Read Online Orwell's Revenge by Peter Huber - Free Book Online

the screens, as an Assistant Sub-Deputy System Agent. This meant he was allowed to help carry replacement screens around the Ministry. Now, his mettle proved by years of acting as a porter, he had been promoted to the rank of Deputy System Agent.
    Connolly, small and suspicious, and Burgess, ponderous and loyal: the Party belongedto men like these. The machines, it was said, made such men possible, even necessary. Ever since Orwell’s day, the Party had promised machines and more machines—machines to save work, machines to save thought, machines to save pain, machines for hygiene, efficiency, organization, more hygiene, more efficiency, more organization, more machines. And where did it all end? In a paradise of little fat men.
    In the Party’s day-dreams, of course, the little fat men were neither fat nor little; they were men like gods. But in a world from which physical danger had been largely banished the men like gods had turned out to be men like beetles. Technological progress had eliminated danger, and physical courage had not survived. There was no need for physical strength in a world where there wasnever the need for physical labor. Loyalty and generosity were irrelevant—almost unimaginable—in a world where nothing went wrong. The mechanized world had grown safe and soft, and the men in it had found it impossible to remain brave and hard. Mechanical progress had produced a foolproof world—which had turned out to mean a world inhabited by fools. The Party had tied itself to electronic efficiency, and so tied men to the ideal of softness. But softness was repulsive. The Party had reduced man to a kind of walking stomach, without hand, or eye, or brain. Men had ceased to use their hands, and had lopped off a hugechunk of their consciousness.
    Burgess gave Blair a stupid, malignant glance, then beckoned brusquely to two of his five assistants. He waved Blair out of the cubicle, and the team squeezed in. Three other assistants were unwrapping the new screen in the hall. Burgess carried the blue box.
    The screen was about the size of an unfolded newspaper, an oversized dull mirror about five centimeters thick. The men lifted it nervously into Blair’s cubicle. A minute or two later they had unbolted the old screen, and mounted the new one in its place. There were no wires to attach, not even a power cord. One of the managers peeled a sheet of sticky paper from the front surface. Another few minutes passed, then the screen flickered into life. Almost immediately, an announcer’s fruity voice could be heard. It appeared there had been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week. Only a month ago, Blair seemed to recall, the ration had been thirty grams.
    Burgess elbowed his way to the screen, and shoved his assistants out of the cubicle. He propped two thick instructional binders on Blair’s desk. He opened the first with meticulous care, and stared at it intently for several minutes. Then, glancing at the manual every few seconds, he positioned the blue box in front of the screen. The man obviously had no idea what he was doing, and was terrified of missing some crucial step.
    With agonizing slowness he pressed one and then another of the dozen or so buttons mounted on the front of the blue box. The box emitted a series of atonal whistles as each button was pressed. Burgess paused to turn a page in the binder; then the whistling resumed.Abruptly, the fruity voice clicked off. On the screen there appeared instead a view of the Laseprint room fourteen stories below.
    â€œAll set, comrade,” said Burgess, his face gleaming with sweat. He was quite genial now, obviously relieved to have made it through the installation without a hitch. “Good to be back in touch again, eh, Blair?”
    â€œCapital, capital!” Blair replied, with a weak grin. One always sought to convey a certain vapid eagerness when speaking to a member of