Select language, opens an overlay

Comment

Community comment are the opinions of contributing users. These comment do not represent the opinions of Alameda County Library.
Aug 24, 2019
5 stars - a must read There are bad books, good books and important books, 1984 is an important book. Orwell's 1984 is a warning against an over bearing and corrupt government (dystopia society throught too much control of our daily lives by the government. Some people think this book to extreme. Orwell was using the USSR as an example, read up on the USSR and see what Orwell was warning against. People flee dictatorships, it is not hard to see why. This novel gave us the line "Big Brother is watching". This is a world where even your thoughts are not your own. Imagine living in a one party system and you let it slip that you hated that political party. In a dictatorship with no tolerance or free speech, that person could land in legal trouble. Perhaps not every scenario described in the book seems like it could happen (if say, you are using the USA as your point of reference). But, the daily life of the average North Korean person is as foreign to an American, as say the gravity on the moon is to the gravity on earth. 1984 is more then a book that repeats over and over that dictatorsips and big government is bad, it is about losing your humanity in a dystopia. Toward the end, the main character is tortured, starved and talks about his legs getting so thin he can wrap his hand around his thigh.