Show Notes
"2 + 2 = 5.
"They can't get inside you," she had said. But they could get inside you. "What happens to you here is forever," O'Brien had said. That was a true word. There were things, your own acts, from which you could not recover. Something was killed in your breast; burnt out, cauterized out."
The final chapter of George Orwell's dystopian nightmare masterpiece, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Listen to episodes ad-free and get other benefits on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/BayleysBookshelfPodcast
You can also support this podcast with a one-off donation at Buy Me A Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/rjbayleyIf you’d like to send correspondence for me to read and discuss during an episode, or you would like to talk about me narrating your own audiobook or other voiceover services, you can contact via:
Bluesky: @RJBayley https://bsky.app/profile/rjbayley.bsky.social Email: robertjbayley[AT]gmail.com Website contact form at RJBayley.com: https://rjbayley.com/contact/ Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/RJBayleyVoiceArtist/
This book is in the public domain and this production is entirely created and distributed in accordance with local laws.This audio production, however, is copyright to RJ Bayley 2025.
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"You asked me once," said O'Brien, "what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world." The penultimate chapter of the increasingly non-fiction 1984. Listen to episodes ad-free and get other benefits on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/BayleysBookshelfPodcast
"For the first time he perceived that if you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself. You must know all the while that it is there, but until it is needed you must never let it emerge into your consciousness in any shape that could be given a name. From now onwards he must not only think right; he must feel right, dream right. And all the while he must keep his hatred locked up inside him like a ball of matter which was part of himself and yet unconnected with the rest of him, a kind of cyst."
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever." Listen to episodes ad-free and get other benefits on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/BayleysBookshelfPodcast You can also support this podcast with a one-off donation at Buy Me A Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/rjbayleyIf you’d like to send correspondence for me to read and discuss during an episode, or you would like to talk about me narrating your own audiobook or other voiceover services, you can contact via:
"We burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one of ourselves before we kill him. It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it may be. Even in the instant of death we cannot permit any deviation. In the old days the heretic walked to the stake still a heretic, proclaiming his heresy, exulting in it. Even the victim of the Russian purges could carry rebellion locked up in his skull as he walked down the passage waiting for the bullet. But we make the brain perfect before we blow it out. The command of the old despotisms was 'Thou shalt not.' The command of the totalitarians was 'Thou shalt.' Our command is 'Thou art.'"Listen to episodes ad-free and get other benefits on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/BayleysBookshelfPodcast You can also support this podcast with a one-off donation at Buy Me A Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/rjbayleyIf you’d like to send correspondence for me to read and discuss during an episode, or you would like to talk about me narrating your own audiobook or other voiceover services, you can contact via:
"Sometimes with a fading hope he thought of O'Brien and the razor blade. It was thinkable that the razor blade might arrive concealed in his food, if he were ever fed. More dimly he thought of Julia. Somewhere or other she was suffering, perhaps far worse than he. She might be screaming with pain at this moment."You know it's grimdark when your clinging onto the hope of being snuck a razorblade. Listen to episodes ad-free and get other benefits on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/BayleysBookshelfPodcast You can also support this podcast with a one-off donation at Buy Me A Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/rjbayleyIf you’d like to send correspondence for me to read and discuss during an episode, or you would like to talk about me narrating your own audiobook or other voiceover services, you can contact via: