George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four": Part Two

Let me just start off by saying that this blog is not intended to be a book review or a book report of any kind. I have struggled over the past few days with what the content would be and I’ve decided that I will treat it as if I were writing in a personal journal, leaving out a lot of the personal stuff. So, if anything I write piques your interest, then go out and borrow/buy the book.

Well, Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four" is almost in the can. I am about three quarters of the way through and have enjoyed every single page. I have forgotten how difficult it can be to block everything out around me and actually FOCUS on what I’m reading. My son had friends over both Saturday and Sunday and I couldn’t hear myself think (let alone concentrate on anything).

Disclaimer: To those two wonderful moms whose sons were here. No offense to you. I was extremely happy to help out while you were Christmas shopping. I just need to learn how to close my ears. Oh! I know what I can request for Christmas; Bose noise cancelling headphones. Yep…that’s it!

Thankfully, my husband allowed me a good solid hour or so without interruption yesterday afternoon. I got through most of Chapter Two. Yeah, that’s right….chapter two.

You see, the book isn’t laid out in the traditional way (i.e. Chapter one; 15 – 18 pages….chapter two; the same….and so on). The first chapter is 106 pages long and the entire book only has three! Instead, there are sections within the chapters; headed by roman numerals. This is all fine of course, but the sense of accomplishment is somewhat diminished when you tell someone you are only on the second chapter.

I have been amazed at the details Orwell gives to describe life under an oppressive and socialist society. Some of his words and phrases have actually become popular and are still used today. One example is the adjective “Orwellian”, which is used to describe something that is destructive to the welfare of a free society (propaganda, misinformation, denial of truth, surveillance or manipulation of the past).

As I said, I’ve enjoyed the story immensely and up until last night, I have been able to follow without too much rereading and looking words up in the dictionary. Winston, the main character, finally begins to read “the book” – italics and lack of title intended. The book was written by Emmanuel Goldstein, who was once a high-ranking member of the Party in Oceania, but has since gone into hiding. He is the founding member of an underground organization called “The Brotherhood” that was formed to overthrow the State.

The book goes into amazing detail about how the world split into three "superstates", why they constantly claim to be at war and how the citizens are manipulated and used to further the agenda. I began reading this part of the book last night, while my husband watched Sunday night football. I thought I could focus enough to get through it, but it turns out I couldn’t.

I will be re-reading that section and hopefully complete the book by tomorrow. I made a trip to Barnes and Noble today to pick up “Animal Farm”, also by Orwell. It is a very thin book that I should be able to complete fairly quickly. I also decided to buy a few of the others on the list. If I wasn’t intimidated when I started this project; I am now.

On my bookshelf sits “Anna Karenina”, “East of Eden”, “The Grapes of Wrath”, “Les Miserables”, “Tess of the D’Urbervilles”, “Vanity Fair”, and “War and Peace” (yikes!). Any suggestions on what to read next?????