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Tarfumes.com - Nineteen Eighty-Four
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List Price: $15.95
Our Price: $10.85
Your Save: $ 5.10 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Plume
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Average Customer Rating: 
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780452284234
ISBN: 0452284236
Label: Plume
Manufacturer: Plume
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 368
Publication Date: 2003-05-06
Publisher: Plume
Release Date: 2003-05-06
Studio: Plume
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Editorial Reviews:
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Thought Police. Big Brother. Orwellian. These words have entered our vocabulary because of George Orwell's classic dystopian novel, 1984. The story of one man's nightmare odyssey as he pursues a forbidden love affair through a world ruled by warring states and a power structure that controls not only information but also individual thought and memory, 1984 is a prophetic, haunting tale.
More relevant than ever before, 1984 exposes the worst crimes imaginable-the destruction of truth, freedom, and individuality.
With a new forward by Thomas Pynchon.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Still Relative Today
Comment: The views expressed in the book 1984 are very unique and yet still relate to today. The story shown in the book accurately portrays the needs of the people and how they will never be met in the face of an oppressive government. It paints a clear yet disturbing picture that must be experienced. Very good read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Forget WE, The Iron Heel and every other dystopian novel. Read this book!
Comment: Put simply this is the greatest work of dystopian literature ever created. It's not filled with useless details like Atlas Shrugged and is more vivid than anything Huxley or London have ever created.Nineteen Eighty- Four shows the ultimate consequences of government intervention into the individual's life. The book takes place in a totalitarian state called Oceania where even the thoughts of the citizens are controlled and punished by the ruling party.Follow the life of Winston Smith, a mal adjusted government propagandaist, as he struggles to keep his mind, body and soul free for the death grip of the all encompassing state.A must read for all who value individuality, liberty and non-comformity.Come and discover why Orwell is one of the most influential and referenced author of the last century.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Cherish your thoughts
Comment: Orwell's 1984 is a novel that is truly frightening for those who cherish free expression and the power of individual thought. Dystopia literature owes it all to this classic of the genre. I managed to get through all my formal education without having read this text. However, picking it up now I am glad that I waited until I was a little older to read it.
The first thing one must marvel at is the brilliant construction of the novel. Orwell as an artist is at the top of his form and the structure of the novel is wound so tightly that readers would be wise to annotate the text as there is an almost cyclical nature to many of the themes and ideas presented. Orwell weaves the same ideas throughout the text, and each time he revisits them he shows them through the lenses of a different ideology or character and thus emphasizes for the reader how precarious (and precious) are the mores and ideals of the individual mind.
The idea of governments who yearn for power for power's sake is not so foreign to our early 21st century world, and although the text ends on a nihilistic note, the reader walks away from 1984 with the renewed impetus to revere and respect our individual thoughts, as these, and these alone, give us unique value. Read this text, not so you can fear "big brother", but rather so you can be reminded to respect yourself enough to think and form intellectual thoughts. It is Winston's loss of the self that should frighten the readers of 1984, not the dreary world that Orwell creates. We don't need totalitarian governments to become Winston Smiths. We can do it to ourselves if we are not careful!
Customer Rating:
Summary: This Book Deserves More Stars Than Are In The Sky
Comment: Today's American is mentally incomplete if he/she has not read this book. If you haven't read it, please do so. If you have read it, please read it again. And keep in mind that reading it is not the goal. Knowing it is the goal.
The distinction is important because Orwell so masterfully describes the loss of truth, the loss of individuality, the loss of freedom so subtely and so effortlessly, that the crucial points are missed if the reader has a lack of focus.
with uncanny brilliance, Orwell describes the tactics used by a totalitarian state against its own people to gain submission and cooperation. The submission is so complete that the proles (the masses) no longer have ownership over their own thought! It is a subtle and painless process and only Alexis De Tocqueville, in his monumental work, "Democracy in America" has come close in the past 175 years of describing it, but even Tocqueville admits that he can't give it a name.
"In fact there will be no thought...Orthodoxy means not thinking-not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness" writes Owell. Orwell later writes that "orthodoxy is stupidity". What the reader needs to understand with this point is that "orthodoxy" is the "news" we get from our mainstream media, our establishment press. Because our mainstream media is government controlled, as explained in the book: U.S. Television News and Cold War Propaganda, 1947-1960 (Cambridge Studies in the History of Mass Communication), naturally only government orthodoxy will be espoused.
In the novel, Orwell writes, "There is no possibility that any perceptible change will happen within our own lifetime".
There are so many unbelievably essential tactics described in this book that I can't do much justice to them in this review, but the reader needs to connect with Orwell's cleverness and understand how important it is to Big Brother to control the language and rewrite the history, in fact, write the history before it even happens. This, the torture to get confessions, attacking an ally and blaming an enemy (false flag terrorism) is all here and Orwell wrote this masterpiece 60 years ago!
This book, Nineteen Eighty-Four, is drawn from heavily in the book, Don't Weep for Me, America: How Democracy in America Became the Prince (While We Slept). Here, the relevancy of "Nineteen Eighty-Four" will blow a lot of minds...
Customer Rating:
Summary: my first Orwell, and I'm already hooked
Comment: I think this is my favorite novel about a dystopia. So far, I have read "We", "A Handmaid's Tale", "Brave New World", "Anthem", and "A Clockwork Orange", and though I have thoroughly enjoyed quite a few of the novels that I've listed, 1984 is my absolute favorite. How is it different? The main character, Winston, if not entirely likable, is very relatable. What I like most about him is that he doesn't assume to be anything or know anything, but rather, he feels instinctively that something is wrong with how the world is set up. He is not especially intelligent (although he's not exactly stupid either) or strong-willed or moral or handsome. And as if to emphasize Winston's relatable mediocrity, Orwell gave him an exceedingly boring office job! In some novels about dystopias, the protagonist can be overly heroic (as in Anthem) or tragic (as in a Handmaid's Tale), and thus more admirable but also a lot less relatable.
Another thing that is different . . . this book gives you different perspectives. Orwell's theme of government control over language is pretty common in this genre, but because he took his thesis a little farther than merely saying that government control is bad, the book is an interesting read. He even gets a little into metaphysics. As a reader, you also get the perspectives of different characters in the book, and thus, the perspectives of both the government and of rebels. Often, books in this genre can be very straight-foward, but 1984, with its many twists, is a very worthwhile read.
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