Summer Reading

The title of the book which I read during my summer vacation is 1984, and the author of this book is George Orwell.

The reason why I chose this book is that the content of this book is deeply related modern history, especially the way of rule of the Nazis and the Soviet Union, and the Cold War. I am very interested in the modern history. Also, the author was British, and he disclosed partly what was done in the country of totalitarianism or socialism in his novel. Thus, I thought that it is useful to know how the author disclosed and thought about totalitarianism and socialism.

In my opinion, the topic of this book is the anti-totalitarian country and the anti-socialistic country. The overview of this story is very fine I think. The main character, his name is Winston Smith, tries to resist the role of the Party secretly. This is because he thinks the way of the role of the Party is mistaken. The leader of the Party is Big Brother, and he hated him in his mind. However, he and his lover Julia are found and arrested by the Thought Police, which is a police like SS of the Nazis version of the Party. They are parted, and Winston is tortured by O’Brien in the prison, though Winston thought that O’Brien was his side. In the end, after he was entered in “Room 101”and released, he brainwashed and became to love Big Brother.

After reading this book, I thought that this novel was written in about later 1940s, which means that this novel was written in the beginning of Cold War. In addition, the author was a British. Thus, I thought that the role of the Party in this novel might be a little exaggerated. However, I also thought that there might be many things, which were done during World War Ⅱ, or Cold War. This was because the novel seemed modeled the Nazis and the Soviet Union. Therefore, I became to want to know the actual state of life of ordinary people under the rule of the Nazis or the Soviet Union. In addition, I knew that it is very vague that human memory and the past exist, and it is very difficult to prove their existence. I mean that if right memory or the right past were regarded as being wrong, it would be wrong or would be considered that it did not exist. It is alike if right and wrong are opposite. Therefore, I thought that we are also living under the control of memory as that of novel in a sense, which is done by teaching history in every school. From this point of view, I thought that we are living the world which is very unstable and liable to break down. In conclusion, this novel was very interesting and impressive for me. I could enjoy reading it.