The girl with dark hair was coming towards him across the field. With what seemed a single movement she tore off her clothes and flung them disdainfully aside. Her body was white and smooth, but it aroused no desire in him; indeed, he barely looked at it. What overwhelmed him in that instant was admiration for the gesture with which she had thrown her clothes aside. With its grace and carelessness it seemed to annihilate a whole culture, a whole system of thought, as though Big Brother and The Party and the Thought Police could all be swept into nothingness by a single splendid movement of the arm. That too was a gesture belonging to the ancient time. Winston woke up with the word "Shakespeare" on his lips.

It's only page 36 and I'm already ready to stab myself in the eye with my pen. Apparently George Orwell took a lesson on how to treat subtly from Ayn Rand. Only rarely do I sympathize with my students' lack of enthusiasm for the books we read in class, but for this one, I get it.

In other news, Happy Ides of March. Watch your back.