I just cannot like 1984.

Here's my experience of the novel and why I love it so much:

I have read Nineteen Eighty-Four many times in English and excerpts in Persian (I have yet to find a decent/complete pdf of the book). What is interesting is that if you replace certain names, places, dates and so on with Persian names, you essentially have the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the history of the past 32 years of fascism and dictatorship. Obviously I know only these two languages, but I'm certain that if I read the book in Korean or Russian (to use examples of other languages and countries steeped in authoritarianism), I'd get a similar result.

What I'm trying to say is that Nineteen Eighty Four is not only a flawless piece of literature, but it is also remarkably accurate. Orwell truly understands revolution, counter-revolution, dictatorship, cult of personality and human feeling. Perhaps you need to have experienced dictatorship and totalitarianism before you understand just how scarily accurate the book is.

Emmanuel Goldstein's "Book" is a very good account of just exactly how dictatorial regimes acquire and consolidate power. Oligarchical collectivism, war is peace and so on are not fiction, they do actually exist. Orwell's understanding and depth of perception (no doubt due to his own experiences as an anti-Stalinist democratic socialist, and fighter in the anti-fascist International Brigades) of a stolen revolution and a totalitarian regime are very accurate. His portrayals of the "proles" and the way they are manipulated by Ingsoc and The Party into never awakening and revolting is again something which goes on day to day in the real world. Perhaps you need to be of a certain political inclination to appreciate Nineteen Eighty Four. I don't know.

Political stuff aside, the character of Winston Smith as an everyman fighting the system is something I feel a lot of people could identify with, as are his attempts to stay free and enjoy simple pleasures (e.g. a love affair with Julia) that we take for granted in the free world. The scenes with O Brien and O Brien's lucid, yet disturbing, explanation of the aims of The Party are nothing short of awesome.

Ultimately you can't force yourself to like a book, but Nineteen Eighty Four is truly magnificent.

You really should have done Politics.

I decided not to, for the sake of my sanity

I started reading this book about two weeks ago after I'd heard all the englishfags rant and rave about it for the past many years. I got recommended it again by a flatmate and he gave me his copy to read.

I just cannot understand the hype behind this novel. It's so dull and tiresome to read. It seemed to take the first 120 pages to set the scene and only got mildly interesting at around 150. I powered through it as I refuse to pass judgement on a half-read book but found myself falling asleep. I actually did fall asleep twice while reading it on the train home but that may have been from sleep deprivation.

Inevitably, I ended up skimming over the section on "the book" as the endless blocks of uninteresting/unimaginative descriptive text made me want to kill myself.

The torture section was mildly entertaining but drawn out and predictable. The actual ending seemed rushed and unfulfilling. Out of the 310 odd pages I think I found about 50 of them interesting.

It was a chore to read, completely predictable and a wholly unsatisfying experience. I don't want to come across as an uncultured pillock, but seriously, why so much love?

I'm sorry, but these are some of the most disgustingly ignorant comments I've ever heard pertaining to 1984. Clearly you cannot relate to Winston Smith because you've probably spent your entire lives in the UK and have been very fortunate. As somebody who hasn't always lived with the ability to speak freely (or even openly acknowledge that certain people, places, or events have existed), I can testify that Orwell is a genius. He never lived in a police state, yet he was able to flawlessly create one in literary form, as if he himself had been the inspiration for Winston Smith. I thought that I had invented such concepts as Doublethink (somewhat eerily, the term I'd conceived was "Dual-Layer Thought Processing") as I'd lived them for real, but then I read 1984 and was blown away by the man's foresight. Granted, you could argue that 1984 inspired sadistic people in modern times to utilise the tactics contained in the book by popularising them, but it should be noted that most of the concepts were already in use by Nazi Germany and the USSR anyway.

And whilst the UK is one of the freest and greatest countries on Earth, it could still benefit you to read the book and take the time to appreciate its message. The surveillance that's so pervasive in the UK, such as the numerous CCTV cameras in London that can be used to listen in on conversations, bear a certain resemblance to telescreens that's worth thinking about.

It was written just before the Cold War (well, I'm not sure when it started, assuming 1945 with Potsdam when the carved up Europe and Asia etc..), it was seen as predictive - this is the future under communism. It was dystopian, but plausibly so, which is difficult to be (imo) - a dystopia you can almost feel coming. So ofc it got overhyped - it was read in the height of the red scare, it's perfect propaganda material.

You don't like it... so what? I didn't like The Wire and can't abide Jane Austen. I'm currently half way through Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, and while I appreciate it's merits, I just can't like it very much. You can't like everything popular.

1984 is not anti-communist, it's pretty much Trotskyite propaganda.