1984

I recently began reading 1984 by George Orwell and while I’m not very far into the book I already feel completely deprived that I did not get to read this in high school. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against The Great Gatsby or The Red Badge of Courage but the ideas in this novel are just wonderful. “Doublethink;” the concept makes my brain smile when I read it (from the novel):

“The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them . . . . To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.”

I could have blown my high school teachers out of the water with an essay on Doublethink, I’m sure of it.

The “slogan” of the Party in the novel is:

“Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

That statement couldn’t be truer! It’s known (or speculated if that’s better for you) that those that win write history. I’m sure if we could get information from both sides, things would be very different, but in the novel there is no past. The people don’t have memories. I can’t imagine not remembering things from my past, or having my books and newspapers altered so no trace of history is found.

I’m only on page 43, but I know I’m really going to enjoy this book.