‘As you lie there,’ said O’Brien, ‘you have often wondered – you have even asked me – why the Ministry of Love should expend so much time and trouble on you. And when you were free you were puzzled by what was essentially the same question. You could grasp the mechanics of the society you lived in, but not its underlying motives. Do you remember writing in your diary, "I understand how : I do not understand why "? It was when you thought about "why" that you doubted your own sanity. You have read the book , Goldstein’s book, or parts of it, at least. Did it tell you anything that you did not know already?’