The best book I’ve ever read is ‘1984’, by George Orwell.
It is a dystopian novel, which takes place in the imaginary London of 1984. At that time, three totalitarian super-states engage each other in an endless war. Great Britain, now known as Airstrip One, is a province of one of those three states, Oceania, and is ruled by the ‘Party’ and its mysterious leader, the Big Brother, who has an intense cult of personality. All the people who don’t surrender to its power are purged out by the Thought Police, and there’s constant surveillance through Telescreens (televisions), cameras and microphones.
The main character is Winston Smith, an average member of the lowest levels of the ‘Party’, whose job is rewriting historical records to conform them to the state’s version of the story and destroying the old ones. He secretly opposes the party and wants rebellion, but he knows he’s a ‘thoughtcriminal’ and it’s very likely to be caught.
One of the things I liked the most in this book was the way Orwell described the organization of the ‘Party’ and its effects on people: the continuously rewritten history, the ‘Doublethink’, the people’s complete faith to the ‘Party’ and to the Big Brother. They believed everything they were told, even if it was very evidently contradictory. Everything is so absurd and twisted but it’s narrated as if it were natural, which, in my opinion, makes the novel very interesting to read. While reading it, I had the impression I was experiencing such events in first person: I could feel both Winston’s mixed emotions of rebellion and resignation to the overwhelming power of the ‘Party’.
I think that the quote that best encloses the sense of the whole book is:
‘Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime is death.’
Which means that just thinking that the government is bad implies that you will eventually be caught, and, then you will become an ‘unperson’, that is to say that not only you will die, but also no trace of your passage will be left. Completely erasing a person from history is something brutal, which contradicts all the natural human rights and desires. Orwell really succeeded in creating the perfect punishment: every man’s worst nightmare is being completely forgotten.
To sum up, 1984 is an outstanding masterpiece that I recommend to everyone, but, before you read it, make sure you can withstand the huge psychological pressure it gives.