"Nineteen Eighty-Four" by George Orwell (1949)

 

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell weaves a tale about what it is that makes us human. Through Winston Smith’s eyes, a mere face-in-the-crowd, we get a glimpse of the horror of the world he’s living in—the world of Big Brother. It’s a world where stars are a few kilometres away, a world where 2 + 2 = 5, where white always mates in chess, where 'thought' is abolished and logic is meaningless.

 

1984 is a terrifying piece of horror. Imagine living in a world where you’re under surveillance 24/7, even when you’re in the so-called comforts of your house, the eyes of Big Brother’s telescreens are always fixed on you… in a world where your own children rat you out to the government… in a world when even the act of love and ‘loving’ is forbidden… in a world where ‘thought’ is a crime.

 

While 1984 is meant as a warning for the future—even though it’s disproportionately back-and-white or exaggerated—one cannot help but wonder if it’s happening right now in some parts of the world where totalitarianism meant not only the seizing of the country’s economic resources but also extends to the seizing of its citizen’s ‘range of thought and consciousness' to reach a homeostasis of unified general consensus: the deconstruction of the past for a controlled conformist present.

 

 from Little Nightmares II

The reading process was painful. The people in Winston’s world are so drowned in the hegemony of Big Brother’s party, they know nothing else. For all we, readers, know, there's only Airstrip One, the UK, and nothing else after the nuclear bombs. No Eurasia. No Eastasia. Heck! Maybe even no wars. People of Airstrip One are like fish born in a fish tank. Their whole existence is defined by the perimeters of the tank’s glass. This is their world and the outside is nothing but an illusion. That’s why the mere act of thinking in opposition to the status quo takes a great amount of courage and no lesser amount of unique sense of individualism, to shed yourself from the blob of everyone else’s way of thinking, to think for yourself.

from Inside

In this sense, Winston is like the Matrix’s Neo, even greater, because, unlike Neo, Winston got no Morpheus to guide him. Winston had to work it out by instinct… and sadly, suffer the awful consequences of his subtle short-lived freedom.

While reading 1984,  I've had a love-hate relationship with its chapters. There are parts that I loved and others that didn't do the trick for me. The world-building and atmosphere and descriptions were so polished, I found myself roaming the streets along with Winston and shielding my face from the gritty wind and the miasma of the proles' odors. 

As I progressed, however, I noticed how Orwell exploits the outline of novel writing to pour his political projections every chance he got... which is fine. But what pulled me away was the heavy emphasis on prose with little regard to dialogue, especially when it climaxed as Winston embarked on a long journey reading the party's manifesto of 'the Book'. It was a breaking point that I thought of shelving 1984 to gather dust for good. 

I'm glad I didn't.

The ending, however depressing and ambiguous, redeemed all the struggles and pains that I'd experienced.

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Summary: In a time dominated by Lenin's communism and Hitler's fascism, George Orwell sums up the entirety of his life in Nineteen Eighty-Four. It’s a testament to the atrocities of totalitarian regimes, a warning to the freedom of speech, independent thought, and privacy.

For an individualist, this book is the nebula of all nightmares. For a conformist, well, they wouldn’t notice a difference... and that's the most horrifying aspect about 1984, the descent into a decentralized hierarchal society without even realizing it, into mindless zombies.