1984

orwell is such a poetic writer but this particular novel has so much relevance in our modern society that sometimes you think he might as well write a manifesto on our political economy or join the circus and work as a psychic. i thoroughly enjoyed the book, be prepared to travel to another world... i can't guarantee a utopia.

"The hypnotic eyes gazed into his own. It was as though some huge force were pressing down upon you - something that penetrated inside your skull, battering against your brain, frightening you out of your beliefs, persuading you, almost, to deny the evidence of your senses. In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right.

For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable - what then?

With the feeling that he was speaking to O'Brien, and also that he was setting forth an important axiom, he wrote: Freedom is freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."

"Have you done this before?"
"Of course. Hundreds of times - well, scores of times, anyway."
"With Party members?"
"Yes, always with Party members."
"With members of the Inner Party?"
"Not with those swine, no. But there's plenty that would if they got half a chance. They're not as holy as they make out."
"Listen, the more men you've had, the more I love you. Do you understand that?"
"Yes, perfectly."
"I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don't want any virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones."
"Well then, I ought to suit you, dear. I'm corrupt to the bones.""You like doing this? I don't mean simply me: I mean the thing in itself?"
"I adore it."

That was above all what he wanted to hear. Not merely the love of one person, but the animal instinct, the simple undifferentiated desire: that was the force that would tear the Party to pieces."

But you could not have pure love or pure lust nowadays. No emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred. Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act.

He fell asleep murmuring "Sanity is not statistical," with the feeling that this remark contained in it a profound wisdom.

"It is impossible to found a civilisation on fear and hatred and cruelty. It would never endure."
"Why not?"
"It would have no vitality. It would disintegrate. It would commit suicide."
"Nonsense. You are under the impression that hatred is more exhausting than love. Why should it be? And if it were, what difference would that make? Suppose that we choose to wear ourselves out faster. Suppose that we quicken the tempo of human life till men are senile at 30. Still what difference would it make? Can you not understand that the death of the individual is not death? The Party is immortal."

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down and out in Paris - probably his best work, worth adding to your reading list also

what do you guys think of 1984?