Another book club meeting. Still 1984. And still not the last one.
Wednesday, May. 21, 2003 - 20:48

Yet another meeting of This Diary's Book Club discussing 1984. Here we go.

You: How long have we been reading this book?

Me: Thank you for starting off the discussion. That's a good sign.

You: Come on. How long?

Me: Like a month or something.

You: Or longer.

Me: Okay. Today I want to talk about a couple things.

You: Oh boy.

Me: The first is, I wonder if, in the book, things are the way they are said to be, or if they just seem that way.

You: ?

Me: Because people can make their own prisons, you know? And it seems like a bunch of this repressive stuff that goes on is perhaps imagined. Like everything's "understood", but there are no laws or anything, and nothing's said, it's just understood to be that way. But is it really that way? Or are these people just imagining it?

You: Well the people are definitely in their own prisons, but the Party helps create the prisons with the use of fear.

Me: Yes, fear. People are afraid of everyone else and are even afraid of their own kids. And so that's why they don't do anything... because they're scared. But really, what are they afraid of?

You: Well, the unknown is the scariest thing there is, and since there's so much that isn't known to them, so much vagueness, it's terrifying.

Me: "Drilling for fear makes the job simple."

You: Hey, that's not from the book.

Me: No, it isn't. Hmm, okay, fear and prisons, and Pearl Jam lyrics. Very good discussion. Now another thing I wonder about is why Winston doesn't just disappear. He goes into the prole parts of London, and he could just take off his Party overalls and become a prole himself. So why doesn't he? What's keeping him?

You: I don't know, his varicose ulcer?

Me: I read this book a couple years ago and maybe this is addressed, but I don't remember. But really, he's unhappy, he knows everything about the Party is faked, but he won't do anything about it.

You: Fear?

Me: Yeah, but if he just became a prole he wouldn't have to fear the Party.

You: I guess he really doesn't want to.

Me: Yeah.

You: Yeah.

Me: Okay. That's all for today, folks. Thank you for your time. We'll have one more meeting about this book to wrap things up. I'm going away for about a week (during which time I will attend a family reunion and see my favorite band in the world) and so I'll try to finish it on the plane. And after we finish 1984 we will read The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories by Tim Burton, as per Tea's suggestion. However it is forbidden for anyone to start the next book before finishing the old book. Anyone who does that will be kicked out of This Diary's Book Club and will be banished forever. I'm serious!

You: Oh, we're very scared.