It’s not the first, might not be the best, but George Orwell’s 1984 might be the best known dystopian novel. Orwell had a hatred of totalitarianism of any kind and many of his later works (including the novella Animal Farm) dealt with issues surrounding communism while focusing on his socialism. He, unlike other socialists at the time, made a distinction between the socialism he believed in and the communist government in Russia. His adventures during the Spanish Civil War greatly influenced his beliefs and directly lead to his most famous stories. So, let’s see what was supposed to happen in 1984.

Winston Smith is an Outer Party member in a single, middle-aged man in Oceania. The story starts of taking us through his life and the setting of the story. Oceania is possibly a stand-in for London and it is alternating a big city where the government works and outer slum areas where non-party members live a life of quiet poverty. The setting of the story is one of control and oversight by the Party leader Big Brother. The omnipresent televisions are two-way and the party can always see what people are doing. Winston works for a newspaper in historical revisionism, which basically means that he changes old newspaper stories that are now considered incorrect to make them meet the new definition of correct.  There is an ongoing effort to change the language to Newspeak, which is designed to reduce and eliminate words so that it will be impossible to have a non-party approved thought.

Winston isn’t really pro or anti party, he just does what is needed to survive and live his life. Sometimes that means breaking little rules to keep his sanity. Walking around the office and at the daily Two Minutes Hate (where party members are encourage to unload all their hate on approved objects and people of hatred), Winston sees a young woman and he has a visceral reaction of hatred to her. One day, she is walking past him and stumbles, shoving a small piece of paper into his hand. As he takes precautions to read it, he finds that it says “I love you”. She is Julia and she helps set the plot in motion.

Under Julia, Winston is encouraged to break more party rules and to out and out join a revolution against Big Brother. They unfortunately discover that the revolution is also controlled by the government and Winston and Julia are brought in to be re-educated and shown the error of their ways.

The book is a wonderfully told story of a totalitarian regime and how it holds its power over the people. But the book isn’t a classic due to the story (which drags a bit during the reading of “the book”), but due to the ideas that Orwell has introduced. There are many terms and ideas from the book which have made their way into everyday usage, such as Big Brother, Doublespeak and, of course, Orwellian. The ideas that Orwell introduced perfectly capture some basic concepts that people still want to discuss. Orwell wrote a political novel, hidden as a science fiction story that provokes and illuminates. Orwell has not only written a dystopian classic, but a novel of ideas that has made it’s way into the public conscious. Highly recommended.