I still love 1984

It has been a little over a decade since I read 1984. I am a huge Orwell fan and have read many if not most of his works. I read 1984 way after that year...it was in the mid 90s when I was assigned this reading. I remember a deep sense of dread and impending doom. I understand it more now than when I was in high school. I believe that it is something I should probably read every 10 years.

Personally, I find it very amusing how everyone uses the term 1984 these days but many people do not understand the full scope of the novel. They just say "Big Brother" as if 1984 is solely about loss of privacy and having government involved in your life. It is about so much more...it is about individualism and totalitarianism, information freedom and control, torture both psychological and physical, as well as the importance of language. I read this book and I think of North Korea. How the government controls information and you hear about North Koreans who escape are shocked that the rest of the world is not like NK and everything they ever learned was wrong.

In essence, I still love 1984 even though my heart hurts when I read it. So I will end my post with 3 words...Information IS power!

In the End

Last weekend I finished the book. In my old insomnia days, I used to fall asleep to tapes and one of my favorites (before I had all of the Prairie Home Companions) was a BBC Radio production of 1984. Reading the book after all of these years was interesting because I could hear the radio actors' voices speaking many of the lines in my head. I am also curious to see the film again, not having seen it since it was released in 1984. What's to say about this book? I like the term "negative utopia," I prefer Brave New World, and I was reminded how much I don't like gin. Anyone care to weigh in on anything?