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This Book Predicted EVERYTHING… Why 1984 Still Feels So Real Today

The Book Club

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Why is 1984 as relevant today as when it was published? Who is Big Brother, and why is he so powerful? What was George Orwell's intention when creating the world of 1984 and what does it tell us about governments today?

Join Dominic Sanbrook and Tabitha Syrett as they discuss all this and more.

📚 You can order 1984 and explore our favourite Folio books at ⁠⁠https://foliosociety.com/thebookclub⁠

00:00 — AD
01:14 — The Most Famous Opening in Fiction
02:28 — What 1984 Is Really About
06:32 — Winston’s Secret Rebellion Begins
07:29 — Why This Book Is So Addictive
08:37 — “Big Brother” & Orwell’s Legacy
09:40 — Who Was George Orwell?
17:30 — Stalin, Propaganda & 1984
19:00 — WWII’s Hidden Influence
22:29 — More on Orwell's life
31:06 — Banned, Praised & Controversial
36:06 — Did Orwell Predict the Future?
38:00 — Winston: The Anti-Hero Explained
42:21 — Inside Orwell’s Dystopian World
45:06 — The Ministry of Truth Explained
51:54 — Newspeak: Controlling Language
54:10 — “Vaporised”: Erasing People
56:52 — Julia, Sex & Rebellion
58:55 — Does 1984 reveal Orwell’s subconscious thoughts?
1:05:24 — Winston & Julia's Affair
1:07:37 — The Terrifying Climax Of The Book…
1:14:43 — Room 101 Horror
1:16:05 — Depressing Final Scene
1:16:55 — Did Orwell Kill Hope?
1:20:13 — A Period Piece or a Warning for the 21st Century?
1:23:20 — Rating 1984 Out Of Ten + Conclusion

Exec Producer: Dom Johnson
Senior Producer: Nicole Maslen
Social Producer: Emma Jackson
Video Editor: Joe Pettit

20 Comments

@bellajay214 6 months ago

I absolutely love the structure of talking about the historical context before diving into the literary analysis, this is everything I've wanted from a literature podcast.

@angelawebb7676 5 months ago

I agree with Dominic. 10/10. Incredible book, not for boys or girls, but humans.

@lrmunro 5 months ago

I think you both missed the point about Winston’s perception of Julia. His perception of her represents the party’s destruction of normal relationships between men and women.

@clararob9869 6 months ago (edited)

I am a woman and I first read 1984 in my early 20s and I thought it was great, now at 48 I have read many more by Orwell. I love his gritty working class style. I think maybe middle class women dont like it, but I am very working class and it reasonates me

@chrissy1510 6 months ago (edited)

I agree with Dominic. 10 out of 10. (And I’m female)

@kathenavarro6850 5 months ago

I actually read 1984 in the year 1984! I decided i couldn't let the year pass without reading it. It's a classic. So it HAD to be done!

@CrashedTGN 6 months ago (edited)

The first two thirds of 1984 is a good book, the final third is a masterpiece. When O’Brien spells out the party’s motives and goals it is truly surprising and traumatic in equal measure.

The most horrifying aspect is that 1984 is not entirely a work of fiction, we have historical examples of people just like O’Brien who really would see the world turned into such a bleak and colourless place for their own ends.

When I finished this book I realised that how we live now is a fluke of history and there is no guarantee in nature that prevents us from living under such a system. To quote Tolkien, ‘it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keeps the darkness at bay.’

Cherish your freedom people and fight for it everyday.

@BenjaminNavillus 6 months ago

The accusation that the female characters are reductive by being symbols I think is unfair in that most of the characters are symbols, including possibly Winston himself. Plus I thought that Julia is deliberately ambiguous. Was she really an agent or a victim?

@JesterMoon-l3i 12 days ago

I have read both of the books. I can now see the ideas behind the stories. I had no idea what was behind the books.
Great Show Again my fellow book lovers ❤️ 29:43
Never Stop

@janfwagner 2 months ago (edited)

The point about Winston’s relationships with women was completely distorted, so just to clarify: Neither George Orwell nor his character Winston Smith is “sexist.” The problem/issue with Smith’s wife is that she has been turned into a robot by the Party due to being brainwashed. Many characters Smith meets, for example the male “duckspeaker,” share the same fate. He also initially believes that Julia, whom he is attracted to sexually (a normal behaviour by the way), has been affected. He’s not an “incel,” but the Last Man In Europe. The book deals with the effects of mind control, nothing further. Regards

@joloveslife 6 months ago

Btw, I for one think you shouldn't try to keep these podcasts to an hour😅. The longer the better!!! It's a true joy listening to you both discuss these books. ❤

@Naptime2013 6 months ago

1984 was a very pivotal book for me. It was the first novel I ever read. I also read it in 1984 (it was a big deal at the time). I remember being disappointed at the ending, hoping Winston was going to somehow overcome the odds. I don’t think I appreciated it until years later when I witnessed parallels in modern events and daily news stories. Eternally grateful to Orwell for having the vision of what could happen and the means of warning the rest of us years later.

@somesicilian5420 6 months ago

It's the doublespeak nowadays that frightens me most

@Robert.Sheard 5 days ago

I often taught Orwell to launch my high school classes in English literature (grade 12 in North Carolina). In the general level classes, it was always a coin toss if the students were bothering to read or engage with our discussions. But then over the years, I began to get messages online from students I was convinced hadn't bothered with the novel talking about how many parallels they see in American society and the book. That's been hugely gratifying.

@ashroskell 6 months ago (edited)

All of the characters in 1984 are caricatures, with the possible exception of O’Brian, including Winston himself. I think singling out Orwell’s writing of women in that book is just misreading it.
Winston is emotionally and sexually immature. How could he or Julia be anything other? They are both projecting an internal ideal on each other in a society with no intimacy, trust or objective reality.

@davidjamesperry1584 6 months ago

What Orwell didn’t predict was that people would voluntarily ALLOW (via internet,phones, AI, apps etc) Big Brother to rule their lives.

@BIuffwatcher 6 months ago

Here from The Rest is History. What a wonderful discovery!

@Some_Guy_From_Somewhere 6 months ago

The final paragraph of this book is the scariest and the most depressing thing I've ever read.

@molessijanmarina7938 6 months ago

I don't understand how can anyone read this book as sexsist. I is about what fear and dark times make of people. And if anything, his opinion about women added one more dimenson to Winston, being not only a victim of the sistem, but to a certain part narrow minded himself. I read it as there are no much "black and white" situations in life.