Has anyone here ever read 1984? I just finished reading it for school. Man that's a depressing book!

OH a subject I know fairly well. I read it in school also and several times since. I was more scared than depressed at the end of that particular orwell novel. The thought that people could be watched constantly was horrifying. Remember now I read it in 1989 so computers still weren't all that big a deal and I hadn't even heard of the internet so I didn't realize how close we were to that. Now however big brother is a bigger reality especially since the book was concieved. remember big brother is watching...btw I love that book. I hoped you enjoyed it.

The Rats! Please, anything but the rats! (or was it mice? It's been about 23 years!)

It must be a classic, we were assigned the book when I was in school and I graduated in 1977! Reading it well before 1984 made it especially scary for me!

I also read it for school, and got very wrapped up in the plot. The engaging nature of the book backfired for me, because it was one of the most intensely depressing books I have ever read!

"Under the spreading chessnut tree,
I sold you and you sold me....."

Rats, oh yes, it was definitly rats. I remember that part of the book all too well.
What I don't understand is the very end. Is he executed? Does Winston die?

I think the implication is that he will "disappear" like the three men earlier in the story. Remember, the ones that were guilty of some sort of crime against Big Brother. They were allowed to live in society for a while after being in the Tower of Love, just like Winston. Then no one heard from them again?

Why can't that happen to Bush and Gore?

Yep. Read it in the early 50's, when I was about 12 years old. 1984 was still science-fiction and a long way into the future. Very thought-provoking, then and now.

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Gunslinger
'Never teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.'

I think you'll find the only reason the book is called 1984 is because Orwell wrote the book in 1948 and just reversed the last two numbers so that it was set in the future.

Mind you I might be mistaken because I'm wearing this helmet thingy with a couple of rats in it.

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While others run......I walk

wow miss terry you have made really wonder why he picked that particular year...so I have been digging a bit...Here is a site I found with a whole truckload of theories...
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0001/06/features/features5.html

If anyone else is as abnormally curious I will post what I find if anything different...I may look til I do...this is really bugging me...plus I am bored...

I've always heard it explained as the "digit flip" which Miss Terry Mann mentioned. I think that's a particularrly neat theory because my dad was born in 1948 and I was born in 1984.

I started reading this book last year just for fun but never got to finish it because we had to read another book for a book report and I chose an Agatha Christie. I loved it so much that I decided to read all of them. I have read about 20 and now I am reading Crime and Punishment.(Not an Agatha Christie, but still very good!) So maybe when I get done with that I will finish it. I really liked what I read so far though.

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A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for the coffin.
- H. L. Mencken

So going by that theory, if I write a book today and do the digit flip, it's still 2000.... unless it's 0002, now there's an idea!

Scco8b, I recommend finishing the book, but just be prepared for that awful ending.

As for the ending, I don't think he's executed. The point of not killing him was to avoid making him a martyr. With his will broken, however, he is no longer a threat to Big Brother.

One thing, though, is that they use his fear and his attachment to what's-her-name to break Winston. Could there be a hero who is able to overcome his fear and weaknesses? Who can rise above Big Brother's power? I am being optimistic, and trying to look for a way to win. Even super-powerful societies crumble.

I think that what Winston says throught the book is right. The the if anyone ever stands up to the Party, it will be the Proles. And who knows, maybe a small community of people escaped to the south pole before all the Big Brother goverments began. One can always hope...

Does anyone know why they renamed England "Airstrip One"?

Yep, 1984 is a classic, along with Aldous Huxly's Brave New World. But both those books owe immeasurably to Eugene Zamyatin's We, the first dystopian novel of our time. Zamyatin wrote in protest of the Soviet regime, and it's a virtual blueprint for Orwell, who acknowledged it. It's about D-503, a scientist who lives in a totaltarian world of glass houses and who gets the spirit of rebellion from a mysterious woman. He too, like Winston Smith, succumbs to the state, via a brain operation. But it's a little more optimistic than 1984. I own a copy of this pioneering work. And it's a shame Zamyatin didn't live to see the fall of Communism! tjoeb};>

Heh. Never read it--though I'd like to. Orwell's Animal Farm was a decent book and made it's point very well.

What's wrong with Communism anyway? Theoretically it's great! (sarcasm is applied here with the fact that ALL gov'ts theoretically work well!)

Tjoebigham, I agree with you wholeheartedly!!!! From the three distopias - "1984", "We" and "Brave New World" - "We" is certainly the greatest - and the most pessimistic. For the first time we see totalitarism and dictatorship coming from people's minds... no love or human feelings - just work and parades in the streets... scared and impressed me from the first page...