tolerance , 15 Sep 2008
It's been ages since I've read this book so I'm not going to say much but this book should be read. Teachers have started not to study this book in schools because it has the word nigger in it (well in this country they have started to stop). It's more important now to read it them ever, this book promotes tolerance rather than racism. It's not the quickest book to read but it's a great book, I'm never going to give this book away.

One of the best and moving books ever written, 08 Aug 2008
I first read this book as a compulsory text for school and since then have read it countless number of times. It is such a beautiful story that is relevant to every society. You must take your time reading it and not rush it because there are so many hidden depths and meanings. "Shoot all the bluejays you want but remember it is a sin to kill a mockingbird". Everyone must read this book, it's beautiful.

Good but not that good, 11 Jul 2008
This had been on my list of books to read for years so I was really looking forward to it. This is a lovely book, well written and different in being written from the perspective of a child. I loved the character of Atticus, his wisdom and intelligence which he uses in rearing his children to think for themselves and learn from their own mistakes rather than laying down rules. This to me is a wonderful example of good parenting and shows how left alone, children are quite capable of forming their own opinions, even on serious issues. I was quite dissapointed however in the book, I was expecting this great work of art, a masterpiece of literature; this is not the outstanding piece of literature I expected, its a good book, enjoyable read and well written but not one I'd want to read again.

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, 05 Jul 2008
'To Kill a Mockingbird' is one of the best books I have read. I was moved to tears when finishing the last page. It is read through the eyes of Scout, a young girl, living in Maycombe, with her brother and father. Her father, Atticus, is a lawyer, who defends a black man accused by a white family. The book explains about predjudice in the 1930's, deep in the Southern States of America, and has a wonderful story line. The book tells of the events before, during and the aftermath of the trial of Tom Robinson, the man accused.
Many of the first chapters are about Boo Radley, a man locked up by his family, for committing a crime. We discover more about him as the book goes on. The book also has a wonderful finish.
The book is one that will stay with me for the whole of my life.

An absolute jewel of a book, 09 Jun 2008
Sometimes it just happens. You come across a book in a bookshop about which you have heard so much but just never got round to reading it. On impulse, you buy it. Hence my introduction to Harper Lee's timeless classic "To Kill a Mocking-Bird". In danger of stating the obvious, this is an absolute jewel of a book, beautifully written, profound, compelling and highly evocative. My only regret is not reading it 30 years ago.

In 1922, F Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write "something new--something extraordinary and beautiful and simple, intricately patterned". That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned and, above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald's finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed and the promise of new beginnings. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning--" Gatsby's rise to glory and eventual fall from grace be comes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream.

It's also a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby's quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying but extremely rich Tom Buchanan. After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means--and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing. "Her voice is full of money," Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel's more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy's patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties and waits for her to appear. When s he does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbour Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted and written in crystalline prose, The Great Gatsby is as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem. Perry Freeman, Amazon.com

tolerance , 15 Sep 2008
It's been ages since I've read this book so I'm not going to say much but this book should be read. Teachers have started not to study this book in schools because it has the word nigger in it (well in this country they have started to stop). It's more important now to read it them ever, this book promotes tolerance rather than racism. It's not the quickest book to read but it's a great book, I'm never going to give this book away.

One of the best and moving books ever written, 08 Aug 2008
I first read this book as a compulsory text for school and since then have read it countless number of times. It is such a beautiful story that is relevant to every society. You must take your time reading it and not rush it because there are so many hidden depths and meanings. "Shoot all the bluejays you want but remember it is a sin to kill a mockingbird". Everyone must read this book, it's beautiful.

Good but not that good, 11 Jul 2008
This had been on my list of books to read for years so I was really looking forward to it. This is a lovely book, well written and different in being written from the perspective of a child. I loved the character of Atticus, his wisdom and intelligence which he uses in rearing his children to think for themselves and learn from their own mistakes rather than laying down rules. This to me is a wonderful example of good parenting and shows how left alone, children are quite capable of forming their own opinions, even on serious issues. I was quite dissapointed however in the book, I was expecting this great work of art, a masterpiece of literature; this is not the outstanding piece of literature I expected, its a good book, enjoyable read and well written but not one I'd want to read again.

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, 05 Jul 2008
'To Kill a Mockingbird' is one of the best books I have read. I was moved to tears when finishing the last page. It is read through the eyes of Scout, a young girl, living in Maycombe, with her brother and father. Her father, Atticus, is a lawyer, who defends a black man accused by a white family. The book explains about predjudice in the 1930's, deep in the Southern States of America, and has a wonderful story line. The book tells of the events before, during and the aftermath of the trial of Tom Robinson, the man accused.
Many of the first chapters are about Boo Radley, a man locked up by his family, for committing a crime. We discover more about him as the book goes on. The book also has a wonderful finish.
The book is one that will stay with me for the whole of my life.

An absolute jewel of a book, 09 Jun 2008
Sometimes it just happens. You come across a book in a bookshop about which you have heard so much but just never got round to reading it. On impulse, you buy it. Hence my introduction to Harper Lee's timeless classic "To Kill a Mocking-Bird". In danger of stating the obvious, this is an absolute jewel of a book, beautifully written, profound, compelling and highly evocative. My only regret is not reading it 30 years ago.

Ben Dinsdale, 23 Sep 2008
I am Gay and i think you'll find that this story still resonates but more like a just-polished cameo piece from a forgotten time. At the core of the book is the elaborate infatuation Jay Gatsby has for Daisy Fay Buchanan, a love story portrayed with both a languid pall and a fatalistic urgency. But the broader context of the setting and the irreconcilable nature of the American dream in the 1920's is what give the novel its true gravitas.

Much of this is eloquently articulated by Nick Carraway, Gatsby's modest Long Island neighbor who becomes his most trusted confidante. Nick is responsible for reuniting the lovers who both have come to different points in their lives five years after their aborted romance. Now a solitary figure in his luxurious mansion, Gatsby is a newly wealthy man who accumulated his fortunes through dubious means. Daisy, on the other hand, has always led a life of privilege and could not let love stand in the way of her comfortable existence. She married Tom Buchanan for that sole purpose. With Gatsby's ambition spurred by his love for Daisy, he rekindles his romance with Daisy, as Tom carries on carelessly with an auto mechanic's grasping wife. Nick himself gets caught up in the jet set trappings and has a relationship with Jordan Baker, a young golf pro.

These characters are inevitably led on a collision course that exposes the hypocrisy of the rich, the falsity of a love undeserving and the transience of individuals on this earth. The strength of Fitzgerald's treatment comes from the lyrical prose he provides to illuminate these themes. Not a word is wasted, and the author's economical handling of such a potentially complex plot is a technique I wish were more frequently replicated today. Most of all, I simply enjoy the book because it does not portend a greater significance eighty years later. It is a classic tale that provides vibrancy and texture to a bygone era. It is well worth re-reading, especially at such a bargain price.

What a read!, 22 Apr 2008
One of my resolutions for 2008 is to broaden my literary horizens. After studying English Lit to A-Level, my interest has fallen to the wayside. So on my quest to better myself through literature, I read "The Old Man and the Sea", which I just couldn't relate to. So imagine my relief when I started reading "The Great Gatsby". I'm so glad I perservered with classic books!

TGG is a great read. It's fast-paced from the outset, and gripping towards the end - I couldn't put it down. I even tried to convince family and friends to read it afterwards; but to no avail - so if I manage to get even ONE person to read it from writing this review, then good! Definitely recommended.

The great American novel?, 25 Mar 2008
Beautifully written, spare, dramatic and haunting - could this at last be the great American novel?

Good, but I don't see what all the fuss is about., 26 Dec 2007
A rather interesting novel and initially it wasn't all that apparent to me why people always linked the failure of the American dream and this story together. Superficially the story is that of love reawakening, Gatsby having initially been rejected by his childhood love for not having sufficient means acquires the means through various ill gotten ways and the lovers reunite despite the fact that she is not married to a boorish but very American man. Much is made that this novel is a startling exposition of the American dream and materialism, and it does this but to a lesser extent than most people make out. I didn't find the metaphors to be profound after reflection nor did I think the plot and language to be that great. That said it still was a fairly good book, an enjoyable read though a bit of anti-climax to what I had been expecting. The characters aren't particularly likeable and stay only briefly in memory, the story entertains but I feel that this book doesn't deserve all the acclaim it has got.

Few books grip your imagination as easily as this one, 27 Aug 2007
Oh, the casual ease with which this romance is written is staggering. It is not without its little faults as a whole, but then what book is?! The sad and whistful story of a nearly man is entirley subordinate to the smoothly poetic style it is written in and yet is complemented perfectly by it, and elevated by it. This is a really melancholy tale and if you're feeling a bit emotionally down for whatever reason, I'd even put off reading it until you're fighting fit again, as it really is affecting. Some may want a more concrete story than the author is clearly willing to give, but if you can live with (deliberate) vagueness of details and you love a good mystery and a romance then you cannot go wrong with this delightful story.

tolerance , 15 Sep 2008
It's been ages since I've read this book so I'm not going to say much but this book should be read. Teachers have started not to study this book in schools because it has the word nigger in it (well in this country they have started to stop). It's more important now to read it them ever, this book promotes tolerance rather than racism. It's not the quickest book to read but it's a great book, I'm never going to give this book away.

One of the best and moving books ever written, 08 Aug 2008
I first read this book as a compulsory text for school and since then have read it countless number of times. It is such a beautiful story that is relevant to every society. You must take your time reading it and not rush it because there are so many hidden depths and meanings. "Shoot all the bluejays you want but remember it is a sin to kill a mockingbird". Everyone must read this book, it's beautiful.

Good but not that good, 11 Jul 2008
This had been on my list of books to read for years so I was really looking forward to it. This is a lovely book, well written and different in being written from the perspective of a child. I loved the character of Atticus, his wisdom and intelligence which he uses in rearing his children to think for themselves and learn from their own mistakes rather than laying down rules. This to me is a wonderful example of good parenting and shows how left alone, children are quite capable of forming their own opinions, even on serious issues. I was quite dissapointed however in the book, I was expecting this great work of art, a masterpiece of literature; this is not the outstanding piece of literature I expected, its a good book, enjoyable read and well written but not one I'd want to read again.

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, 05 Jul 2008
'To Kill a Mockingbird' is one of the best books I have read. I was moved to tears when finishing the last page. It is read through the eyes of Scout, a young girl, living in Maycombe, with her brother and father. Her father, Atticus, is a lawyer, who defends a black man accused by a white family. The book explains about predjudice in the 1930's, deep in the Southern States of America, and has a wonderful story line. The book tells of the events before, during and the aftermath of the trial of Tom Robinson, the man accused.
Many of the first chapters are about Boo Radley, a man locked up by his family, for committing a crime. We discover more about him as the book goes on. The book also has a wonderful finish.
The book is one that will stay with me for the whole of my life.

An absolute jewel of a book, 09 Jun 2008
Sometimes it just happens. You come across a book in a bookshop about which you have heard so much but just never got round to reading it. On impulse, you buy it. Hence my introduction to Harper Lee's timeless classic "To Kill a Mocking-Bird". In danger of stating the obvious, this is an absolute jewel of a book, beautifully written, profound, compelling and highly evocative. My only regret is not reading it 30 years ago.

Ben Dinsdale, 23 Sep 2008
I am Gay and i think you'll find that this story still resonates but more like a just-polished cameo piece from a forgotten time. At the core of the book is the elaborate infatuation Jay Gatsby has for Daisy Fay Buchanan, a love story portrayed with both a languid pall and a fatalistic urgency. But the broader context of the setting and the irreconcilable nature of the American dream in the 1920's is what give the novel its true gravitas.

Much of this is eloquently articulated by Nick Carraway, Gatsby's modest Long Island neighbor who becomes his most trusted confidante. Nick is responsible for reuniting the lovers who both have come to different points in their lives five years after their aborted romance. Now a solitary figure in his luxurious mansion, Gatsby is a newly wealthy man who accumulated his fortunes through dubious means. Daisy, on the other hand, has always led a life of privilege and could not let love stand in the way of her comfortable existence. She married Tom Buchanan for that sole purpose. With Gatsby's ambition spurred by his love for Daisy, he rekindles his romance with Daisy, as Tom carries on carelessly with an auto mechanic's grasping wife. Nick himself gets caught up in the jet set trappings and has a relationship with Jordan Baker, a young golf pro.

These characters are inevitably led on a collision course that exposes the hypocrisy of the rich, the falsity of a love undeserving and the transience of individuals on this earth. The strength of Fitzgerald's treatment comes from the lyrical prose he provides to illuminate these themes. Not a word is wasted, and the author's economical handling of such a potentially complex plot is a technique I wish were more frequently replicated today. Most of all, I simply enjoy the book because it does not portend a greater significance eighty years later. It is a classic tale that provides vibrancy and texture to a bygone era. It is well worth re-reading, especially at such a bargain price.

What a read!, 22 Apr 2008
One of my resolutions for 2008 is to broaden my literary horizens. After studying English Lit to A-Level, my interest has fallen to the wayside. So on my quest to better myself through literature, I read "The Old Man and the Sea", which I just couldn't relate to. So imagine my relief when I started reading "The Great Gatsby". I'm so glad I perservered with classic books!

TGG is a great read. It's fast-paced from the outset, and gripping towards the end - I couldn't put it down. I even tried to convince family and friends to read it afterwards; but to no avail - so if I manage to get even ONE person to read it from writing this review, then good! Definitely recommended.

The great American novel?, 25 Mar 2008
Beautifully written, spare, dramatic and haunting - could this at last be the great American novel?

Good, but I don't see what all the fuss is about., 26 Dec 2007
A rather interesting novel and initially it wasn't all that apparent to me why people always linked the failure of the American dream and this story together. Superficially the story is that of love reawakening, Gatsby having initially been rejected by his childhood love for not having sufficient means acquires the means through various ill gotten ways and the lovers reunite despite the fact that she is not married to a boorish but very American man. Much is made that this novel is a startling exposition of the American dream and materialism, and it does this but to a lesser extent than most people make out. I didn't find the metaphors to be profound after reflection nor did I think the plot and language to be that great. That said it still was a fairly good book, an enjoyable read though a bit of anti-climax to what I had been expecting. The characters aren't particularly likeable and stay only briefly in memory, the story entertains but I feel that this book doesn't deserve all the acclaim it has got.

Few books grip your imagination as easily as this one, 27 Aug 2007
Oh, the casual ease with which this romance is written is staggering. It is not without its little faults as a whole, but then what book is?! The sad and whistful story of a nearly man is entirley subordinate to the smoothly poetic style it is written in and yet is complemented perfectly by it, and elevated by it. This is a really melancholy tale and if you're feeling a bit emotionally down for whatever reason, I'd even put off reading it until you're fighting fit again, as it really is affecting. Some may want a more concrete story than the author is clearly willing to give, but if you can live with (deliberate) vagueness of details and you love a good mystery and a romance then you cannot go wrong with this delightful story.

Inescapably bleak, 29 Sep 2008
An unnamed man and his sun struggle through a post apocalyptic American wasteland. As they struggle towards the coast, they have to deal with cannibals, with disease, thieves and above all the simple day to day challenge of staying fed and sheltered in a scorched earth where ash rains from the sky.

Everything in this unrelenting book is beautifully structured. The title is perfect, it is a "road" book, the journey is the story and the story is the journey. The blasted sparseness of the landscape is reflected in the sparseness of the prose. The characters are flattened, their dialogue is terse and emotionless, the palate in which the world is painted is flat and monochrome, all colour and life crushed out by the terrible grey, fatally wounded world.

I don't think I've ever read such a bleak book, so utterly without hope. Its not that the characters don't have any hope, it's that they don't have any chance, any prospect of hope. In the end one wonders which of the two central characters is luckier in his fate.

The book has been described as a wake up call in a world threatened by global warming. Maybe, but it is really about the enduring strength of human love in extreme adversity.

While being excellent, it doesn't quite qualify for five stars in my book because it is more like an abstract painting or a tone poem than a fully rounded novel. It gives an extremely evocative picture, but ultimately the narrative arc is extremely thin.

So recommended, if extremely harrowing.

Sensational, 29 Sep 2008
I started reading this book about a month ago, but put it down after fifty pages. I could tell that I needed to read this in long sittings, and not twenty minutes here and there. So then I read it again on holiday.

It is not an easy read - you have to work at it. McCarthy's prose is stripped back to the very bones, much punctuation is missing and there are no chapters. And the book is repetitive - the man and the boy get hungry, look for food and somewhere safe to stay, find them and do the same again.

But the overall effect is shattering. The world he conjures up in the aftermath of the apocalypse is stunningly realised, and the bleakness of life, the descent of humanity back into savagery and the man and the boy carrying the flame is almost too much at times. There is a lot of bleakness, a lot of misery and despair (and no, not many laughs). But always there is an indefatigability and a flicker of hope.

I've not been affected as much by a book for a long long time. The starkness of the writing and the bleakness of much of the book will be offputting for some, but this is worth the effort and I cannot recommend it too highly.



Nightmarish post-apocalyptic vision- demands to be read, 09 Sep 2008
Not for the faint-hearted this is an excellent book describing one man and his son's journey south though a post-apocalyptic American landscape. It is several years since "it" happened and the land is scorched, the sun is invisible though the blanket of ash and corpses lay burned into the tarmac. Nothing grows and the few survivors have become savage cannibals. The man and boy exist as the other's reason for continuing their hopeless struggle for survival and it is their humanity that redeems the book and their world. McCarthy's stripped down, deconstructed style has been criticised but I think it works perfectly here. I know it wasn't the authors intention but I think the book could have been longer with more details on the nature of the holocaust (we are never told) and how society and mankind had degenerated to the extent it had. Try to read this one sitting if you can to experience it full emotional impact but beware - you may not sleep too well...

A heart of Darkness, 08 Sep 2008
If you're a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction, then this should be high on your reading list. A man and boy's struggle to survive in a never-mentioned worldwide catastrophy is vividly and poignantly written.

If you're looking for a light read, this certainly isn't it - but this vision of hell on earth is certainly a memorable and engaging journey.

On a lighter note - after reading 'The Road' you'll never look at supermarket shopping trolleys in the same way ever again...





A great read, 05 Sep 2008
This was the first McCarthy book I'd read. I bought it based on a Wish List recommendation and I would just like to say thank you, thank you, thank you. Once I got used to the author's quirky style, it became a thoroughly enjoyable read. He uses suspense very well.

tolerance , 15 Sep 2008
It's been ages since I've read this book so I'm not going to say much but this book should be read. Teachers have started not to study this book in schools because it has the word nigger in it (well in this country they have started to stop). It's more important now to read it them ever, this book promotes tolerance rather than racism. It's not the quickest book to read but it's a great book, I'm never going to give this book away.

One of the best and moving books ever written, 08 Aug 2008
I first read this book as a compulsory text for school and since then have read it countless number of times. It is such a beautiful story that is relevant to every society. You must take your time reading it and not rush it because there are so many hidden depths and meanings. "Shoot all the bluejays you want but remember it is a sin to kill a mockingbird". Everyone must read this book, it's beautiful.

Good but not that good, 11 Jul 2008
This had been on my list of books to read for years so I was really looking forward to it. This is a lovely book, well written and different in being written from the perspective of a child. I loved the character of Atticus, his wisdom and intelligence which he uses in rearing his children to think for themselves and learn from their own mistakes rather than laying down rules. This to me is a wonderful example of good parenting and shows how left alone, children are quite capable of forming their own opinions, even on serious issues. I was quite dissapointed however in the book, I was expecting this great work of art, a masterpiece of literature; this is not the outstanding piece of literature I expected, its a good book, enjoyable read and well written but not one I'd want to read again.

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, 05 Jul 2008
'To Kill a Mockingbird' is one of the best books I have read. I was moved to tears when finishing the last page. It is read through the eyes of Scout, a young girl, living in Maycombe, with her brother and father. Her father, Atticus, is a lawyer, who defends a black man accused by a white family. The book explains about predjudice in the 1930's, deep in the Southern States of America, and has a wonderful story line. The book tells of the events before, during and the aftermath of the trial of Tom Robinson, the man accused.
Many of the first chapters are about Boo Radley, a man locked up by his family, for committing a crime. We discover more about him as the book goes on. The book also has a wonderful finish.
The book is one that will stay with me for the whole of my life.

An absolute jewel of a book, 09 Jun 2008
Sometimes it just happens. You come across a book in a bookshop about which you have heard so much but just never got round to reading it. On impulse, you buy it. Hence my introduction to Harper Lee's timeless classic "To Kill a Mocking-Bird". In danger of stating the obvious, this is an absolute jewel of a book, beautifully written, profound, compelling and highly evocative. My only regret is not reading it 30 years ago.

Ben Dinsdale, 23 Sep 2008
I am Gay and i think you'll find that this story still resonates but more like a just-polished cameo piece from a forgotten time. At the core of the book is the elaborate infatuation Jay Gatsby has for Daisy Fay Buchanan, a love story portrayed with both a languid pall and a fatalistic urgency. But the broader context of the setting and the irreconcilable nature of the American dream in the 1920's is what give the novel its true gravitas.

Much of this is eloquently articulated by Nick Carraway, Gatsby's modest Long Island neighbor who becomes his most trusted confidante. Nick is responsible for reuniting the lovers who both have come to different points in their lives five years after their aborted romance. Now a solitary figure in his luxurious mansion, Gatsby is a newly wealthy man who accumulated his fortunes through dubious means. Daisy, on the other hand, has always led a life of privilege and could not let love stand in the way of her comfortable existence. She married Tom Buchanan for that sole purpose. With Gatsby's ambition spurred by his love for Daisy, he rekindles his romance with Daisy, as Tom carries on carelessly with an auto mechanic's grasping wife. Nick himself gets caught up in the jet set trappings and has a relationship with Jordan Baker, a young golf pro.

These characters are inevitably led on a collision course that exposes the hypocrisy of the rich, the falsity of a love undeserving and the transience of individuals on this earth. The strength of Fitzgerald's treatment comes from the lyrical prose he provides to illuminate these themes. Not a word is wasted, and the author's economical handling of such a potentially complex plot is a technique I wish were more frequently replicated today. Most of all, I simply enjoy the book because it does not portend a greater significance eighty years later. It is a classic tale that provides vibrancy and texture to a bygone era. It is well worth re-reading, especially at such a bargain price.

What a read!, 22 Apr 2008
One of my resolutions for 2008 is to broaden my literary horizens. After studying English Lit to A-Level, my interest has fallen to the wayside. So on my quest to better myself through literature, I read "The Old Man and the Sea", which I just couldn't relate to. So imagine my relief when I started reading "The Great Gatsby". I'm so glad I perservered with classic books!

TGG is a great read. It's fast-paced from the outset, and gripping towards the end - I couldn't put it down. I even tried to convince family and friends to read it afterwards; but to no avail - so if I manage to get even ONE person to read it from writing this review, then good! Definitely recommended.

The great American novel?, 25 Mar 2008
Beautifully written, spare, dramatic and haunting - could this at last be the great American novel?

Good, but I don't see what all the fuss is about., 26 Dec 2007
A rather interesting novel and initially it wasn't all that apparent to me why people always linked the failure of the American dream and this story together. Superficially the story is that of love reawakening, Gatsby having initially been rejected by his childhood love for not having sufficient means acquires the means through various ill gotten ways and the lovers reunite despite the fact that she is not married to a boorish but very American man. Much is made that this novel is a startling exposition of the American dream and materialism, and it does this but to a lesser extent than most people make out. I didn't find the metaphors to be profound after reflection nor did I think the plot and language to be that great. That said it still was a fairly good book, an enjoyable read though a bit of anti-climax to what I had been expecting. The characters aren't particularly likeable and stay only briefly in memory, the story entertains but I feel that this book doesn't deserve all the acclaim it has got.

Few books grip your imagination as easily as this one, 27 Aug 2007
Oh, the casual ease with which this romance is written is staggering. It is not without its little faults as a whole, but then what book is?! The sad and whistful story of a nearly man is entirley subordinate to the smoothly poetic style it is written in and yet is complemented perfectly by it, and elevated by it. This is a really melancholy tale and if you're feeling a bit emotionally down for whatever reason, I'd even put off reading it until you're fighting fit again, as it really is affecting. Some may want a more concrete story than the author is clearly willing to give, but if you can live with (deliberate) vagueness of details and you love a good mystery and a romance then you cannot go wrong with this delightful story.

Inescapably bleak, 29 Sep 2008
An unnamed man and his sun struggle through a post apocalyptic American wasteland. As they struggle towards the coast, they have to deal with cannibals, with disease, thieves and above all the simple day to day challenge of staying fed and sheltered in a scorched earth where ash rains from the sky.

Everything in this unrelenting book is beautifully structured. The title is perfect, it is a "road" book, the journey is the story and the story is the journey. The blasted sparseness of the landscape is reflected in the sparseness of the prose. The characters are flattened, their dialogue is terse and emotionless, the palate in which the world is painted is flat and monochrome, all colour and life crushed out by the terrible grey, fatally wounded world.

I don't think I've ever read such a bleak book, so utterly without hope. Its not that the characters don't have any hope, it's that they don't have any chance, any prospect of hope. In the end one wonders which of the two central characters is luckier in his fate.

The book has been described as a wake up call in a world threatened by global warming. Maybe, but it is really about the enduring strength of human love in extreme adversity.

While being excellent, it doesn't quite qualify for five stars in my book because it is more like an abstract painting or a tone poem than a fully rounded novel. It gives an extremely evocative picture, but ultimately the narrative arc is extremely thin.

So recommended, if extremely harrowing.

Sensational, 29 Sep 2008
I started reading this book about a month ago, but put it down after fifty pages. I could tell that I needed to read this in long sittings, and not twenty minutes here and there. So then I read it again on holiday.

It is not an easy read - you have to work at it. McCarthy's prose is stripped back to the very bones, much punctuation is missing and there are no chapters. And the book is repetitive - the man and the boy get hungry, look for food and somewhere safe to stay, find them and do the same again.

But the overall effect is shattering. The world he conjures up in the aftermath of the apocalypse is stunningly realised, and the bleakness of life, the descent of humanity back into savagery and the man and the boy carrying the flame is almost too much at times. There is a lot of bleakness, a lot of misery and despair (and no, not many laughs). But always there is an indefatigability and a flicker of hope.

I've not been affected as much by a book for a long long time. The starkness of the writing and the bleakness of much of the book will be offputting for some, but this is worth the effort and I cannot recommend it too highly.



Nightmarish post-apocalyptic vision- demands to be read, 09 Sep 2008
Not for the faint-hearted this is an excellent book describing one man and his son's journey south though a post-apocalyptic American landscape. It is several years since "it" happened and the land is scorched, the sun is invisible though the blanket of ash and corpses lay burned into the tarmac. Nothing grows and the few survivors have become savage cannibals. The man and boy exist as the other's reason for continuing their hopeless struggle for survival and it is their humanity that redeems the book and their world. McCarthy's stripped down, deconstructed style has been criticised but I think it works perfectly here. I know it wasn't the authors intention but I think the book could have been longer with more details on the nature of the holocaust (we are never told) and how society and mankind had degenerated to the extent it had. Try to read this one sitting if you can to experience it full emotional impact but beware - you may not sleep too well...

A heart of Darkness, 08 Sep 2008
If you're a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction, then this should be high on your reading list. A man and boy's struggle to survive in a never-mentioned worldwide catastrophy is vividly and poignantly written.

If you're looking for a light read, this certainly isn't it - but this vision of hell on earth is certainly a memorable and engaging journey.

On a lighter note - after reading 'The Road' you'll never look at supermarket shopping trolleys in the same way ever again...





A great read, 05 Sep 2008
This was the first McCarthy book I'd read. I bought it based on a Wish List recommendation and I would just like to say thank you, thank you, thank you. Once I got used to the author's quirky style, it became a thoroughly enjoyable read. He uses suspense very well.

Universally relevant, 12 Sep 2008
It is tempting with the `wisdom' of the twentieth century to dismiss as irrelevant a book guilty of false prophecy. However the achievement of George Orwell's masterpiece is not to be found in the accuracies of his predictions, but in its warning about the danger of power unchecked and the lengths to which those in power will go in order to remain there.

We are presented with a vision of the future (now our past) in which the world is divided amongst the totalitarian superpowers of Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. Our story is set in a London controlled by `The Party' - who presence is felt by the ubiquitous Big Brother and its enforcement arm the Thought Police; told through the figure of Winston Smith: a lonely and silently dissident low-level member of the regime, who embarks on a prohibited sexual affair with a fellow party member, plots to work against `The Party' for an underground revolutionary movement called `The Brotherhood', only to discover he has been set up by Thought Police and is subsequently subjected to imprisonment, torture and eventually the destruction of his individuality.

The structure of the plot of Nineteen Eighty-Four is basically a series of pieced together clichés and most of the characters descend into caricature, but it is never intended as a character study or a work of great literary merit or storytelling; the merit of the work is found in Orwell's handling of the mechanics of totalitarian control. At no point does Orwell try to assess the character of such a state and how it develops, but his genius is found in the way he handles methods of political control and taking these to a fantastical extreme in order to present the terror of uninhibited state control. In fact the real ingenuity of Nineteen Eighty-Four lies in the political weapons Orwell attributes to `The Party': newspeak, Big Brother, thoughtcrime, doublethink and many others.

Moreover, Orwell is particularly adept at exposing the political lie and how governments use this to enslave its citizens. The concept of the mutability of the past, whereby the past is continually falsified through physical record and the practice of doublethink (which involves the power to hold in one's mind simultaneously two contradictory beliefs, and accepting both of them) in order to demonstrate the omnipotence of Big Brother and `the Party', executed with horrifying perfection by the regime is the highlight of Orwell's achievement. Here Orwell demonstrates to us the fragility of objective knowledge and the process by which governments could (and in some cases do) distort reality. The servitude the citizens of Oceania find themselves in is not physical in its nature (since very few things are physically prohibited), but a mental imprisonment (thought crime being the only culpable act, as one of Smith's fellow prisoners bluntly puts it in Part 3). Through the process of falsifying what is considered objective fact in conjunction with doublethink, the means of intellectual liberty are denied since the concepts we take as given and infallible such as truth, reason and justification can no longer be relied upon. During Winston's interrogation, O'Brien (`the Party' incarnate) says to him `it is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it should be.' This appears to be the key point of Orwell's message, that freedom is attached to thought and absolute freedom is the freedom to be incorrect.

Orwell rams this point home even further in the concept of Newspeak. This is a language devised by `the Party' that reduces all speech to simple monosyllabic words or short combinations of these. Whereas in the language we use a particular concept may be covered by any number of words (e.g. the concept of good is covered in English by seemingly limitless adjectives), the aim of the creators of Newspeak is to reduce concepts to single words that contain both its affirmative and negative and therefore removing the need for antonyms for one (e.g. the word good, an affirmative, becomes an negative with the affix `un', so the opposite of `good' becomes `ungood' therefore removing the need for `bad' and its various synonyms). The mechanics of the new language are too complicated to discuss at length here (and the novel has as an appendix a short essay on Newspeak) but the idea Orwell entertains in this concept is that if thought is in some sense dependent on language (certainly the two coexist, although the relationship is unlikely to be one of dependence), then by reducing the capacity of language then the capacity of thought, or free thought, itself is curtailed. If language is simplified according to ideology and the means to express certain concepts such as freedom, justice, truth and love are removed, then, Orwell reasons, these concepts disappear altogether. Newspeak, then, is the ultimate weapon against human intellectualism and the liberty of the individual.

Orwell's message is a dramatic one, a warning against all kinds of power: it provides us with reasons to be suspicious of any regime and politician that seeks power and disguises its real aspirations behind propaganda and claims to be serving the greater good. As O'Brien tells us `The Party' seeks power not as a means, but as an end: `One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship...The object of power is power.' The danger and future as Orwell saw it as summed up by O'Brien is: `If you want to imagine a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever.'

It is this resonant and rallying cry in favour of maximal personal liberty and the curbing of political power, in spite of it lacking the subtlety of Kafka's The Trial or the penetrating wit of Huxley's Brave New World, which will make Nineteen Eighty-Four a book of universal appeal and significance for many generations still to come.


A complex, haunting masterpiece, 29 Aug 2008
The first thing to remember about '1984' is that Orwell wasn't trying to predict what life would be like in 1984, or even in 2008. If the book is any good, it's not because it's an accurate picture of life as we know it. It is, however, a pretty faithful depiction of life in a totalitarian society; little happens in the book that didn't really happen in Germany between 1933 and 1945, or in many of the Eastern bloc countries between 1917 and 1989.

The second thing to remember is that Orwell was not against socialism. He described himself as a believer in "democratic socialism", and he was one, which is something that socialists who don't believe in democracy but in party discipline have never forgiven him for to this day. The horror of '1984' is not the horror of life in a socialist society; Orwell was a supporter, albeit a wary one, of Britain's post-war Labour government. The book is about life in a society which is entirely politicised - where there is nothing that doesn't relate to the political ends of the administration. There have been such societies, they still exist (hello, North Korea) and what Orwell was suggesting is that our own could become one too, if we aren't careful.

Winston Smith is not a mouthpiece for Orwell. Winston is more sentimental, more naive and more bourgeois than Orwell, or at least than the 'Orwell' persona (Orwell the man is not always to be identified with the persona he adopted as a non-fiction writer). '1984' is not a straightforward novel about two sensitive people in an uncaring world, and nor does it suggest that a totalitarian society is just a matter of a lot of CCTV cameras. It is deeper, darker and weirder than that. Simple-minded right-wingers have claimed that the book is an attack on socialism as such, but that's obviously wrong. Authoritarian left-wingers are enraged by the book's distrust of revolutionary shibboleths. It will go on being read as long as it seems to say something to us about the kinds of government we most fear and hate.

Worth a look, 05 Aug 2008
Its amazing this book was wrote in the forties. Its very modern and alot of what George Orwell wrote come true, very worrying. Maybe not his best work, still a classic though. Sixty years later and 1984 is still going strong. He has, in my opinion wrote better books but I would definitely recommend this book. Orwell's last masterpiece.

The greatest dytopian novel? Certainly the most influential., 04 Aug 2008
The book that gave us 'Orwellian', 'Room 101' and 'Big Brother', but it gave us so much more.

Orwell's final and greatest novel is a wonderful combination of important ideas expressed in simple language. It is an easy read and can be read in a short time, but will remain with you long afterwards. It challenges you to review how you interact with society and most importantly the state.

One of the major themes that is often overlooked is that which examines why we are good or bad. Is it because we want to be good or is it that we are afraid of punishment if we are bad.

Another interesting theme is the use and abuse of language, Orwell believed that the very language one uses influences how one thinks. He examines how, by the restriction of language, the state can restrict ideas.

Of course Orwell wrote the novel as an examination of one possible future and it is both fun and frightening to compare his predictions with the course history has taken. Indeed, whole passages can leave you thinking "My God, he was right."

Is it relevant today?, 26 Jun 2008
I read this book having been unable to ignore the hype surrounding it. As with anything like this you usually stand to be dissapointed, but I was pleasantly surprised at how the book fitted my expectations very well.
The story is slightly sketchy in some places but this is the beauty of it - it keeps a good pace and concentrates on the authors suggestions of possible government structure in 1984 rather than centralising on the characters too much.

Where the characters are heavily detailed, this is to help create a tangible picture of the points the author is trying to make.

The words in our everyday use which originated from this book are taken for granted by us i.e. "Big Brother", "Room 101", And the author paints a powerful picture of their meaning.

Whilst writing this book in the 1940's, George Orwell obviously tried to predict the kind of technology we would be using by 1984 - and this must have seemed a world away for him. However, by 1984 the technology he had spoken of was easily possible and currently is far surpassed.

The overall setting of the story seems (at points) impossible to comprehend, but when you break down each part of Oceanic society and the circumstances that created it, it is generally easy to see "some" similarity with our own situation in the 21st century.

Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent". Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his 16-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins:

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two haemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them.

His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive), capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation. --Amazon.comSince his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent". Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his 16-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins:

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two haemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them.

His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive), capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation. --Amazon.com

tolerance , 15 Sep 2008
It's been ages since I've read this book so I'm not going to say much but this book should be read. Teachers have started not to study this book in schools because it has the word nigger in it (well in this country they have started to stop). It's more important now to read it them ever, this book promotes tolerance rather than racism. It's not the quickest book to read but it's a great book, I'm never going to give this book away.

One of the best and moving books ever written, 08 Aug 2008
I first read this book as a compulsory text for school and since then have read it countless number of times. It is such a beautiful story that is relevant to every society. You must take your time reading it and not rush it because there are so many hidden depths and meanings. "Shoot all the bluejays you want but remember it is a sin to kill a mockingbird". Everyone must read this book, it's beautiful.

Good but not that good, 11 Jul 2008
This had been on my list of books to read for years so I was really looking forward to it. This is a lovely book, well written and different in being written from the perspective of a child. I loved the character of Atticus, his wisdom and intelligence which he uses in rearing his children to think for themselves and learn from their own mistakes rather than laying down rules. This to me is a wonderful example of good parenting and shows how left alone, children are quite capable of forming their own opinions, even on serious issues. I was quite dissapointed however in the book, I was expecting this great work of art, a masterpiece of literature; this is not the outstanding piece of literature I expected, its a good book, enjoyable read and well written but not one I'd want to read again.

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, 05 Jul 2008
'To Kill a Mockingbird' is one of the best books I have read. I was moved to tears when finishing the last page. It is read through the eyes of Scout, a young girl, living in Maycombe, with her brother and father. Her father, Atticus, is a lawyer, who defends a black man accused by a white family. The book explains about predjudice in the 1930's, deep in the Southern States of America, and has a wonderful story line. The book tells of the events before, during and the aftermath of the trial of Tom Robinson, the man accused.
Many of the first chapters are about Boo Radley, a man locked up by his family, for committing a crime. We discover more about him as the book goes on. The book also has a wonderful finish.
The book is one that will stay with me for the whole of my life.

An absolute jewel of a book, 09 Jun 2008
Sometimes it just happens. You come across a book in a bookshop about which you have heard so much but just never got round to reading it. On impulse, you buy it. Hence my introduction to Harper Lee's timeless classic "To Kill a Mocking-Bird". In danger of stating the obvious, this is an absolute jewel of a book, beautifully written, profound, compelling and highly evocative. My only regret is not reading it 30 years ago.

Ben Dinsdale, 23 Sep 2008
I am Gay and i think you'll find that this story still resonates but more like a just-polished cameo piece from a forgotten time. At the core of the book is the elaborate infatuation Jay Gatsby has for Daisy Fay Buchanan, a love story portrayed with both a languid pall and a fatalistic urgency. But the broader context of the setting and the irreconcilable nature of the American dream in the 1920's is what give the novel its true gravitas.

Much of this is eloquently articulated by Nick Carraway, Gatsby's modest Long Island neighbor who becomes his most trusted confidante. Nick is responsible for reuniting the lovers who both have come to different points in their lives five years after their aborted romance. Now a solitary figure in his luxurious mansion, Gatsby is a newly wealthy man who accumulated his fortunes through dubious means. Daisy, on the other hand, has always led a life of privilege and could not let love stand in the way of her comfortable existence. She married Tom Buchanan for that sole purpose. With Gatsby's ambition spurred by his love for Daisy, he rekindles his romance with Daisy, as Tom carries on carelessly with an auto mechanic's grasping wife. Nick himself gets caught up in the jet set trappings and has a relationship with Jordan Baker, a young golf pro.

These characters are inevitably led on a collision course that exposes the hypocrisy of the rich, the falsity of a love undeserving and the transience of individuals on this earth. The strength of Fitzgerald's treatment comes from the lyrical prose he provides to illuminate these themes. Not a word is wasted, and the author's economical handling of such a potentially complex plot is a technique I wish were more frequently replicated today. Most of all, I simply enjoy the book because it does not portend a greater significance eighty years later. It is a classic tale that provides vibrancy and texture to a bygone era. It is well worth re-reading, especially at such a bargain price.

What a read!, 22 Apr 2008
One of my resolutions for 2008 is to broaden my literary horizens. After studying English Lit to A-Level, my interest has fallen to the wayside. So on my quest to better myself through literature, I read "The Old Man and the Sea", which I just couldn't relate to. So imagine my relief when I started reading "The Great Gatsby". I'm so glad I perservered with classic books!

TGG is a great read. It's fast-paced from the outset, and gripping towards the end - I couldn't put it down. I even tried to convince family and friends to read it afterwards; but to no avail - so if I manage to get even ONE person to read it from writing this review, then good! Definitely recommended.

The great American novel?, 25 Mar 2008
Beautifully written, spare, dramatic and haunting - could this at last be the great American novel?

Good, but I don't see what all the fuss is about., 26 Dec 2007
A rather interesting novel and initially it wasn't all that apparent to me why people always linked the failure of the American dream and this story together. Superficially the story is that of love reawakening, Gatsby having initially been rejected by his childhood love for not having sufficient means acquires the means through various ill gotten ways and the lovers reunite despite the fact that she is not married to a boorish but very American man. Much is made that this novel is a startling exposition of the American dream and materialism, and it does this but to a lesser extent than most people make out. I didn't find the metaphors to be profound after reflection nor did I think the plot and language to be that great. That said it still was a fairly good book, an enjoyable read though a bit of anti-climax to what I had been expecting. The characters aren't particularly likeable and stay only briefly in memory, the story entertains but I feel that this book doesn't deserve all the acclaim it has got.

Few books grip your imagination as easily as this one, 27 Aug 2007
Oh, the casual ease with which this romance is written is staggering. It is not without its little faults as a whole, but then what book is?! The sad and whistful story of a nearly man is entirley subordinate to the smoothly poetic style it is written in and yet is complemented perfectly by it, and elevated by it. This is a really melancholy tale and if you're feeling a bit emotionally down for whatever reason, I'd even put off reading it until you're fighting fit again, as it really is affecting. Some may want a more concrete story than the author is clearly willing to give, but if you can live with (deliberate) vagueness of details and you love a good mystery and a romance then you cannot go wrong with this delightful story.

Inescapably bleak, 29 Sep 2008
An unnamed man and his sun struggle through a post apocalyptic American wasteland. As they struggle towards the coast, they have to deal with cannibals, with disease, thieves and above all the simple day to day challenge of staying fed and sheltered in a scorched earth where ash rains from the sky.

Everything in this unrelenting book is beautifully structured. The title is perfect, it is a "road" book, the journey is the story and the story is the journey. The blasted sparseness of the landscape is reflected in the sparseness of the prose. The characters are flattened, their dialogue is terse and emotionless, the palate in which the world is painted is flat and monochrome, all colour and life crushed out by the terrible grey, fatally wounded world.

I don't think I've ever read such a bleak book, so utterly without hope. Its not that the characters don't have any hope, it's that they don't have any chance, any prospect of hope. In the end one wonders which of the two central characters is luckier in his fate.

The book has been described as a wake up call in a world threatened by global warming. Maybe, but it is really about the enduring strength of human love in extreme adversity.

While being excellent, it doesn't quite qualify for five stars in my book because it is more like an abstract painting or a tone poem than a fully rounded novel. It gives an extremely evocative picture, but ultimately the narrative arc is extremely thin.

So recommended, if extremely harrowing.

Sensational, 29 Sep 2008
I started reading this book about a month ago, but put it down after fifty pages. I could tell that I needed to read this in long sittings, and not twenty minutes here and there. So then I read it again on holiday.

It is not an easy read - you have to work at it. McCarthy's prose is stripped back to the very bones, much punctuation is missing and there are no chapters. And the book is repetitive - the man and the boy get hungry, look for food and somewhere safe to stay, find them and do the same again.

But the overall effect is shattering. The world he conjures up in the aftermath of the apocalypse is stunningly realised, and the bleakness of life, the descent of humanity back into savagery and the man and the boy carrying the flame is almost too much at times. There is a lot of bleakness, a lot of misery and despair (and no, not many laughs). But always there is an indefatigability and a flicker of hope.

I've not been affected as much by a book for a long long time. The starkness of the writing and the bleakness of much of the book will be offputting for some, but this is worth the effort and I cannot recommend it too highly.



Nightmarish post-apocalyptic vision- demands to be read, 09 Sep 2008
Not for the faint-hearted this is an excellent book describing one man and his son's journey south though a post-apocalyptic American landscape. It is several years since "it" happened and the land is scorched, the sun is invisible though the blanket of ash and corpses lay burned into the tarmac. Nothing grows and the few survivors have become savage cannibals. The man and boy exist as the other's reason for continuing their hopeless struggle for survival and it is their humanity that redeems the book and their world. McCarthy's stripped down, deconstructed style has been criticised but I think it works perfectly here. I know it wasn't the authors intention but I think the book could have been longer with more details on the nature of the holocaust (we are never told) and how society and mankind had degenerated to the extent it had. Try to read this one sitting if you can to experience it full emotional impact but beware - you may not sleep too well...

A heart of Darkness, 08 Sep 2008
If you're a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction, then this should be high on your reading list. A man and boy's struggle to survive in a never-mentioned worldwide catastrophy is vividly and poignantly written.

If you're looking for a light read, this certainly isn't it - but this vision of hell on earth is certainly a memorable and engaging journey.

On a lighter note - after reading 'The Road' you'll never look at supermarket shopping trolleys in the same way ever again...





A great read, 05 Sep 2008
This was the first McCarthy book I'd read. I bought it based on a Wish List recommendation and I would just like to say thank you, thank you, thank you. Once I got used to the author's quirky style, it became a thoroughly enjoyable read. He uses suspense very well.

Universally relevant, 12 Sep 2008
It is tempting with the `wisdom' of the twentieth century to dismiss as irrelevant a book guilty of false prophecy. However the achievement of George Orwell's masterpiece is not to be found in the accuracies of his predictions, but in its warning about the danger of power unchecked and the lengths to which those in power will go in order to remain there.

We are presented with a vision of the future (now our past) in which the world is divided amongst the totalitarian superpowers of Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. Our story is set in a London controlled by `The Party' - who presence is felt by the ubiquitous Big Brother and its enforcement arm the Thought Police; told through the figure of Winston Smith: a lonely and silently dissident low-level member of the regime, who embarks on a prohibited sexual affair with a fellow party member, plots to work against `The Party' for an underground revolutionary movement called `The Brotherhood', only to discover he has been set up by Thought Police and is subsequently subjected to imprisonment, torture and eventually the destruction of his individuality.

The structure of the plot of Nineteen Eighty-Four is basically a series of pieced together clichés and most of the characters descend into caricature, but it is never intended as a character study or a work of great literary merit or storytelling; the merit of the work is found in Orwell's handling of the mechanics of totalitarian control. At no point does Orwell try to assess the character of such a state and how it develops, but his genius is found in the way he handles methods of political control and taking these to a fantastical extreme in order to present the terror of uninhibited state control. In fact the real ingenuity of Nineteen Eighty-Four lies in the political weapons Orwell attributes to `The Party': newspeak, Big Brother, thoughtcrime, doublethink and many others.

Moreover, Orwell is particularly adept at exposing the political lie and how governments use this to enslave its citizens. The concept of the mutability of the past, whereby the past is continually falsified through physical record and the practice of doublethink (which involves the power to hold in one's mind simultaneously two contradictory beliefs, and accepting both of them) in order to demonstrate the omnipotence of Big Brother and `the Party', executed with horrifying perfection by the regime is the highlight of Orwell's achievement. Here Orwell demonstrates to us the fragility of objective knowledge and the process by which governments could (and in some cases do) distort reality. The servitude the citizens of Oceania find themselves in is not physical in its nature (since very few things are physically prohibited), but a mental imprisonment (thought crime being the only culpable act, as one of Smith's fellow prisoners bluntly puts it in Part 3). Through the process of falsifying what is considered objective fact in conjunction with doublethink, the means of intellectual liberty are denied since the concepts we take as given and infallible such as truth, reason and justification can no longer be relied upon. During Winston's interrogation, O'Brien (`the Party' incarnate) says to him `it is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it should be.' This appears to be the key point of Orwell's message, that freedom is attached to thought and absolute freedom is the freedom to be incorrect.

Orwell rams this point home even further in the concept of Newspeak. This is a language devised by `the Party' that reduces all speech to simple monosyllabic words or short combinations of these. Whereas in the language we use a particular concept may be covered by any number of words (e.g. the concept of good is covered in English by seemingly limitless adjectives), the aim of the creators of Newspeak is to reduce concepts to single words that contain both its affirmative and negative and therefore removing the need for antonyms for one (e.g. the word good, an affirmative, becomes an negative with the affix `un', so the opposite of `good' becomes `ungood' therefore removing the need for `bad' and its various synonyms). The mechanics of the new language are too complicated to discuss at length here (and the novel has as an appendix a short essay on Newspeak) but the idea Orwell entertains in this concept is that if thought is in some sense dependent on language (certainly the two coexist, although the relationship is unlikely to be one of dependence), then by reducing the capacity of language then the capacity of thought, or free thought, itself is curtailed. If language is simplified according to ideology and the means to express certain concepts such as freedom, justice, truth and love are removed, then, Orwell reasons, these concepts disappear altogether. Newspeak, then, is the ultimate weapon against human intellectualism and the liberty of the individual.

Orwell's message is a dramatic one, a warning against all kinds of power: it provides us with reasons to be suspicious of any regime and politician that seeks power and disguises its real aspirations behind propaganda and claims to be serving the greater good. As O'Brien tells us `The Party' seeks power not as a means, but as an end: `One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship...The object of power is power.' The danger and future as Orwell saw it as summed up by O'Brien is: `If you want to imagine a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever.'

It is this resonant and rallying cry in favour of maximal personal liberty and the curbing of political power, in spite of it lacking the subtlety of Kafka's The Trial or the penetrating wit of Huxley's Brave New World, which will make Nineteen Eighty-Four a book of universal appeal and significance for many generations still to come.


A complex, haunting masterpiece, 29 Aug 2008
The first thing to remember about '1984' is that Orwell wasn't trying to predict what life would be like in 1984, or even in 2008. If the book is any good, it's not because it's an accurate picture of life as we know it. It is, however, a pretty faithful depiction of life in a totalitarian society; little happens in the book that didn't really happen in Germany between 1933 and 1945, or in many of the Eastern bloc countries between 1917 and 1989.

The second thing to remember is that Orwell was not against socialism. He described himself as a believer in "democratic socialism", and he was one, which is something that socialists who don't believe in democracy but in party discipline have never forgiven him for to this day. The horror of '1984' is not the horror of life in a socialist society; Orwell was a supporter, albeit a wary one, of Britain's post-war Labour government. The book is about life in a society which is entirely politicised - where there is nothing that doesn't relate to the political ends of the administration. There have been such societies, they still exist (hello, North Korea) and what Orwell was suggesting is that our own could become one too, if we aren't careful.

Winston Smith is not a mouthpiece for Orwell. Winston is more sentimental, more naive and more bourgeois than Orwell, or at least than the 'Orwell' persona (Orwell the man is not always to be identified with the persona he adopted as a non-fiction writer). '1984' is not a straightforward novel about two sensitive people in an uncaring world, and nor does it suggest that a totalitarian society is just a matter of a lot of CCTV cameras. It is deeper, darker and weirder than that. Simple-minded right-wingers have claimed that the book is an attack on socialism as such, but that's obviously wrong. Authoritarian left-wingers are enraged by the book's distrust of revolutionary shibboleths. It will go on being read as long as it seems to say something to us about the kinds of government we most fear and hate.

Worth a look, 05 Aug 2008
Its amazing this book was wrote in the forties. Its very modern and alot of what George Orwell wrote come true, very worrying. Maybe not his best work, still a classic though. Sixty years later and 1984 is still going strong. He has, in my opinion wrote better books but I would definitely recommend this book. Orwell's last masterpiece.

The greatest dytopian novel? Certainly the most influential., 04 Aug 2008
The book that gave us 'Orwellian', 'Room 101' and 'Big Brother', but it gave us so much more.

Orwell's final and greatest novel is a wonderful combination of important ideas expressed in simple language. It is an easy read and can be read in a short time, but will remain with you long afterwards. It challenges you to review how you interact with society and most importantly the state.

One of the major themes that is often overlooked is that which examines why we are good or bad. Is it because we want to be good or is it that we are afraid of punishment if we are bad.

Another interesting theme is the use and abuse of language, Orwell believed that the very language one uses influences how one thinks. He examines how, by the restriction of language, the state can restrict ideas.

Of course Orwell wrote the novel as an examination of one possible future and it is both fun and frightening to compare his predictions with the course history has taken. Indeed, whole passages can leave you thinking "My God, he was right."

Is it relevant today?, 26 Jun 2008
I read this book having been unable to ignore the hype surrounding it. As with anything like this you usually stand to be dissapointed, but I was pleasantly surprised at how the book fitted my expectations very well.
The story is slightly sketchy in some places but this is the beauty of it - it keeps a good pace and concentrates on the authors suggestions of possible government structure in 1984 rather than centralising on the characters too much.

Where the characters are heavily detailed, this is to help create a tangible picture of the points the author is trying to make.

The words in our everyday use which originated from this book are taken for granted by us i.e. "Big Brother", "Room 101", And the author paints a powerful picture of their meaning.

Whilst writing this book in the 1940's, George Orwell obviously tried to predict the kind of technology we would be using by 1984 - and this must have seemed a world away for him. However, by 1984 the technology he had spoken of was easily possible and currently is far surpassed.

The overall setting of the story seems (at points) impossible to comprehend, but when you break down each part of Oceanic society and the circumstances that created it, it is generally easy to see "some" similarity with our own situation in the 21st century.

Overated, 09 Oct 2008
Boring, over rated book.

I, like many others, was handed this book and told that it was a life changing read. It was an utter load of rubbish.

I think the people who recommend this book are suffering with a bad case of the Emperors New Clothes.

I honestly didn't understand the praise...., 25 Sep 2008
So I read it again. As such it's the only book I didn't enjoy first time round (as a sixteen year old) which I have ever reread. Rereading as a thirty year old did not change my opinion.

The book has nothing of interest to say. The inane ramblings and tirades of a cynical and bitter little rich kid do not a good novel make. Holden doesn't appear to learn anything over the course of his journey and all I learnt over the course of 200 nauseating pages was that not all "classics" of literature warrant their place.





Loved it., 18 Sep 2008
I simply adore this book, I purchased it with To Kill a Mockingbird, as I thought it's always on lists of those books to read before you die, so why not I thought to myself. And of course, I'm not male and just out of my teen years, but I did relate. I disagree with the critical commets that some customers have said like the main character Holden 'should get over himself', I think most teenagers at Holdens age are slightly self obsessed and have the me againat the world attitude, even if they would care not to admit it, I definitely did have that attitude. And for a book that was written in the 1940's it certainly has aged well, it feels quite modern actually. The book doesn't really have a plot and it doesn't need it either, written in the first person narrative, Holden tells us the events set over only a few days, which occured a year ago. This is definielt a book worth re-reading, and this is from a person who really doesn't return to a book once it has been read.

One of the best books I have ever read, 30 Aug 2008
I'm so sorry to see all the people on here who were disappointed by The Catcher In The Rye. When I first read it aged 13 I was unaware of its cult status and so just had average expectations. Indeed at the time I only really liked the character of Holden, less so the book itself. Having re-read it twice since however (I am now 18) I can honestly say it's one of the best books I have ever read.

While I originally sided with the main character, now I'm able to see all his flaws and inconsistencies and love him all the more. As far as I'm concerned this is not so much a book for teenagers as one for anyone who's suffered from depression and disillusionment with the world around them. Anyway I won't take up any more of your time - I only hope you will make the effort to get this book and see past its sometimes negative image. And for those who didn't like it first time, I highly recommend a second reading. The only character I can think of who reveals more depth than Holden is Hamlet himself.

Worth reading twice in your lifetime at least., 09 Aug 2008
I first read this book way back in the late 70's. More luck then judgement I used to play a game where I would go to my local library in South Ockendon and just go over to the fiction section and take any book off the shelve and read it. Worked quite well as I would never have selected this title and at that time, when I was in my early 20's I had never heard of it.

I read the book over the week initially determined to finish it, but after a few chapters keen to see where the book would lead. I loved it and felt compelled to read other J.D. Salinger titles. I don't think I found any however.

The book is now infamous due to Mark Chapman's association with it. I suppose any publicity to get people to read a classic however is good news and I know that this book did have an impact on me.

This is only one of a few books I have read twice. The first time, I was vert excited by it and recommended it to everyone I new who wanted to read a good book. The second time I read it was about 15 years later and it again had a great impact on me in that I felt very grained by its storyline and the unfairness which affects the main character Holden Caulfield. However, the book again did make me feel something and I reckon thats a good indication of how well this book is written.

Maybe the book isn't for those who who don't like negative endings, but all in all a book worth reading at least twice.

tolerance , 15 Sep 2008
It's been ages since I've read this book so I'm not going to say much but this book should be read. Teachers have started not to study this book in schools because it has the word nigger in it (well in this country they have started to stop). It's more important now to read it them ever, this book promotes tolerance rather than racism. It's not the quickest book to read but it's a great book, I'm never going to give this book away.

One of the best and moving books ever written, 08 Aug 2008
I first read this book as a compulsory text for school and since then have read it countless number of times. It is such a beautiful story that is relevant to every society. You must take your time reading it and not rush it because there are so many hidden depths and meanings. "Shoot all the bluejays you want but remember it is a sin to kill a mockingbird". Everyone must read this book, it's beautiful.

Good but not that good, 11 Jul 2008
This had been on my list of books to read for years so I was really looking forward to it. This is a lovely book, well written and different in being written from the perspective of a child. I loved the character of Atticus, his wisdom and intelligence which he uses in rearing his children to think for themselves and learn from their own mistakes rather than laying down rules. This to me is a wonderful example of good parenting and shows how left alone, children are quite capable of forming their own opinions, even on serious issues. I was quite dissapointed however in the book, I was expecting this great work of art, a masterpiece of literature; this is not the outstanding piece of literature I expected, its a good book, enjoyable read and well written but not one I'd want to read again.

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, 05 Jul 2008
'To Kill a Mockingbird' is one of the best books I have read. I was moved to tears when finishing the last page. It is read through the eyes of Scout, a young girl, living in Maycombe, with her brother and father. Her father, Atticus, is a lawyer, who defends a black man accused by a white family. The book explains about predjudice in the 1930's, deep in the Southern States of America, and has a wonderful story line. The book tells of the events before, during and the aftermath of the trial of Tom Robinson, the man accused.
Many of the first chapters are about Boo Radley, a man locked up by his family, for committing a crime. We discover more about him as the book goes on. The book also has a wonderful finish.
The book is one that will stay with me for the whole of my life.

An absolute jewel of a book, 09 Jun 2008
Sometimes it just happens. You come across a book in a bookshop about which you have heard so much but just never got round to reading it. On impulse, you buy it. Hence my introduction to Harper Lee's timeless classic "To Kill a Mocking-Bird". In danger of stating the obvious, this is an absolute jewel of a book, beautifully written, profound, compelling and highly evocative. My only regret is not reading it 30 years ago.

Ben Dinsdale, 23 Sep 2008
I am Gay and i think you'll find that this story still resonates but more like a just-polished cameo piece from a forgotten time. At the core of the book is the elaborate infatuation Jay Gatsby has for Daisy Fay Buchanan, a love story portrayed with both a languid pall and a fatalistic urgency. But the broader context of the setting and the irreconcilable nature of the American dream in the 1920's is what give the novel its true gravitas.

Much of this is eloquently articulated by Nick Carraway, Gatsby's modest Long Island neighbor who becomes his most trusted confidante. Nick is responsible for reuniting the lovers who both have come to different points in their lives five years after their aborted romance. Now a solitary figure in his luxurious mansion, Gatsby is a newly wealthy man who accumulated his fortunes through dubious means. Daisy, on the other hand, has always led a life of privilege and could not let love stand in the way of her comfortable existence. She married Tom Buchanan for that sole purpose. With Gatsby's ambition spurred by his love for Daisy, he rekindles his romance with Daisy, as Tom carries on carelessly with an auto mechanic's grasping wife. Nick himself gets caught up in the jet set trappings and has a relationship with Jordan Baker, a young golf pro.

These characters are inevitably led on a collision course that exposes the hypocrisy of the rich, the falsity of a love undeserving and the transience of individuals on this earth. The strength of Fitzgerald's treatment comes from the lyrical prose he provides to illuminate these themes. Not a word is wasted, and the author's economical handling of such a potentially complex plot is a technique I wish were more frequently replicated today. Most of all, I simply enjoy the book because it does not portend a greater significance eighty years later. It is a classic tale that provides vibrancy and texture to a bygone era. It is well worth re-reading, especially at such a bargain price.

What a read!, 22 Apr 2008
One of my resolutions for 2008 is to broaden my literary horizens. After studying English Lit to A-Level, my interest has fallen to the wayside. So on my quest to better myself through literature, I read "The Old Man and the Sea", which I just couldn't relate to. So imagine my relief when I started reading "The Great Gatsby". I'm so glad I perservered with classic books!

TGG is a great read. It's fast-paced from the outset, and gripping towards the end - I couldn't put it down. I even tried to convince family and friends to read it afterwards; but to no avail - so if I manage to get even ONE person to read it from writing this review, then good! Definitely recommended.

The great American novel?, 25 Mar 2008
Beautifully written, spare, dramatic and haunting - could this at last be the great American novel?

Good, but I don't see what all the fuss is about., 26 Dec 2007
A rather interesting novel and initially it wasn't all that apparent to me why people always linked the failure of the American dream and this story together. Superficially the story is that of love reawakening, Gatsby having initially been rejected by his childhood love for not having sufficient means acquires the means through various ill gotten ways and the lovers reunite despite the fact that she is not married to a boorish but very American man. Much is made that this novel is a startling exposition of the American dream and materialism, and it does this but to a lesser extent than most people make out. I didn't find the metaphors to be profound after reflection nor did I think the plot and language to be that great. That said it still was a fairly good book, an enjoyable read though a bit of anti-climax to what I had been expecting. The characters aren't particularly likeable and stay only briefly in memory, the story entertains but I feel that this book doesn't deserve all the acclaim it has got.

Few books grip your imagination as easily as this one, 27 Aug 2007
Oh, the casual ease with which this romance is written is staggering. It is not without its little faults as a whole, but then what book is?! The sad and whistful story of a nearly man is entirley subordinate to the smoothly poetic style it is written in and yet is complemented perfectly by it, and elevated by it. This is a really melancholy tale and if you're feeling a bit emotionally down for whatever reason, I'd even put off reading it until you're fighting fit again, as it really is affecting. Some may want a more concrete story than the author is clearly willing to give, but if you can live with (deliberate) vagueness of details and you love a good mystery and a romance then you cannot go wrong with this delightful story.

Inescapably bleak, 29 Sep 2008
An unnamed man and his sun struggle through a post apocalyptic American wasteland. As they struggle towards the coast, they have to deal with cannibals, with disease, thieves and above all the simple day to day challenge of staying fed and sheltered in a scorched earth where ash rains from the sky.

Everything in this unrelenting book is beautifully structured. The title is perfect, it is a "road" book, the journey is the story and the story is the journey. The blasted sparseness of the landscape is reflected in the sparseness of the prose. The characters are flattened, their dialogue is terse and emotionless, the palate in which the world is painted is flat and monochrome, all colour and life crushed out by the terrible grey, fatally wounded world.

I don't think I've ever read such a bleak book, so utterly without hope. Its not that the characters don't have any hope, it's that they don't have any chance, any prospect of hope. In the end one wonders which of the two central characters is luckier in his fate.

The book has been described as a wake up call in a world threatened by global warming. Maybe, but it is really about the enduring strength of human love in extreme adversity.

While being excellent, it doesn't quite qualify for five stars in my book because it is more like an abstract painting or a tone poem than a fully rounded novel. It gives an extremely evocative picture, but ultimately the narrative arc is extremely thin.

So recommended, if extremely harrowing.

Sensational, 29 Sep 2008
I started reading this book about a month ago, but put it down after fifty pages. I could tell that I needed to read this in long sittings, and not twenty minutes here and there. So then I read it again on holiday.

It is not an easy read - you have to work at it. McCarthy's prose is stripped back to the very bones, much punctuation is missing and there are no chapters. And the book is repetitive - the man and the boy get hungry, look for food and somewhere safe to stay, find them and do the same again.

But the overall effect is shattering. The world he conjures up in the aftermath of the apocalypse is stunningly realised, and the bleakness of life, the descent of humanity back into savagery and the man and the boy carrying the flame is almost too much at times. There is a lot of bleakness, a lot of misery and despair (and no, not many laughs). But always there is an indefatigability and a flicker of hope.

I've not been affected as much by a book for a long long time. The starkness of the writing and the bleakness of much of the book will be offputting for some, but this is worth the effort and I cannot recommend it too highly.



Nightmarish post-apocalyptic vision- demands to be read, 09 Sep 2008
Not for the faint-hearted this is an excellent book describing one man and his son's journey south though a post-apocalyptic American landscape. It is several years since "it" happened and the land is scorched, the sun is invisible though the blanket of ash and corpses lay burned into the tarmac. Nothing grows and the few survivors have become savage cannibals. The man and boy exist as the other's reason for continuing their hopeless struggle for survival and it is their humanity that redeems the book and their world. McCarthy's stripped down, deconstructed style has been criticised but I think it works perfectly here. I know it wasn't the authors intention but I think the book could have been longer with more details on the nature of the holocaust (we are never told) and how society and mankind had degenerated to the extent it had. Try to read this one sitting if you can to experience it full emotional impact but beware - you may not sleep too well...

A heart of Darkness, 08 Sep 2008
If you're a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction, then this should be high on your reading list. A man and boy's struggle to survive in a never-mentioned worldwide catastrophy is vividly and poignantly written.

If you're looking for a light read, this certainly isn't it - but this vision of hell on earth is certainly a memorable and engaging journey.

On a lighter note - after reading 'The Road' you'll never look at supermarket shopping trolleys in the same way ever again...





A great read, 05 Sep 2008
This was the first McCarthy book I'd read. I bought it based on a Wish List recommendation and I would just like to say thank you, thank you, thank you. Once I got used to the author's quirky style, it became a thoroughly enjoyable read. He uses suspense very well.

Universally relevant, 12 Sep 2008
It is tempting with the `wisdom' of the twentieth century to dismiss as irrelevant a book guilty of false prophecy. However the achievement of George Orwell's masterpiece is not to be found in the accuracies of his predictions, but in its warning about the danger of power unchecked and the lengths to which those in power will go in order to remain there.

We are presented with a vision of the future (now our past) in which the world is divided amongst the totalitarian superpowers of Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. Our story is set in a London controlled by `The Party' - who presence is felt by the ubiquitous Big Brother and its enforcement arm the Thought Police; told through the figure of Winston Smith: a lonely and silently dissident low-level member of the regime, who embarks on a prohibited sexual affair with a fellow party member, plots to work against `The Party' for an underground revolutionary movement called `The Brotherhood', only to discover he has been set up by Thought Police and is subsequently subjected to imprisonment, torture and eventually the destruction of his individuality.

The structure of the plot of Nineteen Eighty-Four is basically a series of pieced together clichés and most of the characters descend into caricature, but it is never intended as a character study or a work of great literary merit or storytelling; the merit of the work is found in Orwell's handling of the mechanics of totalitarian control. At no point does Orwell try to assess the character of such a state and how it develops, but his genius is found in the way he handles methods of political control and taking these to a fantastical extreme in order to present the terror of uninhibited state control. In fact the real ingenuity of Nineteen Eighty-Four lies in the political weapons Orwell attributes to `The Party': newspeak, Big Brother, thoughtcrime, doublethink and many others.

Moreover, Orwell is particularly adept at exposing the political lie and how governments use this to enslave its citizens. The concept of the mutability of the past, whereby the past is continually falsified through physical record and the practice of doublethink (which involves the power to hold in one's mind simultaneously two contradictory beliefs, and accepting both of them) in order to demonstrate the omnipotence of Big Brother and `the Party', executed with horrifying perfection by the regime is the highlight of Orwell's achievement. Here Orwell demonstrates to us the fragility of objective knowledge and the process by which governments could (and in some cases do) distort reality. The servitude the citizens of Oceania find themselves in is not physical in its nature (since very few things are physically prohibited), but a mental imprisonment (thought crime being the only culpable act, as one of Smith's fellow prisoners bluntly puts it in Part 3). Through the process of falsifying what is considered objective fact in conjunction with doublethink, the means of intellectual liberty are denied since the concepts we take as given and infallible such as truth, reason and justification can no longer be relied upon. During Winston's interrogation, O'Brien (`the Party' incarnate) says to him `it is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it should be.' This appears to be the key point of Orwell's message, that freedom is attached to thought and absolute freedom is the freedom to be incorrect.

Orwell rams this point home even further in the concept of Newspeak. This is a language devised by `the Party' that reduces all speech to simple monosyllabic words or short combinations of these. Whereas in the language we use a particular concept may be covered by any number of words (e.g. the concept of good is covered in English by seemingly limitless adjectives), the aim of the creators of Newspeak is to reduce concepts to single words that contain both its affirmative and negative and therefore removing the need for antonyms for one (e.g. the word good, an affirmative, becomes an negative with the affix `un', so the opposite of `good' becomes `ungood' therefore removing the need for `bad' and its various synonyms). The mechanics of the new language are too complicated to discuss at length here (and the novel has as an appendix a short essay on Newspeak) but the idea Orwell entertains in this concept is that if thought is in some sense dependent on language (certainly the two coexist, although the relationship is unlikely to be one of dependence), then by reducing the capacity of language then the capacity of thought, or free thought, itself is curtailed. If language is simplified according to ideology and the means to express certain concepts such as freedom, justice, truth and love are removed, then, Orwell reasons, these concepts disappear altogether. Newspeak, then, is the ultimate weapon against human intellectualism and the liberty of the individual.

Orwell's message is a dramatic one, a warning against all kinds of power: it provides us with reasons to be suspicious of any regime and politician that seeks power and disguises its real aspirations behind propaganda and claims to be serving the greater good. As O'Brien tells us `The Party' seeks power not as a means, but as an end: `One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship...The object of power is power.' The danger and future as Orwell saw it as summed up by O'Brien is: `If you want to imagine a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever.'

It is this resonant and rallying cry in favour of maximal personal liberty and the curbing of political power, in spite of it lacking the subtlety of Kafka's The Trial or the penetrating wit of Huxley's Brave New World, which will make Nineteen Eighty-Four a book of universal appeal and significance for many generations still to come.


A complex, haunting masterpiece, 29 Aug 2008
The first thing to remember about '1984' is that Orwell wasn't trying to predict what life would be like in 1984, or even in 2008. If the book is any good, it's not because it's an accurate picture of life as we know it. It is, however, a pretty faithful depiction of life in a totalitarian society; little happens in the book that didn't really happen in Germany between 1933 and 1945, or in many of the Eastern bloc countries between 1917 and 1989.

The second thing to remember is that Orwell was not against socialism. He described himself as a believer in "democratic socialism", and he was one, which is something that socialists who don't believe in democracy but in party discipline have never forgiven him for to this day. The horror of '1984' is not the horror of life in a socialist society; Orwell was a supporter, albeit a wary one, of Britain's post-war Labour government. The book is about life in a society which is entirely politicised - where there is nothing that doesn't relate to the political ends of the administration. There have been such societies, they still exist (hello, North Korea) and what Orwell was suggesting is that our own could become one too, if we aren't careful.

Winston Smith is not a mouthpiece for Orwell. Winston is more sentimental, more naive and more bourgeois than Orwell, or at least than the 'Orwell' persona (Orwell the man is not always to be identified with the persona he adopted as a non-fiction writer). '1984' is not a straightforward novel about two sensitive people in an uncaring world, and nor does it suggest that a totalitarian society is just a matter of a lot of CCTV cameras. It is deeper, darker and weirder than t