1984 Book 1 Chapter 4

这一章，我们了解了Winston的工作，简单地说便是根据需要来伪造历史。当伪造的动作被遗忘，它就变为真实。

本章伊始，有一段对Winston动作和状态的描述，他每天工作开始时都不能控制地叹气。这叹气代表什么呢？我想大概是他也清楚自己每天在做些什么，也许是无奈，也许是挣扎。

With the deep, unconscious sigh which not even the nearness of the telescreen could prevent him from uttering when his day's work started, Winston pulled the speakwrite towards him, blew the dust from its mouthpiece, and put on his spectacles. Then he unrolled and clipped together four small cylinders of paper which had already flopped out of the pneumatic tube on the right-hand side of his desk.

接下来看文中对Winston修改或伪造信息的描述，简直触目惊心！用一个谎言代替另一个谎言，这些信息与现实世界毫不相关，简直就是杜撰。

But actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty's figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connexion with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connexion that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great deal of the time you were expected to make them up out of your head.

Winston根据自己的意愿和判断来修改数据，因为没人知道也没人关心。读到这里我终于明白，为什么第一章他开始写日记的时候，连确定当时的年份都说自己的推断和实际相差一两年也不足为奇。这简直是一个靠杜撰和编造所形成的世界，这是多么可怕的一件事情！

然而，这可怕的工作竟然是Winston生活中最大的乐趣？！除了篡改数据，用谎言代替谎言，还有创造“不存在的人”。本章最后的例子便是如此，活生生地编造出一个人来，这一“完美”且“忠诚”的形象让我看出了一种讽刺意味。

At the age of three Comrade Ogilvy had refused all toys except a drum, a sub-machine gun, and a model helicopter. At six--a year early, by a special relaxation of the rules--he had joined the Spies, at nine he had been a troop leader. At eleven he had denounced his uncle to the Thought Police after overhearing a conversation which appeared to him to have criminal tendencies. At seventeen he had been a district organizer of the Junior Anti-Sex League. At nineteen he had designed a hand-grenade which had been adopted by the Ministry of Peace and which, at its first trial, had killed thirty-one Eurasian prisoners in one burst. At twenty-three he had perished in action. Pursued by enemy jet planes while flying over the Indian Ocean with important despatches, he had weighted his body with his machine gun and leapt out of the helicopter into deep water, despatches and all.

没错，现实中从未存在的完美人物已经诞生，而一旦人们忘记了伪造之实，他便成了真实的存在，并且有据可查。