The Bowie Book Club discussion

Please, mind the book part you are commenting on in order to avoid spoilers.

Please post here your comments once you've finished the book. No need for a whole paragraph, a couple of lines can suffice :-)
How did you find it? Is the story still relevant to today's world? What were your feelings (like, dislike, annoyed, mesmerised, whatever ;-)

Just to keep the book club going. Thanks!

Guess the biggest lesson of 1984 is how difficult though possible is to have societies brainwashed. To build that kind of system is - fortunately - very hard.

I was, like many others, afraid to give it a go - I have read it a long time ago, but I still remembered the basics, and was not that much looking forward to a reread.

It was much better then I remembered - a least the first two parts. I loved the television that is on all the time: the fact that it cannot ever be silenced is even more dreadful to me then that it spies on you. I guess we are kind of used to being spied on, but continuous noise in my home, that is just terrifying.

The story was also interesting in a low-key way, it was nice to follow Winston along his everyday routine and his love with the not very well developed Julia character.

However, Chapter 9, the essay chapter kind of ruined the experience for me. It felt like reading a HG Wells story, which is generally OK, but maybe not here. Of course it is not nice to judge a book based on how well in predicted future, but it is also hard not to do:) And while the real ideas about oligarchies and totalitarian systems came through very well and throughout the book felt clever and intuitive, when he tried to explain it in a completely unnecessary and long chapter, it became childish and naive. You don't wage wars just to ruin the goods so as not to be obliged to share it with the poor - you just keep everything for yourself:) Also, no permanent class system can ignore the need to pass their status to their children - and it would be practically difficult to do, too. I can't imagine if O'Brian has a kid that is not too smart and gets classified as a prol at the age of 16, he would be taken away and get new memories, and daddy would allow this to happen. But who knows?

Bottom line is that without the essays I would have enjoyed this much more. Still was a good read, I will probably read something else by Orwell this February. Any suggestions? I did read Animal Farm, but nothing else. And I'm a bit afraid of his essays now:)

I really enjoyd the book, so much!

like Peter, I thought that the Goldstein chapters were a bit unecessary for us to contextualize the past, since seems so evident, but I don't know.. maybe by 2050, when newspeak should be fully implemented :P, people won't have much contact with the history of the 20th century as we do knowadays, and it can became better in the book.

It's trully fascinating how a book written so long ago still touch and move us so much regarding most of our critics in society.

I actually enjoyed the Goldstein material quite a bit -- but I think this may have a lot to do with the fact that Orwell modeled it on Trotsky's analysis/critique of Stalin's regime, and I've had a long interest in Trotksy as a historical figure (plus have a basic familiarity with his writings). All of which means I'm probably predisposed to find those chapters interesting, but I totally get how strange and/or dry they probably seem otherwise.

Anyway, I finished last night (though I sort of sped through Book III because I didn't want to read the torture scenes too closely!). I really loved it, and was surprised by how haunting I found it. Maybe the most chilling/terrifying is where O'Brien says that the Party must make their victims back into true believers before they destroy them -- thus making them "clean" before they're eliminated, so that there is no way anyone can go to their death with a sense of defiance (which would mean their sense of selfhood is intact), and thereby eliminate the possibility of creating any martyrs who are killed for any real purpose.

Intense part of the book, with all the horrible descriptions of torture. And they managed to break his spirit. The thing that made me cringe was not the actual torture, so much as O'Brien and the doctrine of the Party. That was truly horrifying.

I am finished. This book was truly mind blowing. I have questions, but I'm not sure how to ask them, other than to say 'Why? Why? Why?'

Lidiana wrote: "Please, mind the book part you are commenting on in order to avoid spoilers."

Better. FanDom.Ever.

s2

Ok, so I was supposed to check this thread only once I was finished with the book. On the previous threads related to the other parts of the book, I was saying how I was enjoying it way more than I did the first time I read it. Then I reached part III and I remembered why I was so annoyed with 1984 before. I still haven't finished it because this section is so irritating and boring that I have spent the past 2 weeks barely reading a page a day (but finished two other books in the meantime)... My struggle is real... But I hope to be stubborn enough to finish it. lol

Lidiana wrote: "Ok, so I was supposed to check this thread only once I was finished with the book. On the previous threads related to the other parts of the book, I was saying how I was enjoying it way more than I..."

Haha, Lidiana, I guess I'm not in the mood either. It's been dragging on for ages.
Well, Mr Charrington, I did not see it coming, my prime suspect being O'Brien of course. I presume my suspicions will soon be verified.

Cynthia wrote: "Lidiana wrote: "Ok, so I was supposed to check this thread only once I was finished with the book. On the previous threads related to the other parts of the book, I was saying how I was enjoying it..."

My level of "can we get over with this?" is so high that I don't even care coming up with suspects hahahahaha

Lidiana wrote: "Cynthia wrote: "Lidiana wrote: "Ok, so I was supposed to check this thread only once I was finished with the book. On the previous threads related to the other parts of the book, I was saying how I..."

LOL

Was Goldstein real, or just an invention of the Party? Also, I didn't completely get why the party needed to break and convert him before killing him? If the public didn't know what was going on, it seemed pointless, unless it all had to do with ego. Or since they put him back out into society, he was to serve as a warning to other party members? Sometimes I just need things spelled out for me, lol.

I think the book purposely leaves it ambiguous whether Goldstein was ever real or not. My own feeling is that he was originally real, a la Trotsky in the Soviet Union; later, the Party realized that it was useful for him to function as the personification of the ultimate enemy of the state, and so they turned him into an exaggerated caricature. This meant Goldstein could serve the dual purpose of scapegoat (so people loyal to the Party could always have somewhere to focus their hate) and fake dissident (so people who weren't loyal could be tempted into thoughtcrime).

As for breaking/brainwashing Winston (or anyone seen as an opponent of the Party) before killing him, it's all about absolute power. The Party doesn't want anyone to go to their death with any sense that they died for a cause with their own sense of free will or morality or love for anyone else intact.

It is all about deshumanizing the enemy. One is prisoner, tortured, threatened but remains free in his head. He still has the choice to remain free or not. Choice is about freedom. Certainly freedom of thought. Think about Mandela who was detained for 27 years, but he was free inside.

Finally finished, but I'm confused. Did they actually let Winston go, give him a new, pointless job and meet up again with Julia, or did he hallucinate it during his 40 year captivity?

As I understood it, it is up to the reader basically.

http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/d...

My own read is that it was a kind of hallucination/life-flashing-before-his-eyes in the instant of his execution.