I like to feel that the effort of reading, which for me is actually an effort, is done for a greater good. I like to feel evolved after reading a book: wiser, more intelligent, critical, more complete as a thinking being. That's the reason why I read very few books a year and elect them extremely carefully.
This summer I chose a novel I retain among the best: Nineteen eighty-four by George Orwell. In it, based on the Sovietic experience, the author describes a hypothetical oppressive and authoritarian civilization in which even thinking is strictly bound to the Party doctrine. They achieve this goal, among other strategies, by progressively changing the language into what they call Newspeak, following the idea that what's not in the language cannot be thought:
How could you have a slogan like 'freedom is slavery' when the concept of freedom has been abolished. {...} There will be no thought, as we understand it now.
This is a terrifying view of what human kind can do to ourselves when we are let to. It's the detailed horrifying picture of a hierarchical society stratified in proles, Outer Party members, Inner Party members and the Big Brother on the top of it, where the class struggle is been vanished and replaced by the love for Big Brother.
Here are two captions, showing a sample of the book:
Absolutely brilliant, highly recommended.
And remember:
Big Brother is watching you.
