Rating: ✫✫✫✫✫
"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."
This is obviously a classic book, and looking back, I'm amazed it took me so long to get round to reading it. It is such an interesting concept, and is one of those rare stories that gets more relevant the more time passes. It's very difficult not to be mindful of dictatorships in history, as this is obviously what caused a major inspiration for Orwell; propaganda, censorship, and the Thought Police instil fear in the population, and, as we know from the past, this was a very real possibility at the time the novel was published.
✼
Nineteen Eighty-Four is a different world, where society is controlled by The Party, a totalitarian ideology from which nobody can escape. Big Brother is always watching, and the Thought Police will catch anybody who opposes The Party, even if only in their mind.
Winston works for the Ministry of Truth, just one cog in a huge machine of people plugging out propaganda. Most employees think nothing of their everyday role - but Winston is different. He sees what The Party don't want him to see, and he begins to question the society in which he lives. Then Winston meets Julia, and he realises life could be so much more than the mundane existence that he has grown used to. But the Thought Police are watching, and Winston may find that their methods of manipulation can be very persuasive...
*spoiler alert*
