Part two

Winston works in the department of records. His job is to correct and/or rewrite old written records of things to fit what the party goes by in the present, all contrary information is destroyed. He is one of many that do the same thing, and one of many that possibly are doing the same thing at the same time.

”But actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty's figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connection with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connection that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. ”

At lunch he has a talk with his ”comrade” about newspeak, and it goes into detail about that. In the end the purpose of newspeak is to make thought-crime impossible, by narrowing the language and thus narrowing thought, so how can you commit thought-crime if you can't think.

”It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn't only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take "good", for instance. If you have a word like "good", what need is there for a word like "bad"? "Ungood" will do just as well — better, because it's an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of "good", what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like "excellent" and "splendid" and all the rest of them? "Plusgood" covers the meaning, or "doubleplusgood" if you want something stronger still. Of course we use those forms already. but in the final version of Newspeak there'll be nothing else. In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words — in reality, only one word. Don't you see the beauty of that, Winston? ”

Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.

After work Winston is pondering over things and writing in his diary. In his thoughts he describes how the party wants to get rid of eroticism and enjoyment from sex. He used to have a wife, and Winston had nicknamed her in his own head as ”The human soundtrack” because she had nothing in her head but party slogans. He would've tolerated living with her if it wasn't for the sex. Sex was something she wanted them to have for the purpose of having a baby, as their ”duty” for the party. After some time of trying to get pregnant without success, they gave up and soon after separated. His wife was something he rarely thought of.

”As soon as he touched her she seemed to wince and stiffen. To embrace her was like embracing a jointed wooden image. And what was strange was that even when she was clasping him against her he had the feeling that she was simultaneously pushing him away with all her strength. The rigidity of her muscles managed to convey that impression. She would lie there with shut eyes, neither resisting nor co-operating, but submitting.”

”The sexual act, successfully performed, was rebellion. Desire was thoughtcrime. ”

Further on, still thinking and writing in his diary, Winston concludes that if there is hope, it lies in the proles. The proles are around 85% of the population, they are considered by the party to be useful only for working and breeding. The proles are not subject to as much policing and over-watch as the inner and outer party, but they still have undercover operatives among them spreading rumors and disinformation. The proletariat are kept in continuous poverty. Winston believes that if the proletarian masses become conscious they could destroy the party.

”Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious. ”

He keeps thinking about reality, truth and the party’s constant alteration of it. He remembers that a few years ago he came across a piece of newspaper article that was definitive proof of alteration of history by the party, but there was nothing he could do but to destroy it, in fear making himself a target.

”How could you tell how much of it was lies? It might be true that the average human being was better off now than he had been before the Revolution. The only evidence to the contrary was the mute protest in your own bones, the instinctive feeling that the conditions you lived in were intolerable and that at some other time they must have been different. ”

”The past not only changed, but changed continuously. What most afflicted him with the sense of nightmare was that he had never clearly understood why the huge imposture was undertaken. The immediate advantages of falsifying the past were obvious, but the ultimate motive was mysterious. ”

He also wondered like many times before he had, that maybe he was a lunatic. In the end he came to a conclusion that the solid world exists and that it's rational.

”Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ”

One day, on an impulse, Winston goes for a walk around London. There's no laws against walking in areas where the proletarian live or talking to them, but having no official business there warrants attention from the powers that be if caught by a patrol. After witnessing a rocket-bomb striking rather close, Winston notices a old man going into a pub. Winston estimated that he looked to be around 80-years old, and he got a impulse to go into the pub after him to ask some questions and so he did. Winston tried asking the old man about times before the revolution, but got no straight answers for the old man's mind was not all there. Winston got out of the pub and continued walking aimlessly, and soon found himself at the shop where he had bought the diary he had been writing in. He goes in and is greeted by the shop owner, he ends up buying a old and beautiful glass paperweight for the reason that it was so different and reminiscent of the past. He made plans to return there someday, but not too soon to arouse suspicion. On the way home he runs into the black haired woman, whom he had been paranoid about and thought she possibly was out to expose him as a thought-criminal. They walk by each other and Winston's brain kicks into gear thinking of what it all entails. He gets the thought to run after her and murder her with the paperweight he bought, or going to the community center to get a partial alibi. But in the end he just went home. At home he couldn't get the thought of being exposed and taken by the thought police out of his head.

“It would not matter if they killed you at once. To be killed was what you expected. But before death (nobody spoke of such things, yet everybody knew of them) there was the routine of confession that had to be gone through: the grovelling on the floor and screaming for mercy, the crack of broken bones, the smashed teeth, and bloody clots of hair. Why did you have to endure it, since the end was always the same? Why was it not possible to cut a few days or weeks out of your life? Nobody ever escaped detection, and nobody ever failed to confess. When once you had succumbed to thoughtcrime it was certain that by a given date you would be dead. Why then did that horror, which altered nothing, have to lie embedded in future time? “

Assignment:

Reading went well this week, unlike last week I had a paper and pen to write down words I wasn't too sure of the moment I came across them. The book is mainly narrative, with some dialogue here and there. And the language used is rich, especially in description, and feel very “wide”. Reading is enjoyable, if not a bit heavy at times.

Gesticulate = göra åtbörder, gestikulera.

Ineffectual = utan effekt, ineffektiv.

Anthology = antologi.

Proletarian = proletär.

Incurred = ådra sig, utsätta sig.

Derisive = hånfull, gäckande, löjligt, futtig.

Protuberant = framskjutande, utskjutande, utstående.

Pannikin = kopp, mug.

Larynx = Struphuvud.

Aloofness = reserverad hållning, högdragenhet.

Venerate = ära, vörda.

Solemnity = högtidlighet, högtidlig ceremoni.

Edify = bygga upp, verka uppbyggande på.

Proliferate = föröka sig genom celldelning.

Tacitly = tyst, stillatigande, I sitt stilla sinne.

Varicose = uppsvullen.

Camaraderie = kamratskap, kamratanda.

Palpable = påtaglig, handgriplig, tydlig, uppenbar.

Anodyne = smärtstillande, dövande.

Steeple = [spetsigt] kyrktorn, tornspira