Nineteen Eighty-four is a genius, a masterpiece whatever. I regret putting it off for so long, always treating it as another cliche in the book lists. George Orwell now holds the place as my most respected author, because of his integrity and brilliance.

For those who believed that Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four was a failure because of the success of Animal Farm, I absolutely disagree with it. Animal farm was pure, as the original New York Times Review of 1984 put it, mechanical allegory. It was a situation for situation transfer of situations. 1984 was a mark of fiction; exploring the abominations of totalitarianism and what society could transform into. It was challenge to the current system; a voice of social concern.

Big Brother, however much drawn as a parallel to Stalin, I believe, was not Stalin. Big Brother was a representative of the party, because a human figure was always easier to identify with than a "party". The party had conjured up this image as propaganda toward the people (although now even the use of the word propaganda seems shallow because we know what really happened was far worst than that).

Nineteen Eighty-four was a social warning, and damn well it has served its purpose.