Nineteen Eighty Four is one of those truly great books that becomes greater with age. Orwell’s prose is never better than here, and the shock of recognition at the similarities between elements of his fictional nightmare world and our own grow with each year. Nineteen Eighty Four is a book that has a potent physical effect on the reader (this reader anyway) – the claustrophobia of Winston Smith’s world, the subtle monstrous insanity of its rules and regulations and the ultimate futility of resistance produce a distinct sense of horror and helplessness within the reader, activating an involuntary empathy. Re-reading the book and returning to Winston Smith’s world, however, is to feel a distinct unease. Orwell’s future vision is an inherent part of our culture now, commoditised and trivialised, denied shock value or reconsideration due to its very familiarity. Recently I re-read George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four, fifteen years after first reading it.
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