Monday, October 18, 2010

October Staff Picks


Kreig's Pick
Twentieth Century Interpretations of 1984
Samuel Hynes
PR 6029 .R8 N5346 1971
A collection of Critical Essays By: Isaac Deutcher, Irving Howe, Aldous Huxley, Wyndham Lewis, Stephen Spender, Lionel Trilling and Edited by Samuel Hynes
It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. This one sentence begins one of the most historic and well known pieces of Dystopic literature ever written. The book 1984 by George Orwell delves deeply into future where the world has fallen into three super-powers constantly at war with one another but yet constantly at peace. The idea of Doublethink or as Pritchet calls it “Reality-Controll” is brought into view. The reader follows Winston Smith as he experiences every side of the party’s enemies and even becomes one himself. In Twentieth Century Interpretations of 1984 the reader is given a set of essays that were written about the book itself and delve into how it can be taken by individuals. Anyone who wants to understand the book better or even needs to have more evidence to argue about 1984 should read this collection.

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