1984 | Book Review

I read this book only a couple months ago, thus I was technically very late considering this book was released in 1949.

This book had revivals from time to time, usually when there's loony leader around. People often used the term 'Orwellian', referring to Orwell's concepts written in this book.

In the past year, 1984 had its major revival again. Turns out it was related to Trump. So yeah, his slogan 'Make America Great Again' may sounds superficial, but at least he made America read again.

It was started when the white house adviser, Kellyane Conway (the woman who has serious skill for dodging questions) use the phrase 'alternative facts' referring to how Trump insisted that he had the biggest crowd in history during his inauguration which was a flat out lie. Even the then press secretary, Sean Spicer, repeatedly said the media (or what Trump calls Fake News) under-reporting the size of the crowd at President Trumps' inauguration. They were probably trying to alter the facts by lying, just like what 'The Ministry of Truth' did. The word 'alternative facts' fits the definition of doublethink, the term in Orwell's book in which two contradictory information put together so people would accept it both simultaneously. It may seems funny now because the lies were so obvious, but who knows in 20-30 years people would actually believe there were more people at Trump's inauguration or any other lies he told for that matter. In the book 1984, there is a slogan; those who control the past, control the future. Maybe that's what Trump and his team trying to do. Or maybe he's just delusional.

Okay, enough about Trump. Let's go back to the book.

When I was done reading it, I got to say Orwell is a genius. The depth of this book is bottomless. He's so visionary and everything he says in the book is mind-blowing, especially the part where he discussed about how limiting words available will alter how people think. The Big Brother controlled people's mind by creating a new language they called 'Newspeak', in which they stripped down vocabularies in dictionary to bare minimum. In that way, people won't think undesirable stuff because they simply don't have words for it. They even discussed about how affection will lead to revolution. And it all makes sense!

Not gonna spill anything, but the ending got me stunned for quite some time.

However, as much as I enjoyed the book, to me it's more like an essay rather than a fiction. If you're not so much into long and complicated theories, this book might be quite dragging to finish. But if you're interested in politics or conspiracies, 1984 is a must read.


1984 ratings
Goodreads: 4,14/5
Book-bosomed: 4/5