Post 5

This week I started reading George Orwell's 1949 dystopian future novel "1984". The novel is set, obviously, in the year 1984 and follows the life of a Winston Smith as he copes with the realities of living under an oppressive regime. Although i have not yet much of the novel, I am certainly already impressed with Orwell's absolute mastery of the English language, coupled with some fairly deep and interesting philosophical ideas. The three part slogan of "the party", the ruling authority in Winston's Society, is as follows; "War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength". Although this has not been delved very far into yet, a very in depth explanation for these ruling principles has been hinted at several times by the protagonist Winston. Also, Winston himself is actually a fairly 3 dimensional character, who struggles to accept the party's principles while knowing them to be false. In addition to this, Winston's job is, in essence, to help spread the lies of the party by constantly re-writing past publications so as to fix any possible false predictions the party may have made, creating a seemingly perfect government which in reality is radically oppressive. In conclusion, it is the combination of George Orwell's brilliantly descriptive and well developed writing style with his intensely thought provoking philosophical and meta physical theory that has lead to what I believe may be one of the best, if not the best, book's I have ever read.