Quote:
But it had also been suggested by the book that he had just taken out of the drawer. It was a
peculiarly beautiful book. Its smooth creamy paper, a little yellowed by age, was of a kind that
had not been manufactured for at least forty years past. He could guess, however, that the book
was much older than that. He had seen it lying in the window of a frowsy little junk-shop in a
slummy quarter of the town (just what quarter he did not now remember) and had been stricken
immediately by an overwhelming desire to possess it. Party members were supposed not to go into
ordinary shops (‘dealing on the free market’, it was called), but the rule was not strictly kept,
because there were various things, such as shoelaces and razor blades, which it was impossible to
get hold of in any other way. He had given a quick glance up and down the street and then had
slipped inside and bought the book for two dollars fifty. At the time he was not conscious of
wanting it for any particular purpose. He had carried it guiltily home in his briefcase. Even
with nothing written in it, it was a compromising possession.
The thing that he was about to do was to open a diary. This was not illegal (nothing was
illegal, since there were no longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonably certain that it
would be punished by death, or at least by twenty-five years in a forced-labour camp. Winston
fitted a nib into the penholder and sucked it to get the grease off. The pen was an archaic
instrument, seldom used even for signatures, and he had procured one, furtively and with some
difficulty, simply because of a feeling that the beautiful creamy paper deserved to be written on
with a real nib instead of being scratched with an ink-pencil. Actually he was not used to
writing by hand. Apart from very short notes, it was usual to dictate everything into the
speak-write which was of course impossible for his present purpose. He dipped the pen into the
ink and then faltered for just a second. A tremor had gone through his bowels. To mark the paper
was the decisive act. In small clumsy letters he wrote:
*
April 4th, 1984.
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Reading Lisuse reminded me of the above passage from Orwell. However benign the changes may be, they are perceived by some to be just like Room 101.
I look forward to reading
Small Victories.