"984" by George Orwell

"1984” is a novel by George Orwell published in 1949. A political fiction, set in London of 1984, it certainly became classics and one of the best books ever. Nowadays it takes its own place in international booktops such as BBC-top, "The Times”-top. Drawing attention to the excesses of  various political regimes, the book leaves no one indifferent.

The main characters are 39-year-old Winston Smith, 26-year-old Julia and O’Brian. All the characters live in Oceania, tyrannized by a totalitarian party. The tyranny is headed by Big Brother, mythical creature (nobody sees him, but everybody knows there he is). The ultimate goal of the party is to rule the world, perverting the truth and killing the liberty. In that society people have no right to live the life they want. They are trying their best to get along with the party laws but once they fail, the party kill them. Everything that isn’t allowed by the government is a crime. The list of offences is huge, and strangely enough they happen to be idiotically absurd. In Oceania you can’t walk where you want, you must rat on everybody, your mind is under control, you’re subjected to brainwashing. You can’t even have the family you want: sex is only to have kids, love is banned. So Smith and Julia decide to break the law, to cheat the system, to become free.

The strength of the book is the idea. Author took a chance and tried to predict the future, to answer the question what will be the world like if the situation of confrontation of the two great formations (capitalistic and communistic) will remain unchanged. And his view is clear, one day the world will split and it will cause endless wars outside those "worlds” and tyranny inside. It’s a very bold assumption but, on the other hand, it’s the most probable march. Two different frontal formations can’t live together; one of them should become a thing of the past.

The main difficulty is language complexity. There are a lot of descriptions, making the novel difficult to read even in your native language. Also you should have a good imagination to sense and feel the book profoundly.

My viewpoint is that every educated man should read this book because it is surely of a current interest until the policy exists.