1984

Read by Will

I have read 6 hours.
I am in the middle of the book "1984" by George Orwell. It is about a man named Winston Smith. He lives in a totalitarian society in the year 1984. The country is governed by a body known only as "The Party." The public face of The Party is Big Brother. The government has absolutely no limits on its power. There are telescreens almost everywhere. The telescreens have cameras and microphones in them so the government can monitor the citizens. No one knows when the telescreens are monitored. They could be always on, or never.

Winston works at the Ministry of Truth. Their main job is to change any form of literature to reflect what The Party wants. For example, Big Brother might have made a speech in a newspaper article in January saying that 10,000 razor blades would be made. If in March, it appear that only 8,000 razor blades would be made, than the Ministry of Truth would have to change the news story in the archives so that Big Brother only said 6,000, making it look like they overproduced. The old newspaper would be incinerated and the change becomes the truth.
Changing the truth is a big theme in his book. For example, The Party uses basic communistic propaganda about capitalism being evil. They paint a stereotypical picture of a capitalist. He wears a business suit and a top hat and owns everything and all the poor people are just there to serve him. Then, to make that truth propagate, that vaporize all the older people who know about the pre- Revolution world. Only a few are left, but they are all scatterbrained and forgetful. Vaporization is the punishment for doing something The Party doesn't like. No one knows exactly what they do, but the theory is that you are tortured until you admit your crimes, then executed.
There are rarely trials, maybe once a year. After you are vaporized, The Ministry of Truth is set to the task of destroying any evidence that you ever existed, again changing the past.

There are more intricate complexities, but I can't tell them all here.
Overall, it is an interesting and thought provoking book.