| 1984 - George Orwell I consider this one of the top 3 Dystopian works, along with Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and Huxley's Brave New World. But I think this is the most philosophical - and the most grim - of the three. All the ingredients are here -- we get the grim, joyless, totalitarian nation that is such a nightmare to the Western ideas of individuality and basic rights. Like in Fahrenheit, we get an obsessive control over language - though here it goes much farther, to the destruction of words. Like BNW, we get government controlled social structure and recreation time, even sexuality. Seems the main point of all of them is how shallow life can become if one obeys the authorities. What's different here - and I hope I'm not giving too much away--is that the rebel doesn't win. That seriously disturbed me at first, but the more I think about it, the more I feel it makes this work stand above the others as a Dystopian picture and a call to fight Power in government and protect individualism and free thought. For if the rebel can beat the System, then the System's power is limited, and we need not worry too much about the System-- the rebel can always win, if he wants. But if Big Brother can become powerful enough that no rebel can survive, as is the case in 1984, then we must truly fear and fight the System--now, before He has that kind of power. In the end, I find this Dystopian work more well thought out, more complete, and scarier than Brave New World of Fahrenheit 451. Yet it still remains incredibly readable, and a disturbingly good time. |