1984: A book review

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THE BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU

"Who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past".

Not many of you might know that famous television shows ‘The Big Brother’ and its Indian version ‘Big Boss’ are vaguely conceptualized on the theme of this novel. There are two ways you can read 1984-First, to read it word by word as a spectator to the novel or second, to live it through the eyes of the narrator, Winston Smith. George Orwell’s 1984 is a gripping satire, a warning for human society and sheer storytelling brilliance. If  Nazis' history has shades of barbarism,then the extreme nature of totalitarian regime can be absolutely chilling.1984 is all about imagining existence of such a world .

(Spoiler alert for this paragraph; not much revealed though)

A mystical figure, ‘The Big Brother’ is believed to be keeping track of each of your activity. The past is mutable. A totalitarian party exists, which can choose to rewrite the history the way it wants. The history, to put in simple words, has been arrested. Any sort of evidence that might prove the party weak is altered, and any wrong prediction altered.  A thought rebellion is criminal and it is caught by the telescreen that watches you all the time.People are vaporized from society not for committing any crime, but based on their eccentric thought process which might have made them to commit a crime against the party in future. They don’t die, they will never have existed.. The party believes that killing people in the open will glorify the victim and shame them. So, they don't punish the heretic overtly but annihilate them from all records of past and future. The system is moulded to safeguard the infallibility of the party. War is a continuous process yet people are indifferent to it. “In the eyes of the party there were no distinctions between the thought and the deed”.

In such savage conditions, what happens to a man called Winston Smith, who nurtures a thoughtcrime: a rebellion against Party in his own mind by falling in love, is central to the story.

The lines
"Under the spreading chestnut tree
I sold you and you sold me—"
are somehow gut-wrenching and  apt.

Also At one point of time, Winston contemplates while writing-

“How could you communicate with the future? It was impossible. Either the future would resemble the present in which case it would not listen to him, or it would be different from it, and his predicament would be meaningless."

George Orwell as a storywriter engrosses you throughout with his lucid and thought-provoking story astonishingly written in 1949 with a foresight of the world in 1984.Thoughtcrime, doublethink, crimestop, newspeak, the thought police-Orwell’s jargons force us to think of the relevancy of his vision in some subtle ways. It’s not only engrossing, but at times frightening when you imagine your own existence in such a world!

This is a must-read book and I have no qualms on why it is rated as one of the best books ever written. 1984: A book review

A Thousand Splendid Suns: Heart-wrenching

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Powerful. Moving. Thought-Provoking.Deep.

The details so life-like and the situations so agonizing. A Thousand Splendid Suns, is a poignant story that'll move you and leave you wondering about the adversities that dwell beyond our comfortable world. An account set against the turbulent war background in Afghanistan, painted through the words of two women whose lives are weaved together in a place where happiness and hope have dried up like parched lips in drought. A male author's description of such tragic incidents has amazed me. The characters represent typical Afghani  women and the sufferings they endured during the war period. The analogies drawn make the narration so staggeringly beautiful and deep.For instance, the characteristic of earthquake to be more dangerous in depth yet appearing as mere tremors on surface is so aptly compared with Aziza's condition in orphanage. She is so happy outside, hardlya reflection of what boils deep inside.

These lines below are  kind of a spoiler, if you haven't read, but need mention here just because without it the review is incomplete. Indispensably, they capture the gist.

Mariam wished for so much in those final moments. Yet as she closed her eyes, it was not regret any longer but a sensation of abundant peace that washed over her. She thought of her entry into this world, the harami child of a lowly villager, an unintended thing, a pitiable, regrettable accident. A weed. And yet she was leaving the world as a woman who had loved and been loved back. She was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian. A mother. A person of consequence at last. No. It was not so bad, Mariam thought, that she should die this way. Not so bad. This was a legitimate end to a life of illegitimate belongings.

So, if you haven't realized what Afghan war did to the innocents, read this book to enlighten you about the hardships that entailed. Don't miss the opportunity to be a listener to one of the most heart-wrenching tale ever told or at least ever read by me. A tale of overcoming harships and biting bad time, in wait of the good. As a line says:

" Of all the hardships a person had to face, none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting.”

PS: Looking forward to Khalid Hosseini's The Kite Runner, only that I already have seen the movie. Still the narrative of the book will be unparalled, I have gauged !