[Book review]: 1984

I've just finished the book 1984, by George Orwell.

To say it was thought-provoking was an understatement. Riddled with irony and witty phrases, intelligent ideas and insightful notions, there were points in the book where after coming across a page, a chapter, a sentence or even a phrase would infuse me with pure pleasure that would make me stop and just plain savour, indulging in the moment where my mind would be suspended till the waves of pleasure ceased.

I remember one particular moment when I happened to be on the MRT. I happened to look up and saw an opened door. Framed through the door were the quickened steps of people and then it turned quiet. For a split second, I didn't know where I was. It was the strangest feeling.

The first thought that came to me was, this is 2009. George Orwell predicted a world, more than half a century ago and though it never came to pass, how real it seemed. Before my head shimmered back into this reality, I was lost.

The thing about 1984 wasn't so much a description about a dystopian world should communism have won. There were times when everything exist in my head. I could understand 'doublethink'. I know what it is. 2 + 2 = 5. I saw it together with the protagonist. The mind can be moulded and it can be consciously moulded by the self.

That's the scariest part because I didn't know how many people out there could feel Winston's love for Big Brother when he died. The book was written in the third person narrative. Perhaps many were tortured with him but for some reason, I hope that many too, experienced Winston's death and love along with him although there was also a phrase in 1984, 'Sanity is not statistical' that tells me that my notion should be defenestrated.

I would re-read the book. As much as O'Brien read into Winston's mind, I wonder if Orwell have read into mine. How dark the book was. For a scenario that never came to pass, it could have been superficial or myopic. Yet it was not, it was also about the baser nature of humans and could I have lived in such a world and survive? I wouldn't know.

Yet what's galling wasn't about not knowing if I would follow the footsteps of the dredges of humanity, what struck me was, it was perfectly fine for everybody in the novel to have done what they did. Even if it was a boot stamping on a human face - forever.