1948 - yes you read that correctly! (Nineteen Eighty-four - George Orwell)

Member Name: MisterReview

Product:	Nineteen Eighty-four - George Orwell
Date:	11/07/09 (30 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A great look back at British history!!

Disadvantages: None

How often have we heard the phrase Big Brother is watching you and not really given much though to where the phrase came from. For my generation who grew up in the computer age certainly, but not in the internet age. we didn't really see a society where cameras watched your every move, where you would freely, of your own volition, carry a tracking device everywhere you went (mobile phone and lets not forget various RFID devices).

Not only do the lamposts now have cameras mounted on them, they also have microphones to listen in - no you didn't know that did you?

Even for the safety conscious who switch their mobile phone off when driving, they are still being tracked if they have sat-nav, or a car equipped to report impending faults to the rescue services in advance. OK that last one is not at all common, but the technology is all there, as is the infrastructure, and will soon be in affordable cars as well.

Then there is your PC, hooked up to the rest of the world, and chucking out bits of information as well as receiving it. Do you know what is coming in and out of your internet connection.

Then we get onto that old chestnut, the ID card, retinal scans, DNA, fingerprints. I so love living in the 'free' western society!

This is not just a modern phenomena. Let's not forget that for the past century or so we have had telephones in our house - basically a microphone and a speaker - when you put the phone back on the hook, the connection isn't entirely broken, so that microphone is still accessible.

But that is not what Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four is really about, is it?

The story revolves around Winston Smith living in a dystopian society where your every move is tracked. In this society there are restrictions, the likes of which we could not imagine. There is that sense of the 'forces' (police, army etc) being ever present. There are the informers. There is a different sense of vocabulary and history is constantly being re-written (that was indeed Winston's job). We are reminded through out the book of the wars that are being fought. There is a love element to the story, in the form of Julia. And there is Winston's battles and dilemmas inside his mind. All this is set against a bleak derelict background.

If you have read this book, go back and read it again, except transpose the 8 and 4 in 1984 to read 1948. Try and imagine the social, political and cultural background prevalent at the time George Orwell wrote this masterpiece.

Yes he got the future spot on, but he also left us an important historical document of how Britain really was in the 1940s, it doesn't take too much of a leap to read between the lines here.

Summary: A shocker of a book that you will want to re-read and gain a new meaning each time.