novel, from
the general directive issued by the Planning Committee down to the final
touching-up by the Rewrite Squad. But she was not interested in the
finished product. She 'didn't much care for reading,' she said. Books were
just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.
She had no memories of anything before the early 'sixties and the only
person she had ever known who talked frequently of the days before the
Revolution was a grandfather who had disappeared when she was eight. At
school she had been captain of the hockey team and had won the gymnastics
trophy two years running. She had been a troop-leader in the Spies and a
branch secretary in the Youth League before joining the Junior Anti-Sex
League. She had always borne an excellent character. She had even (an
infallible mark of good reputation) been picked out to work in Pornosec,
the sub-section of the Fiction Department which turned out cheap
pornography for distribution among the proles. It was nicknamed Muck House
by the people who worked in it, she remarked. There she had remained for a
year, helping to produce booklets in sealed packets with titles like
Spanking Stories or One Night in a Girls" School, to be bought furtively by
proletarian youths who were under the impression that they were buying
something illegal.
'What are these books like?' said Winston curiously.
'Oh, ghastly rubbish. They're boring, really. They only have six
plots, but they swap them round a bit. Of course I was only on the
kaleidoscopes. I was never in the Rewrite Squad. I'm not literary, dear --