1984

фев 18

Тази събота отново препрочетох 1984-та на Оруел. Не ми е за пръв път и поради липсата на много време (а и факта че доста добре си я спомнях), минах малко по диагонал. Или по-точно - припомних си само моментите, които исках. Това не намали въздействието обаче. От книгата лъха такова чувство на безнадежност, че даже и втората част (която аз съм си нарекъл "частта на фалшивата надежда") е такава. А постепенното физическо и психическо смазване на Уилсън е напълно логично, очаквано и предвидимо.
Не то обаче не е най-тъжната част на книгата. Това е просто пречупване на един човек и духа и мисълта му. Но най-страшното е показано накрая. Не физическата болка, не отнетата любов, не предателството. Не и липсата на щастие и перспективата за такова.
Не, те обаче са ти отнели даже и спомените, че някога, много отдавна си бил щастлив, само за малко, в детството си. Изобщо щастието (макар и мимолетно и почти случайно) е толкова невъзможно, че един такъв спомен може да бъде само фалшив. Усмихващи се хора - това не може да е било истина. Едва на предпоследната страница, книгата наистина ме подтиска:

Uncalled, a memory floated into his mind. He saw a candle-lit room with a vast white-counterpaned bed, and himself, a boy of nine or ten, sitting on the floor, shaking a dice-box, and laughing excitedly. His mother was sitting opposite him and also laughing.

It must have been about a month before she disappeared. It was a moment of reconciliation, when the nagging hunger in his belly was forgotten and his earlier affection for her had temporarily revived. He remembered the day well, a pelting, drenching day when the water streamed down the window-pane and the light indoors was too dull to read by. The boredom of the two children in the dark, cramped bedroom became unbearable. Winston whined and grizzled, made futile demands for food, fretted about the room pulling everything out of place and kicking the wainscoting until the neighbours banged on the wall, while the younger child wailed intermittently. In the end his mother said, ‘Now be good, and I’ll buy you a toy. A lovely toy–you’ll love it’; and then she had gone out in the rain, to a little general shop which was still sporadically open nearby, and came back with a cardboard box containing an outfit of Snakes and Ladders. He could still remember the smell of the damp cardboard. It was a miserable outfit. The board was cracked and the tiny wooden dice were so ill-cut that they would hardly lie on their sides. Winston looked at the thing sulkily and without interest. But then his mother lit a piece of candle and they sat down on the floor to play. Soon he was wildly excited and shouting with laughter as the tiddly-winks climbed hopefully up the ladders and then came slithering down the snakes again, almost to the starting-point. They played eight games, winning four each. His tiny sister, too young to understand what the game was about, had sat propped up against a bolster, laughing because the others were laughing. For a whole afternoon they had all been happy together, as in his earlier childhood.

He pushed the picture out of his mind. It was a false memory. He was troubled by false memories occasionally. They did not matter so long as one knew them for what they were. Some things had happened, others had not happened.

Книгата можете да намерите тук (на английски) или на хартия тук (отново на английски) или тук (на български с малко странен предговор от… Волен Сидеров)