I was in a book shop in Muswell Hill today and over heard a the employees, (among poorly explained warnings of a coming world economic superstate) a female employee was asking a male working at the till weather he has read 1984. She hasn't and has only seen a small part of the film and actually thinks its good. the attitude of the people working in the shop I want to work in, towards the books they're selling made me very angry while trying to read the forward to Asimov's robot series. so i have decided to write a little about it.
Nineteen-eighty-four is the classic dystopia scifi novel it encapsulates a love storey between to non-conformist lovers. In a socialist war torn future the the life style of the individuals life is dictated by Nazi regime and ever scrutinised by ever present cameras. A personal favourite touch of detail in the book is when a fictional manifesto of a revolutionary. The book includes some interesting concepts of mind control such as limiting the language of a people as to limit their capacity for though and population control facilitated by children trained to spy on their parents, much like the Nazi youth. This was a great book and is a classic for I reason would recommend it to anyone! A female friend of mine read it and greatly appreciated my recommendation (a very rare thing fro her I assure).
Today in East Finchley I also picked up a copy of Our Post Human Future by Francis Fukuyama, which in the opening paragraph parallels 1984 (published 1949) to Brave New World (published 1932). Fukuyama's book is mainly focused on the impact of biotechnology. however the dystopian world of 1984 is world in which there is propaganda and surveillance are the only weapons of the state. Set in world of ceaseless war to wain the over productivity of the worlds labour forces. Orwells 1984 is socialist world with no privacy, I think it was brave of him to speculate so close into the future. The book is also a beautiful romance novel is defiantly a must to readers.
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