/lit/ - Literature

I just finished 1984, it was such a good book.
But, the brainwashing at the end of the book was kind of brutal, Winston tears were almost 100% gin. What did everyone else think of this book?

Except for 1984, can anyone recommend any good dystopian novels?

/lit/, what separates a book from a piece of literature?

Just finished this. What are your thoughts about it, and what book should be read afterwards?

>>4645110
Everything about this book screams gay.

>>4640168
cont.

By relativizing truth and human nature it is totally up to the intellectual vanguard recruited by the revolutionary political and economic elite, to define what truth and human nature is. Without any fixed truth it is up to The Party to decide what truth is. In 1984 Winston says that freedom is being able to say that 2 + 2 = 4, in other words, that immutable truth exists; if immutable truth exists that means that there is something that The Party cannot touch, that The Party is not omnipotent and that they will eventually be defeated by truth.

Few fail to realize just how much revolutionary propaganda has proliferated through society, but their belief in the non-existence of absolute truth is proof that it has. Most people are serving the revolutionary cause without realizing that they are, simply by perpetuating revolutionary superstitions and absurdities like the belief in "progress" and the non-existence of absolute truth.

Holy fuck was this a depressing read.

I mean I guess hoping for a somewhat happy or even bittersweet ending was on par with hoping for the animals in Animal Farm to get a good send-off, but goddamn.

I almost wish I'd stopped reading before Winston and Julia get captured by the Thought Police.

Anyhow, gut-reaction aside...what does /lit/ think of it?

And this may sound like a dumb question, but...what was the POINT of the Party's oppression? It's hinted at more than once, but aside from simply stating "because power in itself is an end, not a means" or something along those lines, I still feel like I'm missing something.

What was the enslavement of the bodies and minds of all of humanity actually for? Why torture and mindwash someone you're going to end up killing anyways?

Just...because?