War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
1984 is a book everyone has read … at least, it seems like it is.
I was never really interested in reading it because it was a HSC prescribed text (this meant it was a book some students had to read for their final exams of high school.) Thus meaning, there was a good chance it was going to be boring. My friend finally convinced me to read it when he said, “how can you claim to love the dystopic genre but have never read 1984?” So, I borrowed his annotated copy and began reading.
At the beginning, I was very excited to read it due to the hype my friend had created around the story. Orwell has a way with words that most authors can only dream about. He is able to make the simplest of sentences sound magnificent, especially his contradicting slogan: War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength, which can be said backwards as well.
However, as I delved deeper into the book, I was quickly losing interest. It wasn’t because the story was boring, in fact, I found it really interesting. It was due to the structure in which Orwell had written it. There was a constant switching between a story telling format and an essay writing format.
You would be captivated in the story Orwell is presenting when all of a sudden, he would start analysing and explaining everything in the story for pages and pages, rather than showing this to the reader and allowing the reader to create their own judgements. In most stories you would slowly be revealed all the answers, but Orwell shows all his cards as soon as he is able to. If this was intentional by Orwell, telling the readers how to think rather than allowing them to see for themselves in order to replicate the control of Big Brother, though overdone was effective. Whether this was intentional, this form of storytelling tended to overshadow the story and I yearned for the parts of the book that were pure showing rather than explaining.
During the book, I told my friend I was bored and felt like I was reading an essay on the book rather than the book itself. He kept saying “wait till Part III.” Finally, I got to Part III and Orwell had done what I wish he had done for the whole book. He stopped analysing, stopped explaining and just let the story and its events unfold for the reader.
Despite this, I did enjoy the story and I felt Orwell utilised the potential of his world well. The ending I loved because (spoiler alert) I had not yet seen a dystopic book that did not end in an uprising or with some dramatic change, but rather in a way where it seems all was for nothing. That is, until I read the appendix at the end of the book. The appendix is something most readers would skip since the story is over and there would most likely not be anything interesting in an essay about newspeak. That’s where everyone is wrong! The appendix is written in past tense in the voice of a historian who implies, in many sections of the appendix, that Big Brother eventually fell when the Party attempted to eliminate speech and therefore free thought. This means that though our characters, Winston and Julia, did not have a happy ending, it was not in vain because eventually, after the year 2050, the party did in fact fall. Whether this ruins the ending or makes it better for readers is entirely subjective. Personally, I preferred the original ending rather than what is said in the appendix.
Final thoughts:
I would like to make it clear that I did love 1984 when the story was progressing. It was only when Orwell began explaining the book that I felt disinterested and disconnected. I do feel it is a book everyone should read at least once.
If I were Orwell, I would have divided 1984 into three books.
Book 1: “1984.” The original story of 1984 without the analysis, the explanation and Goldstein’s “The Theory and practice of oligarchical collectivism.” 1984 would be the exact same story except the whole story would have been like Part III
Book 2: “Goldstein’s, The Theory and practice of oligarchical collectivism.” This would be the entire book that Goldstein gave Winston when he joined the rebellion (This book is in 1984 already but would have been much clearer for the story and Goldstein’s book if it was separated)
Book 3: “1984, An Analysis” All the analysis and explanation into a proper essay.
Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave your thoughts in a comment.
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