It’s a long time since I read 1984. I’m fairly certain that it would have been prior to the year 1984. It’s one of those books that many of us study at school (although it being a twentieth century novel, it played no part in my ‘O’ Level). It has also just been named as one the top 100 favourite novels in the country, in the BBC’s Big Read.
Of course, despite the lingua franca of the time the book’s set in being Newspeak, it has leant us two main additions to the English language, or perhaps has ripped away from their true meaning two phrases.
To many people Room 101 now refers to a Nick Hancock/Paul Merton hosted series, but Big Brother is what has truly entered the common language. For years it has been the expression of choice to describe governments’ attempts to ever more closely monitor citizens’ behaviour. But now, sadly, it’s mind-numbingly dull “reality” gameshow that bears its name. I daresay that the average man in the street considers this to be the meaning of the word, and fails to realise the despotic overtones that it should bring to bear.
But let’s return to the novel. Tony Benn spoke the other week of reading it, and I guess that made me pick up a copy. I suppose it’s the overnight switching of enemies between Eurasia and Eastasia without a moment’s thought; now one is our enemy while the other is our friend. Iraq anyone?
I undoubtedly took more out of the novel this time around, although I do recall that I was just as bored with the long extracts from Goldstein’s alleged book this time around as last time.
Certainly it belongs in the pantheon of favourtie British novels (even if one believes that it’s really there because so many of us had to read it at school – the same could be said of many on the Big Read list).