Classically Yours : Reading '1984' by George Orwell

We're picking up the 1949 novel '1984' by George Orwell for Classically Yours: PWG's Classic Books club, as part of a two-part dystopian reading exercise. Join us on Monday, September 15, 2025, at 8 pm, as we introduce the book and author and start our reading of the classic. The first session is introductory, and we will read the book over the coming weeks, discussing it every week. Link for the Session: [https://meet.google.com/tnt-fnkp-uhp](https://meet.google.com/tnt-fnkp-uhp) \*\*\* ABOUT THE SESSION: A classic is a book that is best explained as 'a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.' In 'Why Read the Classics?', Italo Calvino says, 'your classic author is the one you cannot feel indifferent to, who helps you define yourself in relation to him, even in dispute with him.' So, if you read, why NOT the classics should be the question and not why, this initiative is for those patient folks who are willing to be engaged in dialogues with these sometimes daunting classics. It is a load best shared, which is why this group has been created. All are welcome, the only caveat being that you commit wholeheartedly. The group is designed for a small group, small being an operative word. Something will and does get diluted in large numbers, which we are looking to avoid. If you find one of our planned books not to be up your alley, you can just recuse yourself, and hopefully, we can meet up again later over another book that might catch your fancy. THE BOOK: Nineteen Eighty-Four (also published as 1984) is a dystopian novel by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final completed book. Thematically, it centres on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance and repressive regimentation of people and behaviours within society. Orwell, a democratic socialist and an anti-Stalinist, modelled an authoritarian socialist Britain on the Soviet Union in the era of Stalinism and the practices of state censorship and state propaganda in Nazi Germany. More broadly, the novel examines the role of truth and facts within societies and the ways in which they can be manipulated. THE AUTHOR: Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to all totalitarianism (both authoritarian communism and fascism), and support of democratic socialism. ABOUT THE HOST: Shankar has been a lifelong reader and aspiring writer, located in Pune currently. He also displays unreasonable fondness and bias for the Russian novelists.