My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Classic distopia. The government wants total control. Since reality exists only in the mind, the government hijacks reality through mind control. Newspeak resonates with today's political correctness and doublethink is the postmodern ability to believe two contradictory notions at the same time. Revisionism and propaganda on the telescreen is the key. "He who controls the past controls the future, and he who controls the present controls the past."
The totalitarian government of Big Brother is watching for any indication of thought crime and even facial twitches are face crime. Big Brother feels threatened by the family and sex and anything that bonds people together in superior loyalties. Thus the jr. anti-sex league tries to limit fertilization to the laboratory and Big Brother makes it fun to turn in your parents for thought crime. He wants to be your family. You really root for Winston Smith, but when you realize that Big Brother is omnipresent you get a sinking feeling.
Orwell strikes me as a non-totalitarian socialist who hates the USSR for corrupting socialism. Orwell get religion wrong. Big Brother would've allowed the proles (20th c. peasants) to have religion but it turns out that they really didn't want it. Big Brother was pushing a new opiate of endless war and the proles "got a new drug."
Some writers like Tolkien make a little bit happen over many pages, but Orwell can make a lot happen in just a few. He is a splendid writer and story teller. I look forward to Animal Farm.
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