"1984" ~ George Orwell

The Book 1984 is set, as the title suggests, in the year 1984, However, it was written in 1949. It’s basically just prediction of what is going to happen if any Totalitarian government continues to rule. Author George Orwell’s knowledge of Totalitarian Government was, most probably, based on the Soviet Union and Nazi’s Germany. Those governments had come into being not that long before this book was written. Also, this regime was not very well understood yet. Orwell, through this book, has tried to give readers a clear picture of what life could be like if any country gets ruled by a totalitarian government.  

A Totalitarian Government is one that tries to control every aspect of the life of common citizens. How people spend every minute of their time, even in private, who can they associate, what are they allowed to say.  A Totalitarian Government even tries to control what people think and what they believe.

1984 takes place in London. London in the book is a depressing place. There is never enough to eat, the food is disgusting. There is some sort of war going on that no one really understands what it is about. The worst part is the Government is always watching what people do. The poster of the ruling Party leader BIG BROTHER is all over the city which reads “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU”. The Government could watch people at their homes through the TV screens, they call it Telescreen and It’s not supposed to be turned off ever. There are lot of things that you are not allowed to do in this society… you are not allowed to have close friends, you are not allowed to be in love, you aren’t allowed to date, someone. You are basically supposed to save all your emotional energy for the party. i.e. The Government. BIG BROTHER. Then there are things that you must do… You must watch government programs on TV, you must attend all party-called meetings including 2-minute hate meets. Where everyone must show and shout out loud the hatred against those imaginary people who do not align with the Government’s beliefs. It’s hard to even have time to think your own thoughts because they are constantly feeling your head with propaganda.

The main character, in 1984, Winston Smith is a clerk in this dystopian province of Oceania. He works in the ministry of Truth where his job is to ensure that any unsavory information about the past is wiped out and rewritten in all publications. The old information is then destroyed as though it never existed. Though Winston works for Government but deep in his heart, his thoughts don’t align with that of government. At the beginning of the book, he starts writing a diary to talk about how much he hates his life and his society, even though writing a diary is one of those things that he can be killed if found out. The Diary is his place for thinking about his society. It’s a place where he tries to imagine if life could possibly be different from the way it is. Also, there is no way to know if things were any different before. The Government has changed all the records of the past and rewritten all the history books.

In Winston’s story, there is this young attractive woman, Julia, who works in the same building as that of him. Winston basically hates her because she is pretty, and he can’t have her. So, he is afraid of her but also sort of fascinated. The other person Winston is interested in is another guy whose name is O Brian who is a member of inner-party, which means he is much higher up in the rank. Brian always seemed intelligent to Winston.   And since he was intelligent, He will understand how Winston feels about life.

The book takes a turn on the day when Julia slips Winston a note that read “I love you”. This note completely rocks Winston’s world. Of course, He is interested, and He can’t wait to get in touch with her. But It’s very hard for them to say two words to each other in private with all these spies and cameras everywhere. After some time though, they do manage to get out of the country, and they start this mad love affair. This is dangerous for both Winston and Julia because they can be killed if they got caught but that makes it more exciting. None the less, this love affair brings happiness in Winston’s life and he feels more confident about his feelings towards the government and finally, he has someone who understands him and hates the party as much as he does. Though he is rebelling against the party by having this secret affair but now he wants to go to next level and be an active rebel against the government. And he gets his chance one day… To find out whether Winston makes any significant progress in his new conceived goal or does he meet the same fate as that of lead characters in other books of George Orwell, I strongly recommend this book.   

Reading “1984” makes you think about how information is altered before it hits mainstream media, what’s true, what’s not true and what’s skewed. It makes you believe something that’s not completely true. We don’t know how much of that goes on in our present society, but It happens so much in 1984. Not sure, If we are already there, but obviously we are going down that path and it’s very scary to think that someday we all could just be robots, brainwashed by the Government and just believing what’s being told, not thinking ourselves, just accepting everything.

All in all, 1984 is an incredible story. It’s hard to notice any segment of the book where the story gets dry or being dragged. Unlike most of the classics, It’s such an easy read. You will be able to fly through and enjoy every page of it.

LATITUDES OF LONGING – BOOK REVIEW

Shubhangi Swarup’s debut Novel ‘Latitudes of Longing’ can be considered as one of the most ambitious novels by an Indian English Author. Events are drawn from the edge between life and death, between untamed-islands and urbanized civilization, between abstinence and promiscuity. Built over such varied landscapes, the novel is sort of a testament to possibilities – good and bad. These aren’t linear tales whose equation can be derived, and outcomes can be determined at the outset. Instead, they are more like irregular curves which have no set pattern but each node, be it maxima or minima, is worth pondering over, they show that “anything is possible because everything is.”

The story is split into four parts that intersect with one another at times but largely maintain their independence. Just like hypothesis testing in Data science, The Author provides a null hypothesis at the beginning of every section and it is followed by enough data that the readers can come up with their own alternate hypothesis and can either accept or reject the Author’s null hypothesis. Also, the story is so layered that it’s not certain that every individual has the same test result.

ISLANDS

The first section, Islands, is set in the Andaman in the two decades post India’s freedom from British rule. Girija Prasad Varma is a botanist and a scholar who is tasked by the then Prime Minister with setting up the National Forestry Service. Posted to the Andamans, Girija studies plants, their origins, and uses. A bride is arranged for him from the mainland. The co-protagonist of the story, Chanda Devi and Girija are brought together by their contradictory as well as complimentary thoughts – drawing knowledge from each other.

While Mr. Varma strives to solve botanical mysteries about the origin and habitat of plants, Chanda Devi’s time passes with the ghosts on the islands, in premonitions. In time, Both, Girija and Chanda, arrive at the conclusion that on this island “neither can make it alone.” On Chanda’s insistence, Girija agrees to take in a woman called Mary from the Karen community of Burma who has been left widowed after eloping and her child sent back to Rangoon because she has no way of caring for him.

FAULTLINE

In the second section, the story reaches Burma to Mary’s son, Plato, who has been imprisoned. After 23 years, Plato’s friend, Thapa, arrives to collect Mary from the Andamans. This second section called Faultline also highlights on Burma’s troubled history in the ’70s as protests against high inflation and food shortage is violently suppressed by the government.

VALLEY

 A character is introduced, in each section, whose story carries into the next. In Valley, Thapa is older now and invested emotionally in a much younger woman called Bebo. He journeys to India where he meets the elderly patriarch of his village called Apo.

SNOW DESERT

In Snow Desert, the focus turns to Apo’s romance with a Kashmiri woman named Ghazala in his final years. The author has vividly captured the nuances of it and has been very successful in it.

This is a novel with many thematic as well as tonal shifts. It is not driven by characters so much as it is by their relationships to the external environment – ghosts, the natural world, storytelling, governments, others. After reading this book, readers can take home a layered understanding of relationships rather than individuals. Author’s interest in how people are transformed by one another is noticeable. Protagonist invests a lifetime of silence in matters of affection, another character invests a lifetime in forgetting certain kinds of emotions. But when coupled, they are surprised to find those defenses weakening and those habits challenged.

One cannot fail to notice in Swarup’s “Latitudes...”  is a vivid description of silence. The novel opens with the line, “Silence on a tropical island is the relentless sound of water.” Throughout the book, different kinds of silence are noted. There is “larval silence” before dawn, the silence that precedes separation and follows childbirth, the silence in which “lies...resignation”. There are meditative silences, purposeful silences to postpone conversations, and disciplined internal silences which protect against madness. For Girija, the silence of swimming in the Andamans’ clear waters is like a prayer.

Latitudes can be better described as a series of interconnected short stories. Starting with expansive landscapes that gradually move into narrower straits – which can leave you feeling like the stakes of the novel are lower at the end than the start. Some of the strengths displayed in the Islands do not carry forward into the rest of the book, which is bit strange. But there is no doubt Swarup’s debut is very interesting. When taken apart, the novel is a series of well-sculpted sentences and one-liners, that tell convincing stories. It’s certain that Latitudes will be able to establish Swarup as an Indian writer to pay attention to.