Winston is shadowy character. He is selfish and brute. He can steal, can lie and can even torment a child. He is not power hungry but can kill for muscle. He is a bigot, yet abhors party politics. Isn’t he within us somewhere?
I am reading 1984 by George Orwell. Animal farm by him was much more intriguing, since it was allegorical and less dystopian. 1984 is not an amusing read. It is a book, where Orwell chooses an artless way to showcase how simple political dogma can be turned into malleable propaganda.1984 on the other hand is intense, wise, satirical, dark and stoic. The character of Winston is gloomy, apathetic and selfish. The book begins with a lot on the revolution, how people deal with it and the tyranny by totalitarian society. The formation of army and persecution of independent thinker (called ‘thought crimes’) is disquieting.
A particular section where Orwell describes reality only exerts its pressure through the needs of everyday life is thought provoking. The book says:
Between life and death and between physical pleasure and physical pain, there is still a world, and with the past, the citizen of Oceania is like interstellar space, which has no way of knowing which direction is up and which is down. The rulers of such state are absolute as the Pharaohs or Caesars could not be.
The war, therefore, if we judge by the previous standards of war is merely an imposture. It is like the battles between several ruminant animals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of hurting one another.
I won’t say that I love it and the book is a masterpiece. But the dark humor, satire and the entail on revolution is worth a read!
