Nineteen Eighty-Four
How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?’
Winston thought. ‘By making him suffer,’ he said.
‘Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.’
I went into this book thinking it would be action packed and exciting! It was not. It was slow and at times kinda boring and I really couldn't care less about the main characters, but man, the world-building and the social commentary alone were good enough (GREAT, EVEN) to pick up the slack and make this worth getting through.
I understand why people say 1984 is very relevant to society these days because the ideas of Big Brother and its government could probably be applied to any form of modern government, to the point where it's scary to think how obvious this has been for years and yet people are still being brainwashed and intimidated into falling for it.
Read 1984. It's an excellent book that will definitely make you think and probably snooze a couple of times because these main characters are SO DULL. But really, it's a great book. Read it!
