It's 1984 and Big Brother is watching you. The whole world is supposedly divided into seems to be divided into three major countries, all of which are under totalitarian goverments.

Winston Smith works for the Ministry of Truth and is responsible for correcting "mistakes" in the newspaper records.

Finally unable to take the constant watching and overseeing, he gets fed up with the lies and tries to escape to a quiet, private area with his lover Julia.

But you can never escape, Big Brother is watching you.

a nightime horror story. You don't need monsters and blood and guts to be horrified by this one.

how the newspapers in the archives kept changing according to the whims of the Party.

the ending, but rather than spoil it for any yet to read it, I'll just say it isn't your Hollywood happy ending.

shudder. It gives you a good idea how Russia and its subsidiaries must have lived under Communist rule, though without as much technology.

wrote this in 1949, during the rise of Communism, as the Iron Curtain was being spread across Europe. It's meant to be a warning.

it warns you what can happen if we turn all of our freedoms over to the government. There are people who want the government to oversee all our duties and take the responsibility off themselves. If that were allowed, the government would become too powerful and this may very well happen. Be warned.

I read it really young, but many younger readers won't get the full complexity of the story. They will also become bored, as the writing is a little advanced for most youngsters.

To show how good this book is, I first read it for pleasure when I was 11. I was driving my father crazy with HUGE trips to the library, so he raided his bookshelf and gave me this one after Animal Farm.

I was fortunately an advanced reader and my father sat with me and went over the story so I would understand it all.

Then I read it in High School and College for classwork. Or rather I skimmed it to remind me.

Interested in buying this? Support Writing.Com by making your purchase of 1984   from Amazon.Com!

Created Nov 17, 2004 at 11:24pm • Submit your own review...