1984 (1,8) Ownlife

[monk222]

From somewhere at the bottom of a passage the smell of roasting coffee - real coffee, not Victory Coffee - came floating out into the street. Winston paused involuntarily. For perhaps two seconds he was back in the half-forgotten world of his childhood. Then a door banged, seeming to cut off the smell as abruptly as though it had been a sound.

~

After a day of work at the Ministry of Truth, Winston was taken in by the fresh spring air of April and went for a walk, venturing to the prole quarters. He is being gutsy and brazen, though. He is skipping another evening at the Center:

a rash act, since you could be certain that the number of your attendances at the Center were carefully checked. In principle a Party member had no spare time, and was never alone except in bed [still griping about this! -- Monk]. It was assumed that when he was not working, eating, or sleeping he would be taking part in some kind of communal recreations; to do anything that suggested a taste for solitude, even to go for a walk by yourself, was always slightly dangerous. There was a word for it in Newspeak: ownlife, it was called, meaning individualism and eccentricity.

First, you are just writing in a diary, but then it keeps building and building and then you are all up in your own life, like a god looking down upon the world, a philosopher of time and space, yes, even a rebel.

Thus opens a long chapter. This promises to be an eventful walk. I’m looking forward to it. Let me just use the restroom real quick!