If anyone wants to start the year with a depressing movie, take a look at the 1984 version of “1984” starring John Hurt and a creepy Richard Burton. Guaranteed to ruin your day....

Orwell, a master of language.

Odd, that Orwell considered himself to be a socialist. Yet he wrote about the how the state gains power by manipulating those who do not think (not just the sheep) and by outright subterfuge. Power is inevitable misused. Is it the state, or is it particular individuals? Both? Some become the state (deep state), faceless, others are the front men of whom everything is known - just about nothing as they are empty shells, but we do not know who is behind them. Once power is achieved efforts are put into eliminating opposition, real and imaginary.
Orwell's heroes/protagonists are not philosophers, they ask simple questions and answer to themselves (and to the reader) honestly. Whether Orwell was a socialist deep down or in his early years is no barrier to great admiration of his work. What strikes the reader is the honesty of description, of things that are clearer to us now 50-80 years later, he wrote what he saw and described it to us. He had ideals, these were spoken by those in power, but the speeches and propaganda did not match what was being done.

"London was not always the beautiful city we see today" was what he read. Smith looked, he saw decay, grime, peeling paint, dirt, squalor. He told us what he saw.

Recommendation- listen to the audio book of 1984. There is a very good one, narrator- Rykstra? cool English accent, deadpan, chilling.

Looks like a great read...

I wonder how Rand and Orwell would have gotten along...I wonder if their timelines ever crossed.