1984 by George Orwell

After Fahrenheit 451, it felt like I had to reread 1984. And in most ways, I felt like 1984 held up better. Descriptions of the novel like to claim that it's as timely as when it was written in 1949, but I don't think I quite agree with that. To me, it read very much like a book that had been written in 1949. But it also didn't feel dated. That is, whatever Orwell actually intended, it felt like it was supposed to be a reflection of the time in which it was written instead of a prediction of the future. And so even though the real 1984 (the one I lived through but which, strangely, a small handful of my readers did not) was nothing like Orwell's dystopian vision, the novel still feels more real and relevant to me than Fahrenheit 451 did.

That being said, I had forgotten how little story there actually is in 1984. The main character, Winston, actually does very little, and very little happens to him. The plot is remarkably uncomplicated, and there's not much character development. Even Winston himself isn't terribly fleshed out. He basically lives to give George Orwell a medium through which to describe the world he has imagined, and how it functions, and why it exists. The novel felt to me more like a thought experiment than a story. Orwell seemed quite eager to pull us out of the story in order to explain it all, from his lengthy academic (but linguistically interesting) appendix on Newspeak, to the long pamphlet on the history of Oceania that we readers get to read along with Winston, word for word.

I actually don't think I had realized this when I read the book back in high school. I remember being really engaged, all the way up to the end (which, spoiler alert!, is a very depressing ending). But this time around, I found myself fascinated for the first hundred pages, and then, to be perfectly honest, I got a little bored. I mean, it was still interesting. It's just that, for a novel, it was a bit didactic.

Still, it was fun to read again, and it still made me think, and I still think it's one of those books you should probably read at once in your lifetime.

I probably ought to read Brave New World now to round it all off, but I think I'm a little dystopia-ed out...