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Nineteen Eighty-Four

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Nineteen Eighty-Four

By: George Orwell
Narrated by: Tim Pigott-Smith
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About this listen

Winston Smith works for the Ministry of Truth in London, chief city of Airstrip One. Big Brother stares out from every poster and the Thought Police uncover each act of betrayal. When Winston finds love with Julia, he discovers that life does not have to be dull and deadening and awakens to new possibilities. Despite the police helicopters that hover and circle overhead, Winston and Julia begin to question the Party.

Yet Big Brother will not tolerate dissent - even in the mind. For those with original thoughts they invented Room 101....

Nineteen Eighty-Four is George Orwell's terrifying vision of a totalitarian future in which everything and everyone is slave to a tyrannical regime. Christopher Eccleston, Tim Pigott-Smith and Pippa Nixon star in this new drama, part of BBC Radio 4's The Real George Orwell season - a Radio 4 journey that explores the disjuncture between the man who was Eric Blair and the writer who was George Orwell.

©2013 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2013 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd Classics Dystopian Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Political Science Fiction
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I wish I had never listened to this yet at 66 I am glad that I have done so..

The scenario is quite horrible to read about, let alone imagine - and I am certain it could have been real..

A Horror...

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Don't expect an audio transcript- you will be disappointed. I was, but I persisted and by goly it was worth it!

Amazing but not a radio play not a reading!

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look. i loved i also want to die right now and curl into a ball for the next three years.

i am dead.

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Struggled to get into at first, but riveted by the final chapter. Will be worth a second session.

Quality dramatization

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Loved it. It was much shorter than I expected it to be however. People really need to consider the similarities between this fictional novel and the slippery slope that society is presently on. Watch "Snowden" then imagine how bad Big Brother would be with 21st century technology....

Should be mandatory in the school curriculum

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This is a captivating, yet sick perverted novel contains convoluted ideas that would surely be classified as ridiculous futuristic psychological fiction. I read it only because so many speak of it as if it to be a reference book. It is a psychological thriller and the man who wrote it, surely is a twisted genius with problems. It makes you think and the rest, I would hope to forget.

A twisted and perverted novel

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Would you try another book written by George Orwell or narrated by Tim Pigott-Smith?

This recording was a huge disappointment! I thought I was downloading the audio book, not some hammy radio dramatization. Am very disappointed and feel misled by the words "ORIGINAL" and "narrated by" in audio book title.

Has Nineteen Eighty-Four put you off other books in this genre?

My first Audible title was great but this one has made me wary of the products I'm buying on Audible.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

There is no reader/narrator!

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Annoyance and disappointment - not with the novel but with its misrepresentation as an audio book. Blew my freebie for the month.

Any additional comments?

Please make clear whether we are buying the reading of a book or a dramatisation. It is a completely different experience.

Beware - this is not the audio book!

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This book is beautifully read, however it is not a reading of the book. This best described as a radio play with some of Orwell's beautifully written detail missing. Good but not the classic text.

Dramatic but not complete

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