1984 by George Orwell (audio book)

About 3 weeks ago I borrowed 1984 from the UMD library. I didn’t realize when I checked it out that it was abridged - I was busy talking to my friend and rushing off to the next thing. When I saw it was abridged, I was disappointed but figured, eh, how bad could it be? Well, it was...okay...but I could tell there were bits missing because the story just wasn’t right. I didn't review it at the time because I wanted to find a full length version.

So I went and checked it out from the Duluth library. Wow. What a difference. I don’t think I need to discuss the premise of the book as it’s so well known, so I’ll touch on other bits.

For starters, the abridged version was 2 hours, the complete version, 9 hours. The abridged version made it into a romance and only a romance. Everything that made it “1984" was completely chopped out. I’m so glad I took the time to hunt down a full version.

I also found myself comparing this to WE by Yevgany Zamatin. WE is more of a utopian story, whereas I found 1984 to be more of a rant against Communism. The similarities between the books were striking: One uniform. No sex. You are always being watched. Mandatory activities at appointed times. Don’t speak ill of the ruling class. One difference (there are more but I don’t want to blather on too much) was 1984 had a lower class - the proles (since it was an audio book I’m not sure how that was spelled). Winston felt that hope lay with them as the Party felt they were not worth their time or attention and they could do pretty much as they wanted. WE did not have a lower class of people, everyone was the same.

In hindsight, it was unfortunate my book group didn’t think to read 1984 and WE at the same time. That would have been a very interesting discussion.