![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The thing that he was about to do was to open a diary.... if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death, or at least by twenty-five years in a forced-labor 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 speakwrite, 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.
-- “1984” by George Orwell
Although it was a long time ago, I am certain that Orwell sealed the deal with this reader when he romanticized this private, spiritual act of keeping a diary. Even in the so-called free world, there is something forbidden and delicious about betraying your innermost thoughts to your notebook. So much of our lives is about playing roles and putting up an act, not to mention trying to keep from running too far afoul of political correctness, that it can feel a little criminal to express your true thoughts and feelings on paper. That Orwell should make Winston’s diary the center of his political subversion, the consummation of his thoughtcrime, is simply a winning move with me.
Orwell also uses this diary-writing session to introduce to us three other main figures in the novel, each deserving his or her own respective post.
-- “1984” by George Orwell
Although it was a long time ago, I am certain that Orwell sealed the deal with this reader when he romanticized this private, spiritual act of keeping a diary. Even in the so-called free world, there is something forbidden and delicious about betraying your innermost thoughts to your notebook. So much of our lives is about playing roles and putting up an act, not to mention trying to keep from running too far afoul of political correctness, that it can feel a little criminal to express your true thoughts and feelings on paper. That Orwell should make Winston’s diary the center of his political subversion, the consummation of his thoughtcrime, is simply a winning move with me.
Orwell also uses this diary-writing session to introduce to us three other main figures in the novel, each deserving his or her own respective post.
