It’s here! I guess I feel kind of bad for hyping up ‘Currently Reading’ and not having a post ready but it’s here.
Lately I’ve been really wanting to read all the classics and so here I am with 1984. I came in with very high hopes for this book and to begin with, I’m not gonna lie it disappointed. I appreciate an author trying to set the scene for the novel but does that really take 140 (ish) pages? But maybe I’m wrong, maybe everything I’ve read so far ties in somehow. Somethings I can sort of tell might be relevant in the future but somethings just seem unnecessary. I am, however a rather impatient reader and want the action straight away, or at least a build-up. My point is the one thing I don’t necessarily love about this book is how long it takes to get to it, the person I assume to be one of two very important characters, we don’t properly get to see for 140 pages.
Okay so asides from that 1984 is a Dystopia so it’s all oppressed people, dictatorships a false sense of security and the public being forced into believing they live in a Utopia. One person against the government another few people and they try an uprising blah blah. So there’s your background. Bearing in mind that this book was written a long time ago (1949) the languages style is very formal proper English and I love it! I’m not talking Shakespeare thou thee shalt, I mean like really effective sentence structure sophisticated vocabulary that you don’t hear often but is so much nicer to read than our babble. So in terms of the actual writing 1984 is up there with the best books I’ve read and if you’re into proper literature definitely go for this one it should be on your to-read list.
Now for the actual content, I really like reading this now and looking back and realising people’s fears for the world and what was going through their heads. The idea of freedom of speech not even being a concept and people being denied the right to think for themselves plays a big part in the book. In this futuristic (dunno if that’s the right word) city, there’s a new way of talking that’s coming in with the authorities getting rid of old words to replace with new words in a language called Newspeak. Newspeak words are supposed to be more efficient in getting the speaker to say what what they want but really it’s getting rid of half the words in the dictionary and replacing them slowly so what the government doesn’t want people to speak about, they can’t because they don’t have the words. I would like to go into Thought crime but I will save it for the actual review because this is kinda meant to be short and sweet.
Whilst writing this I’ve come to appreciate this book a lot more and see why it has such high praises. Going forward
***POTENTIAL SPOILERS! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK***
I imagine we’ll be seeing the two main characters take action on their shared distaste of the current leadership and perhaps try to do something! I’m excited!
Bye
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