Other Stuff I Wrote in the Margins

"He had worked more than ninety hours in five days." - 256

That's eighteen a day, in case you were curious.

"It was only an 'opeless fancy,

It passed like an Ipril dye,

But a look an' a word an' the dreams they stirred

They 'ave stolen my 'eart awye!" - p. 293

...translates to....

"It was only a hopeless fantasy,

It passed like an April day,

But a look and a word and the dreams they stirred

They have stolen my heart away!"

I was never completely clear on the purpose of that lady, except that she made me not like Julia because she insulted her when she was clearly a nice lady (because I guess I trust Winston's judgment of character, which is foolish, as he severely miscalculated with O'Brien).

"'Why,' she added sentimentally, 'I might be your mother!'"

"She might, thought Winston, be his mother." - p. 305

This is followed by a brief calculation of what he remembers of his mother, and then he just forgets about it. It's like he really doesn't care. I just thought it was surprising.

"Perhaps that lunatic dislocation in the mind could really happen: that was the thought that defeated him." - p. 323

The uncertainty of everything pinpointed in that thought was unsettling.

"When you delude yourself into thinking that you see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same thing as you." - p. 325

That reminded me of the theory I have had for a long time that the reason people have different opinions of things is that they don't perceive everything the same way. For instance, what I perceive as purple, maybe another person perceives as what I have come to believe is red. But as long as we agree that the name of the color is purple, we can never know.

"You do not exist." - p. 334

and then

"I think I exist." - p. 335

I wrote, "I think; therefore, I am." I don't know who said that, and I'm running out of time, so I'm simply not going to look it up.

"The earth is the center of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it." - p. 340

We did formerly accept this as fact. It was called the geocentric/Ptolemaic system. We now know we have a heliocentric system.

I always boxed the phrase "Thought Police" because I find that concept highly disturbing and never really grew to understand how exactly they operated.

"If he thinks he floats off the floor, and if I simultaneously think I see him do it, then the thing happens." - p. 352

and then

"It doesn't really happen. We imagine it. It is a hallucination."

This reminded me of an argument I once heard people who don't believe Jesus resurrected promote. They think the apostles suffered a group hallucination when He appeared to them. Also, they probably think oral tradition messes with stories.

"One day--but 'one day' was not the right expression; just as probably it was in the middle of the night: once--he fell into a strange, blissful reverie." - p. 353

That's the craziest sentence structure I've ever seen. Also it reminds me of Happy Gilmore's "happy place," but there's no space for more characters in my pop culture references blog post.

That video is less appropriate than I remembered.

"You must love Big Brother. It is not enough to obey him; you must love him." - p. 357

Is that why they call it the Office of Love?