To read or not to read...
"A man of forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features."
This quote describes the main character in this popular dystopian novel. Perfect for MOvember! In 2005, this novel was chosen by TIME magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. It also has a place on both lists of Modern Library 100 best novels.
To read or not to read, that is the question...Read the opening paragraphs of this novel and you decide!
It
was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston
Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind,
slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly
enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.
The
hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a coloured
poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the wall. It depicted
simply an enormous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a man of about
forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features.
Winston made for the stairs. It was no use trying the lift. Even at the best of
times it was seldom working, and at present the electric current was cut off
during daylight hours. It was part of the economy drive in preparation for Hate
Week. The flat was seven flights up, and Winston, who was thirty-nine and had a
varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly, resting several times on the
way. On each landing, opposite the lift-shaft, the poster with the enormous
face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived
that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the
caption beneath it ran.
Inside
the flat a fruity voice was reading out a list of figures which had something
to do with the production of pig-iron. The voice came from an oblong metal
plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand
wall. Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words
were still distinguishable. The instrument (the telescreen, it was called)
could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely. He moved
over to the window: a smallish, frail figure, the meagreness of his body merely
emphasized by the blue overalls which were the uniform of the party. His hair
was very fair, his face naturally sanguine, his skin roughened by coarse soap
and blunt razor blades and the cold of the winter that had just ended.
To keep reading this book, request it from the Library.
