I agree alternate interpretations are valid -- I mentioned I used to believe the same as the commenter I was replying to -- just unlikely. Given Orwell's preoc

I agree alternate interpretations are valid -- I mentioned I used to believe the same as the commenter I was replying to -- just unlikely. Given Orwell's preoccupation with language, his mixing authorial with fictional voice in this way would be too clumsy. There's also the fact another fictional essay exists in 1984, namely the one supposedly written by Goldstein "explaining" the nature of power and the status quo. Do note this account was written, in the fiction of 1984, before the complete success of Ingsoc, and once Newspeak was fully implemented it would have been neither possible to write nor needed. I don't deny other interpretations are possible, but I think this essay works much like Lord of the Rings' many appendices: they are describing a piece of past "history" as if it was real, they are not the voice of an author from our world describing a fake world.