep murmuring ‘Sanity is not statistical,’ with the feeling that this remark contained in it a profound wisdom.”