By Richard Fleming

May 2026

Photo courtesy of Simone Dinoia

Reading fiction offers myriad benefits to the aging brain, though it can be difficult for us old folks to pursue this activity since life in retirement is so busy. I find being a member of a book club helps. Last month’s book was a novel I first read in high school and the experience of re-reading it was both fascinating and eye-opening.

Upon re-reading it, my understanding of the novel differed greatly from how I understood it 60 years ago. Even though the book’s words had not changed, it felt like I was reading a completely different work of literature. In this post I want to explore why this happened.

The book is George Orwell’s 1984. Published in 1949, its themes loom large over the country we live in today. In polling of Goodreads readers, the novel regularly ranks as one of the “darkest books of all time.”

Why bring up such a bleak subject in a blog that attempts to highlight some of the positive aspects of aging? Well, life is not always a bed of roses, as we seniors know from experience. And it is important we understand the dark world conjured up in 1984. This book and its lessons are part of the legacy we are leaving to our children and grandchildren. It will likely be read for decades to come, though many school districts have tried to ban it because they are afraid of young people reading its words.

*    *    *

To briefly summarize the book, 1984 recounts the life of civil servant Winston Smith, who works in a government department called the Ministry of Truth in London, in the country of Oceania. His job is to rewrite previously published newspaper stories to conform to whatever changing narrative Big Brother wants the population to believe. Big Brother was Oceania’s totalitarian ruler. Smith grows increasingly dismayed with the lack of freedom and the way truth, facts, and science are manipulated to justify authoritarianism. He finally decides to rebel but (spoiler alert) things do not go well.

The novel was fantasy, of course. At the time he wrote it, George Orwell aimed to shine a light on the evils of the fascist movements of the World War II era and the totalitarian tendencies which emerged subsequently.

When the actual year 1984 arrived, I reflected on having read the book and how little resemblance our country bore to what the novel anticipated. George Orwell had been mistaken, I thought with some measure of relief, though he had written an engrossing parable about the circumstances of life in some countries during the World War II years.

*    *    *

So what made the re-read so different from my original reading? Two reasons come to mind. The first would apply to any time a senior re-reads a book he or she first read as a youth. Many decades of life experience change our understanding of the world, society, and humanity. Like all old folks, I now view life very differently than when I was navigating high school.

When I re-read the novel this time around, my mindset was different. As I went through the book last month, my brain processed its words and ideas through an altered set of lenses and filters. Now that I’m in my mid-70s, I understand love, family, friendship, success, power, and loss very differently than I did in the distant past. 1984 touches on all these themes, and re-reading Orwell’s words had a more powerful impact on me now that I have more experience and knowledge of how life unfolds.

The second reason the re-read was so compelling is specific to this book. When reading speculative fiction which describes a possible future, our response is inevitably influenced by the world we currently live in. Is the future described by the author feasible? Is it likely? When I first read this book in 1966, the world and society we lived in were quite different from today. I could not imagine the world presented in this book would ever come to pass.

Orwell prophesied a future in which facts are malleable, history is changeable, and people are discouraged from reality-based thinking and can be convinced to believe black is white. In Orwell’s Oceania, empathy is a weakness to be rooted out and the authoritarian government convinces everyday people it is working in their interest, even as it makes life worse day by day. In high school, I interpreted the book to be an exaggerated characterization of how people were kept under control by the fascist rulers of the 1940s. But of course it could never really happen.

Fast forward to today. Hmmm. While we are not living exactly in the world Orwell described, many of the social control mechanisms he predicted are being deployed in the here and now. Orwell also described mass deportations of undesirable races from Oceania. He recounted how the government celebrated bombing small boats carrying people trying to immigrate to the country. In his novel, government authorities monitored people’s public speech and punished anyone who did not celebrate the dear leader. Big Brother ruled a system marked by “…victory after victory, triumph after triumph after triumph.” He never got tired of winning.

How can anyone not read 1984 today and wonder whether it is being used as a playbook for those currently running our country. What seemed like an impossible fantasy when I was in high school now appears to be alarmingly close to today’s reality. Just to be clear, I do not feel we are currently living in the world of 1984. Not exactly. And there is a much stronger counter-movement today working to challenge authoritarianism than was possible in the world of Orwell’s 1984. Thank goodness.

*    *    *

Classic literature is called classic for a reason. It conveys universal themes and ideas which resonate through time. When we re-read any work of classic literature today that we first consumed long ago, it is illuminating how differently we understand it. This happens in part because we ourselves have changed and evolved and in part because the world has changed and evolved.

People grow old, a process which changes and enriches our experience of reading. But great literature never grows old.

If you enjoyed reading this post, please consider forwarding it to friends who may be interested or posting a link to your social media feed. Also, if you are not yet a subscriber, it is an easy way to be notified of future posts, which I upload once or twice a month. Just enter your email address below, then check your email for a return message that requires a confirmatory click to complete the process. Subscriptions are free and no advertising will come your way.