Metacognitive Journal #6

Asimov Review of 1984

Asimov's review on the novel "1984" is one that is pretty negative and does not agree with Orwell. The purpose of Asimov writing this review is to set the minds of the people straight and not let them over think about the novel happening to the United States or Europe in real life. Asimov believes that the novel is a very dreadful and dull book that does not portray the future, but instead, portrays the communist country of USSR during the time it was written which was the year of 1949. The book was written to show Orwell's view on communism in Moscow. This review shows Asimov's harsh critiques on Orwell's novel, but does not actually explain the reasons behind why Orwell wrote this novel.

I will analyse Asimov's review by using the critical literary approach. Starting of by the view represented in this text. It is clearly seen that this text is written in the view of Isaac Asimov and his opinions on the novel 1984. This review has nothing to do with the ideas and reasons why Orwell wrote this novel. The intention of Asimov on writing this review is for him to express his thoughts on the novel and to comment on how he felt about it. Asimov felt that this book does not portray the future, but describes how a communist or a totalitarian dictatorship is in an exaggerated way. This text would probably interest critiques or people who read and analyse texts because this novel of Orwell could be deciphered and understood in many, many different ways depending on the person. The cultural assumptions made is that the readers of the book would understand the concepts given in the novel because they have been through the World War and see live examples of what it is like to be ruled by a dictatorship. Asimov connects this idea to the reader through a first person perspective making the reader feel like they are listening to Asimov's opinion and review in person. In his review, Asimov also included harsh comments including how he said that this is a bad science fiction with no creativity involved and mentioning that the novel is "not science fiction, but a distorted nostalgia of a past that never was."This is just an opinion of Asimov and other critiques and people might agree differently when reading the novel 1984, but to me, I see that Orwell's purpose of writing this novel is to create an imaginary scenario where totalitarian dictatorship takes over and and shows how hard life is in this system of government. This is like a warning to the readers and makes them aware of this system and want to try and prevent this system from taking over a democracy or a republic.