2011 Books – 1984

George Orwell’s 1984 was not entirely what I expected it to be. Sure, I knew it was a dystopian view of the future (well the past now), but it wasn’t as great of a story as I expected it to be.

The first quarter of the book sets the stage. You meet Winston Smith and learn about what society is like – all dark and grim with Big Brother and the Thought Police watching everything you said or did or thought.

The second quarter of the book is, quite frankly, a big question mark. I have no idea why it’s even in the book. All it’s about is Winston and his girlfriend and all of their romantic interludes. The reason it’s such a question mark is that there is no love between them. After the first quarter of the book, you aren’t really cheering for poor Winston – you’re left indifferent about him, so his relationship with Julia is not really building on anything. They cross paths a few times before actually talking, then they meet have sex and go on their own way until they can meet again to have sex. There is just nothing there to make the reader feel for these people.

The last half of the book is Winston and Julia meeting O’Brien who gives them hope that there is a rebellion rising up. O’Brien, of course, is lying. Winston and Julia are imprisoned and the rest of the book is about the torture Winston endures until he is released years later.

The breaking point was when he gives up Julia – implicating her in acts against the government – to save himself from his biggest nightmare. But the problem with this is that because there was really no love between them, the reader doesn’t really care. Heck, I was hoping they’d just kill him so I could be done with the book.

In the end, he and Julia see each other one more time, both confessing that they betrayed each other, then Winston, after one more false news item to stir the masses, turns himself in and is shot – now that he has fully given himself over to Big Brother.

It’s a good book. Orwell was a visionary, no doubt. But the fact that this book has received so much acclaim is simply astounding. Animal Farm was, in my opinion, the better of the two books. By far. Here, you just don’t care enough about anyone. The view of the future was cool and unique for the time, but the characters were missing from the pages. I expected far more than what I got.