Monday, January 11, 2010

Monday's Excerpts - 1984 by George Orwell

     Doing another weekly blog post, very similar to Thursday's Thoughts. This one is pretty self-explanatory. I'll be picking a book every week and posting three excerpts from the title that I favor the most. The excerpts could contain spoilers, but I'll post a warning every Monday (consider this your warning for this week), so be careful reading further if you don't want the book spoiled.


This Week's Book: 1984 by George Orwell

     “I’m not interested in the next generation, dear. I’m interested in us.”
     “You’re only a rebel from the waist downwards,” he told her.
     She thought this brilliantly witty and flung her arms round him in delight. (Page 129)

—————

    “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.” (Pages 104-105)

—————

    Winston sank his arms to his sides and slowly refilled his lungs with air. His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself—that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word “doublethink” involved the use of doublethink. (Pages 32-33)

2 comments:

Mormon Bachelor Pad said...

They made a great movie based off of this book... it's called 1984, and finally came available on Netflix.

-j

Alexis Voltaire said...

@ Mormon Bachelor Pad: I know! When I finished the book the other night, I watched the movie on Netflix hours after. I watched it a second time the day after with my mom as well.
Did you know it was actually filmed and released in 1984 as well?