1984

To avoid any unnecessary trouble, let me start the review with this disclaimer. I did not read 1984 because of any political incident happening in the world. I learnt about this book from the living in 1984 meme. So I thought I could give it a read to know what the book is about. I would try my best to not draw any comparison to real life issues, but if I do, it is purely by mistake. I want to keep this as a pure book review and not a political commentary (which always does not end up well).

1984 is a dystopian novel where there is a perpetual war among nations. In one such nation where the story happens, there is a super strong party lead by a mysterious person called Big Brother. This person has a strong cult of personality. The people of this country are controlled and censored by the government. By controlling, I mean, they control everything from their emotions to life decisions. They control history, rewrite it to fit their propaganda and conservative lifestyle. There is a constant surveillance through TV, police and fellow citizens who can report you for being against the government. To summarize the extent of the government’s authoritative nature, it is even a crime to think wrong of them in sleep.

Most of the book is about describing the government from the perspective of protagonist. The story itself is quite weak and predictable. There is not much to follow in the story. 1984 is one of the books where the environment and world building shadows the poor mainline story. The book reached its fame because of the author’s thinking of what a dystopian world with surveillance would be like. Reading its Wikipedia, I found that it is a satire on certain political organizations of the time the book was published.

I did not like the book. It gave me an okayish feeling. It is because, first of all, the core story is super boring. Apart from it, I wish the book focused more on the government’s (called the party in book) functions and day-to-day activities. I thought the book would describe how the party came into power, how they reign control and importantly, how they organize this nationwide propaganda and surveillance.

People refer this book whenever there is a surveillance or censorship incident. Reading it in the modern age where privacy and security is in total turmoil, the book gives a vague uneasiness and uncertainty of future. We can hope that our current world never gets to a state where 1984 becomes the reality.

Overall, it is a must-read book if you like dystopian genre. However the weak story might annoy you. But the world building is excellent enough to keep your curiosity up towards the end of the book.