Hard to rate this ... in many ways it was important when the book came out, but as time went by, the book has become less and less valuable in many ways ... but it's still mandatory reading in many high schools, at least it was in my time, and some of my brothers and sisters.

Since then, with the advent of video, film and multi media materials a book/play about this, kinda becomes a bit way behind its time, and will not be appreciated for what it meant at the time, and how it stood up for so long.

Today, the materials that you can find in film, and even in the sci-fi area, are so much further ahead and away in ideas and thoughts that it makes this small book, look really poor by comparison. However, again, for its time, it was very good, and valuable ... 

Guess what we got today?

I studied it at school for English Lit. and wrote an essay on visions of the future (it was still the future then!) based on this, Brave New World and A Clockwork Orange.

Excellent book....a must in every cool readers' bookshelf ! .....and remember, yesterday's conspiracy theories are TODAY'S realities :):)

Hi,

I would rather read Aldous Huxley than 1984 ... at least you learn something nice and valuable from him in terms of experience ... but in 1984/Orwell, I find it a bit ... off center, and sometimes towards the mean side of things, which is very sociological if you think about it ... but if we deal with sociological psychopaths, then I read "The Devils of Loudon".

you definitely should read it. and also Orwell's other classic "Animal Farm".

other suggested reads are "Peace on Earth" and "Memoirs Found in a Bathtub" by Stanisław Lem. actually "Memoirs Found in a Bathtub" kind of reminds me of what is currently going on in the USA. and in "Animal Farm" Squealer reminds me of Mitch McConnell.

and "War with the Newts" by Karel Čapek. Čapek is the writer who coined the word "robot" for his satirical play "R.U.R"

Good reading list. I'd add - 

Make Room!, Make Room! - Harry Harrison (basis for the film Soylent Green)

The City & The Stars - Arthur C. Clarke

Anything by Michael Moorcock

Ah, a fellow Dancer at the End of Time.... your secret is safe with me 

The Novella, 'The Machine stops' by E M Forster deserves a mention as do 'The left hand of darkness' and 'The Dispossessed ' by Ursula le Guin.

For a bizarre, dystopian read (in the Michael Moorcock vein) 'The Text of Festival' by counter culture hoodoo and 'Deviant' Mick Farren.

I've had the book for years, just haven't read it.

99% of what I read is biography.

I was just thinking about the book yesterday, because I see it come full circle. Those were against censorship now seem to support it, and vice-versa. I guess I don't see how valuable it would be to read it when I can see this dystopia right in front of my eyes.

I definitely support Jean's suggestion of "War with the Newts". A highly satirical novel in which almost anything that can be spoofed is being spoofed.

I also highly recommend "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov. Another extremely satirical novel. The devil and his entourage come to Moscow and wreak chaos there. Many literary critics consider it to be one of the best books of the 20th century.

For more information about the two books go here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_with_the_Newts" rel="nofollow - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_with_the_Newts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_Margarita" rel="nofollow - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_Margarita

Golden Apples of the Sun was the first book of his i read when i was about 12/13 along with the Earthsea books by Ursula le Guin and Michael Moorcock's Elric books.. We lived in the middle of nowhere and had a travelling library which was a great help to a spotty youth who prefered state was to lose himself in books.

I book i have re-visted recently (and still find it hard work but definately worth it) is Olaf Stapledon's 'Star Maker'.. 

And of course Doris Lessing's Canopus in Argos quintet... 

I notice that most reading suggestions are for books that were written in English. But there are so many outstanding books written in other languages, including dystopias. Here are two dystopian novels by German authors that I highly recommend (and that were translated into English):

"Grand Solo for Anton" by Herbert Rosendorfer. Anton L., a neurotic and rather unpleasant little man, wakes to a strangely quiet morning. Gradually and with increasing fear and confusion he discovers that all other humans seem to have vaporized sometime in the night. Rosendorfer is one of my favourite authors; I especially love his satirical novel "Briefe in die chinesische Vergangenheit" ("Letters back to Ancient China").

I read the book at 18, and I liked it very much. Especially the final interrogation. In some parts it actually seemed heavy and unclear to me. I have read the translation, ok. I am convinced, today, that reading it again, I would not like it very much. And I explain why. 

You will know Umberto Eco, the famous Italian writer of The Name of the Rose. Here, he read the English text and preface the book, and praised Orwell in various respects: creativity, imagination, the ability to create a new world, the ability to devise a negative utopia, the ability to predict the future and to dig into society to extrapolate some values ​​and negative values ​​on the basis of which to warn against a future like 1984, the ability to create a literary genre. And undoubtedly 1984 made history much more than the other negative utopias of the twentieth century. 

Well, I agree with Umberto Eco from all these points of view, but Eco also said another thing, namely that from a strictly literary point of view, the book was not excellent, Orwell, however good, does not have the literary talent of the great of the Novecento (Kafka, Mann, Musil, Proust, Svevo, for example). The uniqueness of 1984 lies more in Orwell's imagination, creativity, intelligence rather than his literary quality.

It is clear, Greg, that everyone has their own opinions on art, but the work of music, literary and artistic critics is to make judgments.

Umberto Eco became famous in Italy for having created a literary group that crushed a lot of literature considered classical and proposed an avant-garde style. Only when he became an elderly man began writing novels, having great commercial success. But he has suffered a retaliation: most of the Italian critics have crushed his novels (while appreciating his work as a critic, semiologist, essayist).

In Italy, very few critics appreciate The Name of the Rose or Foucault's Pendulum. I read the Name of the Rose when I was 20, and I liked it very much (I liked Foucault's Pendulum, but not so much), but I don't know today if I would consider it among the best Italian novels of the twentieth century. Take Hermann Hesse too: most young people like it (I loved it), but if you start reading him after 40 it's harder to like it so much.

Consider that I come from Italy, and in Italy the critics have always been very very demanding, especially on aspects concerning style, writing, composition.

Everyone has his own tastes, you have the records, the books, the films that have marked your life, but the critic's job is to make a judgment that does not concern your tastes, it's the opposite that saying I like it, I don't like it, it is a work that expressly concerns making value judgments, and deciding who are the greats of an era and who are those who are good, perhaps, who have been successful, but who are not among the greatest. The history of music, literature and cinema is dotted with authors who study themselves for their historical importance, but who today's critics can consider inferior to others.

No critic or historian of music has doubts that Mozart is one of the greats and that he looks down on Salieri. But maybe you like Salieri very much. Perhaps some critics also like  Salieri very much but say that Salieri is not one of the greats.

No critic or historian of music has any doubts that in the nineteenth century the greatest authors of opera were Wagner and Verdi. So, you, or me, or the critic, another author may like it very much, but if you have to be a critic, you say who the greatest are, based not on subjectivity but on a judgment that you have formed independently from your tastes.

Then, obviously, no one is obliged to be a critic or to follow the critic judgement, and I myself sometimes consider some critical judgments not related to the pleasure of enjoying art, that is, sometimes there are works written more to have a good critical judgment than for pleasure, and then those are called "academic".

I wish I was better "read" on these things ... I'm quietly embarrassed since so much of the stuff mentioned I was not able to read ... not knowing English enough to enjoy a good book from 15 to 25 at least, which didn't allow me to do well enough in my studies to get into the University until fall of 1978, just to give you an idea ... it took me 13 years, and countless failed Geometry, and Calculus classes because I could not understand anything!

But some of the better known I did read, slow as heck as I had to figure out a lot of the content and words!

1984 was easy and sometime in the 70's I even did sound and lights for a production of it at SBCC ... and that kinda gave me my slight understanding of 1984.

The themes of 1984 continue to resonate. Definitely worth the read.

Not sure how this thread has gone so far without mentioning Rick Wakeman.

Interesting!

Hi,

Nahhh ... that honor probably goes to the Warren Report according to another illustratti!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_%28novel%29" rel="nofollow - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel)

I've read it 15-20 years ago and don't remember much of it, so this discussion was a welcome reminder to revisit it. Along with many other books mentioned here. Thanks!