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Rache ist sauer
Dieser Band enthält: Essays über Politik, Literatur und Kunst; Berichte aus der Dritten Welt vor 1933, Spanien 1937, Deutschland 1945; Reportagen über den Bergbau, englische Kolonialoffiziere, die Penner von London; autobiographische Notizen und Bekenntnisse.
- GenresNonfictionEssaysHistory
180 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1975
About the author
George Orwell
1,341 books52.6k followersEric Arthur Blair was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to all totalitarianism (both fascism and stalinism), and support of democratic socialism.
Orwell is best known for his allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), although his works also encompass literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics, literature, language and culture.
Orwell's work remains influential in popular culture and in political culture, and the adjective "Orwellian"—describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices—is part of the English language, like many of his neologisms, such as "Big Brother", "Thought Police", "Room 101", "Newspeak", "memory hole", "doublethink", and "thoughtcrime". In 2008, The Times named Orwell the second-greatest British writer since 1945.
Orwell is best known for his allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), although his works also encompass literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics, literature, language and culture.
Orwell's work remains influential in popular culture and in political culture, and the adjective "Orwellian"—describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices—is part of the English language, like many of his neologisms, such as "Big Brother", "Thought Police", "Room 101", "Newspeak", "memory hole", "doublethink", and "thoughtcrime". In 2008, The Times named Orwell the second-greatest British writer since 1945.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
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March 29, 2024In this essay written in 1945, George Orwell is concerned with the concept of revenge. Is the desire for revenge rational? When can it be justified, and to what degree? How does the desire to punish offenders correlate with the facts on the ground?
Does revenge need to (kind of) adapt to volatile and complex reality?
In the immediate aftermath of WWII, the author concludes that there is usually a negative correlation between the desire for revenge and the actual ability to punish the enemy for what they did.
The desire for vengeance is the strongest when one is helpless. The urge to take vengeance subsides as the enemy ceases to be threatening and is eventually vanquished. When your recent enemy is harmless, the idea of doing something hurtful in retaliation loses its meaning.
As the author points out, "Properly speaking, there is no such thing as revenge. Revenge is an act which you want to commit when you are powerless and because you are powerless: as soon as the sense of impotence is removed, the desire evaporates also."
To put it another way, revenge is ultimately to prove futile in many cases.
Orwell's arguments are persuasive, albeit it would be fair to add that the subject discussed is somewhat controversial. I think it would be difficult to make any conclusions out of context.
Does revenge need to (kind of) adapt to volatile and complex reality?
In the immediate aftermath of WWII, the author concludes that there is usually a negative correlation between the desire for revenge and the actual ability to punish the enemy for what they did.
The desire for vengeance is the strongest when one is helpless. The urge to take vengeance subsides as the enemy ceases to be threatening and is eventually vanquished. When your recent enemy is harmless, the idea of doing something hurtful in retaliation loses its meaning.
As the author points out, "Properly speaking, there is no such thing as revenge. Revenge is an act which you want to commit when you are powerless and because you are powerless: as soon as the sense of impotence is removed, the desire evaporates also."
To put it another way, revenge is ultimately to prove futile in many cases.
Orwell's arguments are persuasive, albeit it would be fair to add that the subject discussed is somewhat controversial. I think it would be difficult to make any conclusions out of context.
May 20, 2026
Two or three of the essays collected here are only very good; the rest are magnificent. He begins with an autobiographical note in which he reveals that Somerset Maugham was the writer who influenced him the most. That came as a bit of a surprise. (It doesn't take much to win my heart.)
This is followed by reminiscences of the Spanish War. He fought in the war and (not surprisingly) what made the greatest impression on him where the lies that people – on each side – would tell about it. A theme he would come back to in his famous novel. The newspaper would report on battles that never happened. Everyone believed the reports about atrocities committed by the enemy and refused to believe anything that cast doubt on the actions of their own side.
The title essay is very touching. It is about the wish to have revenge and the fact that many people when the occasion arises just do not feel the urge to do what they have wanted to do anymore. (Yesterday I watched Nuremberg about the Nazi trials, and in one of the subplots an American soldier, a Jew born in Germany, says that he intends to tell Streicher who claimed he could smell a Jew the truth in them moment he is about to be hanged. And then he does not.)
The Confessions of a Book Reviewer is hilariously funny. You definitely do not want to live having to do book reviews to pay the rent. (And here we are, stupid Goodreaders, doing reviews for free.)
The most amazing essay however offers Some Thoughts of the Common Toad. This is simply beautiful. You think of Orwell as a frustrated intellectual, despairing at the flood of lies and evil in the world. And here he talks about the beauty of nature in a way that you almost suspect he is doing a parody. I am inclined to think though, that he is completely serious.
The longest essays are on Gulliver’s travels and on Tolstoy’s view of Shakespeare. He describes Swift as being a reactionary and the quotations he presents let you come to the conclusion that he certainly was not a likeable fellow and his famous book must be a bad one. This would be wrong conclusion. Orwell tells us that he has read the book often and sees it as one of the six most important books ever written. In reality then this is about appreciating a piece of art while disagreeing with the character of the author and the contents of the art. A very useful lecture.
I have some respect for people who have views that are different from the one you and I have. Scaruffi claiming the Beatles are not very good. Nabokov saying Dostoevsky is overrated. Here Orwell talks about an essay by Tolstoy where he tries to prove that Shakespeare was a man of no talent. That the fact that he is regarded as the greatest of all writers is in fact a fabrication of some German intellectuals of the 18th century and that people believing in Shakespeare are the victims of some kind of mass delusion (like the people in the Netherlands in the 16th century with their love for tulips.)
I admire the people who believe the Earth is flat for their braveness. However, that does not mean I think they are not crazy. And the same is true for Tolstoy. And yet. How do I know that Shakespeare was a genius? Luckily, Wittgenstein had the answer. We can, he said (Vermischte Bemerkungen), be certain of Shakespeare’s genius only because we have Milton’s testimony, for he was certainly incorruptible.
This is followed by reminiscences of the Spanish War. He fought in the war and (not surprisingly) what made the greatest impression on him where the lies that people – on each side – would tell about it. A theme he would come back to in his famous novel. The newspaper would report on battles that never happened. Everyone believed the reports about atrocities committed by the enemy and refused to believe anything that cast doubt on the actions of their own side.
The title essay is very touching. It is about the wish to have revenge and the fact that many people when the occasion arises just do not feel the urge to do what they have wanted to do anymore. (Yesterday I watched Nuremberg about the Nazi trials, and in one of the subplots an American soldier, a Jew born in Germany, says that he intends to tell Streicher who claimed he could smell a Jew the truth in them moment he is about to be hanged. And then he does not.)
The Confessions of a Book Reviewer is hilariously funny. You definitely do not want to live having to do book reviews to pay the rent. (And here we are, stupid Goodreaders, doing reviews for free.)
The most amazing essay however offers Some Thoughts of the Common Toad. This is simply beautiful. You think of Orwell as a frustrated intellectual, despairing at the flood of lies and evil in the world. And here he talks about the beauty of nature in a way that you almost suspect he is doing a parody. I am inclined to think though, that he is completely serious.
The longest essays are on Gulliver’s travels and on Tolstoy’s view of Shakespeare. He describes Swift as being a reactionary and the quotations he presents let you come to the conclusion that he certainly was not a likeable fellow and his famous book must be a bad one. This would be wrong conclusion. Orwell tells us that he has read the book often and sees it as one of the six most important books ever written. In reality then this is about appreciating a piece of art while disagreeing with the character of the author and the contents of the art. A very useful lecture.
I have some respect for people who have views that are different from the one you and I have. Scaruffi claiming the Beatles are not very good. Nabokov saying Dostoevsky is overrated. Here Orwell talks about an essay by Tolstoy where he tries to prove that Shakespeare was a man of no talent. That the fact that he is regarded as the greatest of all writers is in fact a fabrication of some German intellectuals of the 18th century and that people believing in Shakespeare are the victims of some kind of mass delusion (like the people in the Netherlands in the 16th century with their love for tulips.)
I admire the people who believe the Earth is flat for their braveness. However, that does not mean I think they are not crazy. And the same is true for Tolstoy. And yet. How do I know that Shakespeare was a genius? Luckily, Wittgenstein had the answer. We can, he said (Vermischte Bemerkungen), be certain of Shakespeare’s genius only because we have Milton’s testimony, for he was certainly incorruptible.
January 15, 2022
passt, hat mich net alles intrisiert aber dings über ghandi war gut zB lg
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September 25, 2023I don't even know what to think of this it's definitely interesting but I'm not sure to which extend I agree with George Orwell on this topic given that it's very complex and I've never really thought about it that much
June 14, 2026
George Orwell’s “Revenge is Sour” is an interesting short essay about his witnessing after the war the prisoner of war and their treatment by some of the Allies. How feelings change when the feeling of impotence brought different feelings compared to when the upper hand is finally in hand. A subject more complex than this. The comment on searching for Nazi criminals as basically unnecessary, I disagree with this.
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
Page 156 | Highlight (Yellow)
“Get up, you swine!” he shouted as the man started out of sleep, and then repeated something of the kind in
German. The prisoner scrambled to his feet and stood clumsily to attention. With the same air of working
himself up into a fury—indeed he was almost dancing up and down as he spoke—the Jew told us the prisoner’
s history. He was a “real” Nazi: his party number indicated that he had been a member since the very early
days, and he had held a post corresponding to a general in the
Jun 13, 2026
Page 156 | Highlight (Yellow)
political branch of the’S.S. It could be taken as quite certain that he had had charge of concentration camps
and had presided over tortures and hangings. In short, he represented everything that we had been fighting
1
Page 156 | Highlight Continued
against during the past five years. Meanwhile, I was studying his appearance. Quite apart from the scrubby,
unfed, unshaven look that a newly captured man generally has, he was a disgusting specimen. But he did not
look brutal or in any way frightening: merely neurotic
Jun 13, 2026
Page 157 | Highlight (Yellow)
and, in a low way, intellectual. His pale, shifty eyes were deformed by powerful spectacles. He could have
been an unfrocked clergyman, an actor ruined by drink, or a spiritualist medium. I have seen very similar
people in London common lodging-houses, and also in the Reading Room of the British Museum. Quite
obviously he was mentally unbalanced—indeed, only doubtfully sane, though at this moment sufficiently in
his right mind to be frightened of getting another kick. And yet everything that the Jew was
Jun 13, 2026
Page 157 | Highlight (Yellow)
telling me of his history could have been true, and probably was true! So the Nazi torturer of one’s
imagination, the monstrous figure against whom one had struggled for so many years, dwindled to this pitiful
wretch, whose obvious need was not for punishment, but for some kind of psychological treatment. Later,
there were further humiliations. Another’S.S. officer, a large brawny man, was ordered to strip to the waist
and show the blood-group number tattooed on his under-arm; another was forced to explain to
Jun 13, 2026
Page 157 | Highlight (Yellow)
us how he had lied about being a member of the’S.S. and attempted to pass himself off as an ordinary soldier
of the Wehrmacht. I wondered whether the Jew was getting any real kick out of this new-found power that he
was exercising. I concluded that he wasn’t really enjoying it, and that he was merely—like a man in a brothel,
or a boy smoking his first cigar, or a tourist traipsing round a picture gallery—telling himself that he was
enjoying it, and behaving as he had planned
Jun 13, 2026
Page 157 | Highlight (Yellow)
to behave in the days when he was helpless. It is absurd to blame any German or Austrian Jew for getting his
own back on the Nazis. Heaven knows what scores this particular man may have had to wipe out: very likely
his whole family had been murdered; and, after all, even a wanton kick to a prisoner is a very tiny thing
compared with the outrages committed by the Hitler regime. But what this scene, and much else that I saw in
Germany, brought home to me was that the
Jun 13, 2026
2
Page 157 | Highlight (Yellow)
whole idea of revenge and punishment is a childish daydream. Properly speaking, there is no such thing as
revenge. Revenge is an act which you want to commit when you are powerless and because you are
powerless: as soon as the sense of impotence is removed, the desire evaporates also.
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
Page 156 | Highlight (Yellow)
“Get up, you swine!” he shouted as the man started out of sleep, and then repeated something of the kind in
German. The prisoner scrambled to his feet and stood clumsily to attention. With the same air of working
himself up into a fury—indeed he was almost dancing up and down as he spoke—the Jew told us the prisoner’
s history. He was a “real” Nazi: his party number indicated that he had been a member since the very early
days, and he had held a post corresponding to a general in the
Jun 13, 2026
Page 156 | Highlight (Yellow)
political branch of the’S.S. It could be taken as quite certain that he had had charge of concentration camps
and had presided over tortures and hangings. In short, he represented everything that we had been fighting
1
Page 156 | Highlight Continued
against during the past five years. Meanwhile, I was studying his appearance. Quite apart from the scrubby,
unfed, unshaven look that a newly captured man generally has, he was a disgusting specimen. But he did not
look brutal or in any way frightening: merely neurotic
Jun 13, 2026
Page 157 | Highlight (Yellow)
and, in a low way, intellectual. His pale, shifty eyes were deformed by powerful spectacles. He could have
been an unfrocked clergyman, an actor ruined by drink, or a spiritualist medium. I have seen very similar
people in London common lodging-houses, and also in the Reading Room of the British Museum. Quite
obviously he was mentally unbalanced—indeed, only doubtfully sane, though at this moment sufficiently in
his right mind to be frightened of getting another kick. And yet everything that the Jew was
Jun 13, 2026
Page 157 | Highlight (Yellow)
telling me of his history could have been true, and probably was true! So the Nazi torturer of one’s
imagination, the monstrous figure against whom one had struggled for so many years, dwindled to this pitiful
wretch, whose obvious need was not for punishment, but for some kind of psychological treatment. Later,
there were further humiliations. Another’S.S. officer, a large brawny man, was ordered to strip to the waist
and show the blood-group number tattooed on his under-arm; another was forced to explain to
Jun 13, 2026
Page 157 | Highlight (Yellow)
us how he had lied about being a member of the’S.S. and attempted to pass himself off as an ordinary soldier
of the Wehrmacht. I wondered whether the Jew was getting any real kick out of this new-found power that he
was exercising. I concluded that he wasn’t really enjoying it, and that he was merely—like a man in a brothel,
or a boy smoking his first cigar, or a tourist traipsing round a picture gallery—telling himself that he was
enjoying it, and behaving as he had planned
Jun 13, 2026
Page 157 | Highlight (Yellow)
to behave in the days when he was helpless. It is absurd to blame any German or Austrian Jew for getting his
own back on the Nazis. Heaven knows what scores this particular man may have had to wipe out: very likely
his whole family had been murdered; and, after all, even a wanton kick to a prisoner is a very tiny thing
compared with the outrages committed by the Hitler regime. But what this scene, and much else that I saw in
Germany, brought home to me was that the
Jun 13, 2026
2
Page 157 | Highlight (Yellow)
whole idea of revenge and punishment is a childish daydream. Properly speaking, there is no such thing as
revenge. Revenge is an act which you want to commit when you are powerless and because you are
powerless: as soon as the sense of impotence is removed, the desire evaporates also.
March 17, 2024
‘Revenge is Sour’ is one of George Orwell’s many essays.
Orwell tries to make sense of how deep revenge runs, for horrific acts carried out by the Nazis. Does revenge become less dire once the perpetrators have been caught and it is therefore possible to achieve revenge.
“Somehow the punishment of these monsters ceases to seem attractive when it becomes possible: indeed, once under lock and key, they almost cease to be monsters”.
We’ll all have opinions on this one.
Orwell tries to make sense of how deep revenge runs, for horrific acts carried out by the Nazis. Does revenge become less dire once the perpetrators have been caught and it is therefore possible to achieve revenge.
“Somehow the punishment of these monsters ceases to seem attractive when it becomes possible: indeed, once under lock and key, they almost cease to be monsters”.
We’ll all have opinions on this one.
July 17, 2024
one of my favourites!!! it makes me think of that image of mussolini in the morgue with claretta petacci - and just in general about how these terrible dictators can be reduced to nothing so quickly. also, how these people were considered so great during their time - but when we look back on their actions, we realise how far cunning (not exactly intelligence) got them. anyway, much to think about when reading this one!!
October 20, 2025
Wie es bei so vielen Essays ja auch nahe liegt, sind manche sehr gut und manche weniger gut gealtert.
Der Rückblick auf den spanischen Bürgerkrieg ragt heraus und wäre alleine für sich genommen fünf Punkte wert. Manche andere Essays hingegen wirken leider etwas angestaubt.
Der Rückblick auf den spanischen Bürgerkrieg ragt heraus und wäre alleine für sich genommen fünf Punkte wert. Manche andere Essays hingegen wirken leider etwas angestaubt.
March 12, 2025
I think sour is a flavor nobody expects till the end of the war
When they realize that the enemies are devils. They are also humans.
When they realize that the enemies are devils. They are also humans.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews