The Devil's Advocate
Starting 2025, this was the first book I read. (I've read books before). But I hadn't read much of anything for a while. So this book was the one that brought me back to reading. I found it in my father's mess room along with a few other books I decided to give a read.
...
This book was very interesting to me. It gave me some perspective on some religious concepts as well as ideological. I could find in the story, snippets of situations I identified myself in. Mainly in regards to political and religious discussions. I was also fascinated by the way the author described things. My imagination was enriched by those descriptions and I could picture in my head all that was reading. Which might be the reason it brought me back to reading books. I read the Portuguese translation, and it's from the eighties. I found that old books have a different vocabulary compared to recent ones, and I prefer the old ones.
It was a really good book, I enjoyed it quite a lot.
I recommend it.
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1984
George Orwell
My friend gave me this book back in 2024. I already knew plenty about it, given it's popularity, but only in late august 2025 I brought myself to read it.
This was a very interesting experience. ... Once again it provided me with a different political outlook in things. It made me think about things and started some interesting conversations with my friends.
It also made me think a lot about the state of surveillance nowadays and state intervention unto civil liberties.
But as to the story, I found it so... exciting. That's kind of a cliche word, but it's how it made me feel when things happened.
Most of the book is descriptions of the world or thoughts Winston has. But moments such as when Julia gave him the note or when they visited O'Brien, are moments that just put you on the edge of your seat. And the end is a really masterfull dialogue that challenges you to put yourself in Winson's position. It's pure anguish the idea of living in that reality.
After I finished reading, my friend gave me a page with some questions. And I wrote some things:
Goldstein represents the resistence and thoughtcrime. The Party uses his image as an object of hate for the people. He could very much not exist at all. But that is what he represents.
The people of Oceania must love the Big Brother, be loyal to him and the Party and hate Goldstein. And that is also a weapon for control. When O'Brien pretends to be a member of the resistence, he effectively exposes Winston and Julia as thought criminals, because of their interest in being part of the resistence. The symbol of Goldstein is part of that but there is also their individual motivations.
I found Winston represents a critical thinking person, he has a very rational mind and understands the permanence of things. That is, he trust his memory and his own experience more than he does the Party or Big Brother. He has the freedom (at least before he is captured) of thinking that 2 + 2 = 4.
Julia, however, acts and thinks based on what she wants, she hates the party for it not allowing her to do what she wants. She doesn't think or cares about the past or about the Party's lies. She just to reacts with what she does and doesn't have. Like Winston said, she finds freedom through her sexuality.
The friend asked "How would it be possible to delimit the truth and where the lie started? To which I answered:
In the world of 1984 it is not possible to know that. Because the "liars" themselves believe in their own lies. That is what makes doublethink so scary. O'Brien is an example of that. He is a smart person, however, he has killed his own thought autonomy. He thinks collectively. He is the mind of the Party. He believes Big Brother's truth.
That's it. Now check this out.
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Permanent Record
Edward Snowden
I read this on my Amazon Kindle, which I never logged in with and keep on airplane mode, and all the books inside are downloaded from libgen....
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