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Essays
A generous and varied selection–the only hardcover edition available–of the literary and political writings of one of the greatest essayists of the twentieth century. Although best known as the author of Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-four , George Orwell left an even more lastingly significant achievement in his voluminous essays, which dealt with all the great social, political, and literary questions of the day and exemplified an incisive prose style that is still universally admired. Included among the more than 240 essays in this volume are Orwell’s famous discussion of pacifism, “My Country Right or Left”; his scathingly complicated views on the dirty work of imperialism in “Shooting an Elephant”; and his very firm opinion on how to make “A Nice Cup of Tea.” In his essays, Orwell elevated political writing to the level of art, and his motivating ideas–his desire for social justice, his belief in universal freedom and equality, and his concern for truth in language–are as enduringly relevant now, a hundred years after his birth, as ever.
1369 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1968
129 people are currently reading
1692 people want to read
About the author
George Orwell
1,281 books50.6k 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 - 30 of 67 reviews
May 13, 2017
Update - this just like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get next. As the dark war-torn year of 1940 begins, what does Orwell begin the year with? Why, a 50 page dissection of the work of Charles Dickens... and expressed with such breathtaking authority too :
in spite of his generosity of mind, he is not free from the special prejudices of the shabby-genteel. It is usual to claim him as a "popular" writer, a champion of the "oppressed masses"... but there are two things that condition his attitude. In the first place, he is a south-of-England man, a Cockney at that, and therefore out of touch with the bulk of the real oppressed masses, the industrial and agricultural labourers. It is interesting to see how Chesterton, another Cockney, always presents Dickens as a spokesman of "the poor", without showing much awareness of who "the poor" really are. To Chesterton, "the poor" means small shopkeepers and servants. ... The other point is that Dickens's early experiences have given him a horror of proletarian roughness...
**********************
I never read Orwell! Ok, Animal Farm back in school. That’s all. And he must be one of the most banged-on-about authors in the history of the written word. So it really became incumbent upon one to give him a go. I wasn’t looking forward that much. Wasn’t he just going to be spouting the received centre-left opinion of his day and waxing on about Spain and The Beano and Greta Garbo and the lost ha’penny sherbet dib-dabs of 1938?
Anyway I browbeat myself into giving him a go so I got this big beast, the almost complete non-fiction. 1369 pages. The complete edition includes all known laundry and shopping lists.
Well, I was wrong. Now I get it. And now I’m a fan. He’s so easy to read, and so interesting. He becomes your very slightly know-it-all friend. It will take me a couple of years to chew through this substantial volume but it’s so full of stuff right from the first page that I thought it deserved to be reviewed section by section, starting with the first which is catchily named “1928-37”.
*
The first of several surprising ideas was in essay number one – that in 1928 there were such things as almost-free newspapers. They cost a farthing then, which was a quarter of a penny. The loss they incurred was made up entirely by advertising. So, the same economic model as the online versions of every newspaper now (except those behind a paywall). And of course there are many actual free actual newspapers around. Well, I thought this was a recent-ish phenomenon, just a little bit older than the internet itself. How wrong I was.
Number two – holy crap! In an essay called “Clink” (August 1932) he’s using the f AND the c words to demonstrate the kind of language used by the common criminals of England. Was this essay ever published? Surely not. But it’s a good one… so I’m confused.
Number three – “Bookshop Memories” – ha, remember that popular thing Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops? This is the 1936 version. People were saying pretty much the same things then. In those days some bookshops also ran lending libraries, and here Orwell turns his spotlight on another interesting question :
In a lending library you see people’s real tastes, not their pretended ones, and the one thing that strikes you is how completely the “classical” English novelists have dropped out of favour. It is simply useless to put Dickens, Thackeray, Jane Austen, Trollope, etc, into the ordinary lending library; nobody takes them out… Yet it is always fairly easy to sell Dickens
I would say the same thing now, of course – no one reads anything from say before 1950… oh, EXCEPT Jane Austen!
Number four – in a review of a forgotten prison memoir called Walls Have Mouths Orwell reveals the ubiquity of homosexual activity up to and including male rape in a paragraph which must have stunned his readers – we were still getting used to this kind of reality in the work of James Gilligan and in movies like American History X . But hear Orwell :
In a convict prison homosexuality is so general that even the jailors are infected by it, and there are actual cases of jailors and convicts competing for the favours of the same nancy-boy
Well, we may dislike the homophobic terms Orwell uses but still, again, I was amazed at this subject being given any attention in public in 1936.
Number five – reading one of his acknowledged hits “Shooting an Elephant”, and finding out that it was Orwell who shot the elephant! (“I did not want to shoot the elephant”). This was when he was a colonial police officer in Burma. He had a chequered career.
Onward to part two.
in spite of his generosity of mind, he is not free from the special prejudices of the shabby-genteel. It is usual to claim him as a "popular" writer, a champion of the "oppressed masses"... but there are two things that condition his attitude. In the first place, he is a south-of-England man, a Cockney at that, and therefore out of touch with the bulk of the real oppressed masses, the industrial and agricultural labourers. It is interesting to see how Chesterton, another Cockney, always presents Dickens as a spokesman of "the poor", without showing much awareness of who "the poor" really are. To Chesterton, "the poor" means small shopkeepers and servants. ... The other point is that Dickens's early experiences have given him a horror of proletarian roughness...
**********************
I never read Orwell! Ok, Animal Farm back in school. That’s all. And he must be one of the most banged-on-about authors in the history of the written word. So it really became incumbent upon one to give him a go. I wasn’t looking forward that much. Wasn’t he just going to be spouting the received centre-left opinion of his day and waxing on about Spain and The Beano and Greta Garbo and the lost ha’penny sherbet dib-dabs of 1938?
Anyway I browbeat myself into giving him a go so I got this big beast, the almost complete non-fiction. 1369 pages. The complete edition includes all known laundry and shopping lists.
Well, I was wrong. Now I get it. And now I’m a fan. He’s so easy to read, and so interesting. He becomes your very slightly know-it-all friend. It will take me a couple of years to chew through this substantial volume but it’s so full of stuff right from the first page that I thought it deserved to be reviewed section by section, starting with the first which is catchily named “1928-37”.
*
The first of several surprising ideas was in essay number one – that in 1928 there were such things as almost-free newspapers. They cost a farthing then, which was a quarter of a penny. The loss they incurred was made up entirely by advertising. So, the same economic model as the online versions of every newspaper now (except those behind a paywall). And of course there are many actual free actual newspapers around. Well, I thought this was a recent-ish phenomenon, just a little bit older than the internet itself. How wrong I was.
Number two – holy crap! In an essay called “Clink” (August 1932) he’s using the f AND the c words to demonstrate the kind of language used by the common criminals of England. Was this essay ever published? Surely not. But it’s a good one… so I’m confused.
Number three – “Bookshop Memories” – ha, remember that popular thing Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops? This is the 1936 version. People were saying pretty much the same things then. In those days some bookshops also ran lending libraries, and here Orwell turns his spotlight on another interesting question :
In a lending library you see people’s real tastes, not their pretended ones, and the one thing that strikes you is how completely the “classical” English novelists have dropped out of favour. It is simply useless to put Dickens, Thackeray, Jane Austen, Trollope, etc, into the ordinary lending library; nobody takes them out… Yet it is always fairly easy to sell Dickens
I would say the same thing now, of course – no one reads anything from say before 1950… oh, EXCEPT Jane Austen!
Number four – in a review of a forgotten prison memoir called Walls Have Mouths Orwell reveals the ubiquity of homosexual activity up to and including male rape in a paragraph which must have stunned his readers – we were still getting used to this kind of reality in the work of James Gilligan and in movies like American History X . But hear Orwell :
In a convict prison homosexuality is so general that even the jailors are infected by it, and there are actual cases of jailors and convicts competing for the favours of the same nancy-boy
Well, we may dislike the homophobic terms Orwell uses but still, again, I was amazed at this subject being given any attention in public in 1936.
Number five – reading one of his acknowledged hits “Shooting an Elephant”, and finding out that it was Orwell who shot the elephant! (“I did not want to shoot the elephant”). This was when he was a colonial police officer in Burma. He had a chequered career.
Onward to part two.
September 2, 2016
This is an enormous doorstop of a book, with over 1,300 pages of George Orwell’s essays. Of course that doesn’t cover everything he wrote, but it’s an awful lot. While best known for his novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell was probably a better essayist than a novelist. This volume contains Orwell’s best and most famous essays, printed many places (including online), like “Such, Such Were the Joys,” “Shooting an Elephant,” and “Politics and the English Language." It also includes other thought-provoking but harder to find essays like “A Hanging,” and “Notes on Nationalism,” as well as the excellent and still very relevant preface to the first edition of Animal Farm, “The Freedom of the Press.”
As you would expect, there’s plenty here of Orwell’s favorite topics, totalitarianism, fascism, communism, and imperialism, but also much about the little details of everyday life, from how to make the perfect cup of tea to his concept of an ideal pub. This collection has all 80 of the “As I Please” columns that Orwell wrote for the Tribune, a column that can be political but just as often addresses grammar and word choice, attacks clichéd writing, and bemoans the lack of technological advancement in activities such as washing dishes. Orwell wrote many book reviews as well, most of which serve more as a format for him to express his opinions than as a discussion of the books themselves. Sometimes these are on surprising but intriguing topics, such as Orwell's criticism of Tolstoy's criticism of Shakespeare. There are also some funny little gems, like a rant of a letter Orwell wrote in response to a questionnaire he was sent about the Spanish Civil War that begins, “Will you please stop sending me this bloody rubbish” and escalates from there.
This book is organized chronologically, which makes sense, but unfortunately suffers from the lack of an index. Still, for those who want to go beyond the same 10-15 essays that are printed in most anthologies, this edition will provide as many Orwell essays as just about anyone could possibly want to read.
As you would expect, there’s plenty here of Orwell’s favorite topics, totalitarianism, fascism, communism, and imperialism, but also much about the little details of everyday life, from how to make the perfect cup of tea to his concept of an ideal pub. This collection has all 80 of the “As I Please” columns that Orwell wrote for the Tribune, a column that can be political but just as often addresses grammar and word choice, attacks clichéd writing, and bemoans the lack of technological advancement in activities such as washing dishes. Orwell wrote many book reviews as well, most of which serve more as a format for him to express his opinions than as a discussion of the books themselves. Sometimes these are on surprising but intriguing topics, such as Orwell's criticism of Tolstoy's criticism of Shakespeare. There are also some funny little gems, like a rant of a letter Orwell wrote in response to a questionnaire he was sent about the Spanish Civil War that begins, “Will you please stop sending me this bloody rubbish” and escalates from there.
This book is organized chronologically, which makes sense, but unfortunately suffers from the lack of an index. Still, for those who want to go beyond the same 10-15 essays that are printed in most anthologies, this edition will provide as many Orwell essays as just about anyone could possibly want to read.
July 30, 2010
man, this book is such a great old friend.
----
Orwell is skyrocketing up my list of major 20th century writers with every one of the 255 pages I've thus far read of this 1300+ page behemoth. The man was amazingly prescient, at a deep, detailed level.
This was one of the best collections of essays I've ever read, probably second only to Freeman Dyson's The Scientist as a Rebel. Across 1363 pages of essays from 1928-1949 (the vast majority of them coming from 1938-1946), written for a wide gamut of publications, Orwell manages to repeat himself only a few times (usually clearly-relished zingers) -- a fine show of editing, as each annoying bit of repetition is found within an essay that simply couldn't have been left out due to other unique, interesting points. Having read it, I feel far more conversant with the politics of the pre-war years, the Fabian Society-inspired English breed of socialism, the demise of realpolitik as Fascism's yoke was affixed, battled and finally thrown off...Orwell is one of the most intelligent, aware and just amazingly foresighted authors of the twentieth century, and this book will find itself a place near my mattress for some time.
----
Orwell is skyrocketing up my list of major 20th century writers with every one of the 255 pages I've thus far read of this 1300+ page behemoth. The man was amazingly prescient, at a deep, detailed level.
This was one of the best collections of essays I've ever read, probably second only to Freeman Dyson's The Scientist as a Rebel. Across 1363 pages of essays from 1928-1949 (the vast majority of them coming from 1938-1946), written for a wide gamut of publications, Orwell manages to repeat himself only a few times (usually clearly-relished zingers) -- a fine show of editing, as each annoying bit of repetition is found within an essay that simply couldn't have been left out due to other unique, interesting points. Having read it, I feel far more conversant with the politics of the pre-war years, the Fabian Society-inspired English breed of socialism, the demise of realpolitik as Fascism's yoke was affixed, battled and finally thrown off...Orwell is one of the most intelligent, aware and just amazingly foresighted authors of the twentieth century, and this book will find itself a place near my mattress for some time.
April 22, 2014
I honestly have no clue how I forgot to catalog this. Two renewals twice as many summers past. Nine golden weeks. Makes for a good weapon in the case of a mugging as well, also good on the arm muscles. Indispensable.
September 12, 2007
A brilliant set of essays, providing great insights into Orwell's world -- the end of colonialism, the rise of fascism and Stalinism, the evolution of British society. I read Orwell's essays in college (in fact, I may have read some in high school), and have usually carried a volume around with me since. Orwell has been one of the most influential people in the shaping of my own world view.
So many great essays -- in "Politics and the English Language," Orwell talks about why so many political tracts are badly written -- because people actually want to conceal what they are trying to say (advocating violence sounds so much better when dressed up in patriotic cliches). In "Shooting an Elephant," Orwell discusses one particular day when he was on the police force in Burma, and what the events of that day taught him about the nature of imperialism. In "Reflections on Gandhi," Orwell described why he disliked the man. When first I read the essay I was shocked -- how could ANYONE dislike Gandhi? But Orwell says that Gandhi was trying to be a saint, and that saints are different in nature from other people. To be a saint, you must love everyone equally. But to be human means to love some people -- your family, your friends -- more than others. Orwell sees that as the more worthwhile goal.
Plus essays on Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, Tolstoy's take on King Lear, boy's stories, dirty postcards (Orwell loves reading and analyzing everything), his own school days, the Spanish civil war, etc. All written in clear, accessible prose.
So many great essays -- in "Politics and the English Language," Orwell talks about why so many political tracts are badly written -- because people actually want to conceal what they are trying to say (advocating violence sounds so much better when dressed up in patriotic cliches). In "Shooting an Elephant," Orwell discusses one particular day when he was on the police force in Burma, and what the events of that day taught him about the nature of imperialism. In "Reflections on Gandhi," Orwell described why he disliked the man. When first I read the essay I was shocked -- how could ANYONE dislike Gandhi? But Orwell says that Gandhi was trying to be a saint, and that saints are different in nature from other people. To be a saint, you must love everyone equally. But to be human means to love some people -- your family, your friends -- more than others. Orwell sees that as the more worthwhile goal.
Plus essays on Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, Tolstoy's take on King Lear, boy's stories, dirty postcards (Orwell loves reading and analyzing everything), his own school days, the Spanish civil war, etc. All written in clear, accessible prose.
Want to read
January 21, 2018In fact I read most of these essays in this handsome hardcover some 13 years ago during my gloomy days due to my unsatisfactorily productive academic pursuit at UQ. However I recalled vaguely I had written some ideas, reflections, views, etc. regarding his inspiring essays since I always admire his writing style with good, witty points he has long mentioned and urged the world to have a look or take action as appropriate then and beyond.
Therefore, I have resumed reading those unread as my second round hoping to complete this mission as soon as time and enjoyment are available; it is my delight whenever I see some Goodreads readers reading his scintillating messages to the elite somewhere as well as his readers, I think, to ponder and act wisely in the name of democracy, integrity and scholarship.
Therefore, I have resumed reading those unread as my second round hoping to complete this mission as soon as time and enjoyment are available; it is my delight whenever I see some Goodreads readers reading his scintillating messages to the elite somewhere as well as his readers, I think, to ponder and act wisely in the name of democracy, integrity and scholarship.
October 4, 2025
Arthur Koestler by George Orwell is the twenty first of The Essays that are placed on the 917th spot on The Greatest Books of All Time site, where the algorithm changes the compilation, who knows what the data used is, but if it takes into account the ‘reading public’, then the chefs d’oeuvre will descend, and the likes of The Da Vinci Code will dominate the arena, and they will become the GOAT – nevertheless, you have more than five thousand reviews on books from the aforementioned site and others, with notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other lists waiting for you on my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20...
9 out of 10
The Essays of Geroge Orwell are delightful, the critic who said that they could very well surpass Nineteen Eighty Four https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... – ranked sixth on The Greatest Books of All Time may be on to something, however, I have been very impressed so far
I have read Darkness at Noon https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... by Arthur Koestler and furthermore, I have lived in a Stalinist regime, in our case the name of the caudillo, despot was Ceausescu and I brag at the end of this note about my role in his demise…
“One striking fact about English literature during the present century is the extent to which it has been dominated by foreigners — for example, Conrad, Henry James, Shaw, Joyce, Yeats, Pound and Eliot…” this is the first line in the Arthur Koestler essay, and I could say I have read Conrad, Shaw and Dubliners https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... I will probably not make it with Ulysses though
“Koestler’s published work really centers about the Moscow trials. His main theme is the decadence of revolutions owing to the corrupting effects of power, but the special nature of the Stalin dictatorship has driven him back into a position not far removed from pessimistic Conservatism.” This is such a clear and short description
I was thinking earlier that George Orwell does bring light to so much art: take his note on Dali https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... the venerated surrealist comes out shaken, if not destroyed and Orwell is splendid – for instance he writes this line about Shakespeare
This is not a quote, you can find the essays on line, if you want to read them, and indeed, you would better stop here (if this is happening, you read so far that is, a chance in a million, I know) and go read the real thing, not this contraption…anyway, I was saying ‘ if Shakespeare would come back to life, and then…
We find he is abusing children, we would not say “go on and do that, maybe you write another King Klear” this is the feeling I am left with, the essay has a totally different wording, as you can imagine, but it is powerful
The same with Dali, the man was sick, he had oeuvres called ‘The Masturbator”, another ‘sodomy with a skull’ – there may be some mistake there, but still, it is pretty close – and though he made peace – reconverted maybe the word – with the Catholic church, he did not reject his past, when he was into those freakish subjects
Darkness at Noon is among the Top Ten Best Books, as listed by The Modern Library, you could check their list, which has Ulysses at number one, The Great Gatsby, Catch 22 are among those ten best https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20...
Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence
Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the benefits from it, other than the exercise per se
There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works
‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’
9 out of 10
The Essays of Geroge Orwell are delightful, the critic who said that they could very well surpass Nineteen Eighty Four https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... – ranked sixth on The Greatest Books of All Time may be on to something, however, I have been very impressed so far
I have read Darkness at Noon https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... by Arthur Koestler and furthermore, I have lived in a Stalinist regime, in our case the name of the caudillo, despot was Ceausescu and I brag at the end of this note about my role in his demise…
“One striking fact about English literature during the present century is the extent to which it has been dominated by foreigners — for example, Conrad, Henry James, Shaw, Joyce, Yeats, Pound and Eliot…” this is the first line in the Arthur Koestler essay, and I could say I have read Conrad, Shaw and Dubliners https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... I will probably not make it with Ulysses though
“Koestler’s published work really centers about the Moscow trials. His main theme is the decadence of revolutions owing to the corrupting effects of power, but the special nature of the Stalin dictatorship has driven him back into a position not far removed from pessimistic Conservatism.” This is such a clear and short description
I was thinking earlier that George Orwell does bring light to so much art: take his note on Dali https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... the venerated surrealist comes out shaken, if not destroyed and Orwell is splendid – for instance he writes this line about Shakespeare
This is not a quote, you can find the essays on line, if you want to read them, and indeed, you would better stop here (if this is happening, you read so far that is, a chance in a million, I know) and go read the real thing, not this contraption…anyway, I was saying ‘ if Shakespeare would come back to life, and then…
We find he is abusing children, we would not say “go on and do that, maybe you write another King Klear” this is the feeling I am left with, the essay has a totally different wording, as you can imagine, but it is powerful
The same with Dali, the man was sick, he had oeuvres called ‘The Masturbator”, another ‘sodomy with a skull’ – there may be some mistake there, but still, it is pretty close – and though he made peace – reconverted maybe the word – with the Catholic church, he did not reject his past, when he was into those freakish subjects
Darkness at Noon is among the Top Ten Best Books, as listed by The Modern Library, you could check their list, which has Ulysses at number one, The Great Gatsby, Catch 22 are among those ten best https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20...
Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence
Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the benefits from it, other than the exercise per se
There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works
‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’
November 10, 2013
Highly recommended, I only wish I could write this clearly, or even think this clearly. A lot about politics, propaganda and modern life (both haven't really changed since then it seems), the most impressive thing to me is that even though he nowadays counts as a socialist, he can impartially describe the follies of both left and right without falling for the lies and (self-)deceptions of either side. I don't know any "modern" (as in, currently alive) writers who can do this.
As a sidenote, one can find many "famous" formulations of Animal Farm or 1984 in these essays before they appeared in the books.
If you read one essay of his, choose this one: Politics and the English Language, probably the most relevant to contemporary times.
I've underlined about a hundred insightful passages which I'm just going to paste here so that you can get a general idea. All others can stop here.
(Keep in mind that most of these essays are written 1938-1949)
It seems to me a safe assumption that the disease loosely called nationalism is now almost universal. Antisemitism is only one manifestation of nationalism, and not everyone will have the disease in that particular form. A Jew, for example, would not be antisemitic: but then many Zionist Jews seem to me to be merely antisemites turned upside-down, just as many Indians and Negroes display the normal colour prejudices in an inverted form.
But that antisemitism will be definitively CURED, without curing the larger disease of nationalism, I do not believe.
Political or military commentators, like astrologers, can survive almost any mistake, because their more devoted followers do not look to them for an appraisal of the facts but for the stimulation of nationalistic loyalties.
In 1927 Chiang Kai Shek boiled hundreds of Communists alive, and yet within ten years he had become one of the heroes of the Left. The re-alignment of world politics had brought him into the anti-Fascist camp, and so it was felt that the boiling of the Communists ‘didn’t count’, or perhaps had not happened.
PACIFIST: Those who ‘abjure’ violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf
There is no limit to the follies that can be swallowed if one is under the influence of feelings of this kind. I have heard it confidently stated, for instance, that the American troops had been brought to Europe not to fight the Germans but to crush an English revolution. One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.
If you hate and fear Russia, if you are jealous of the wealth and power of America, if you despise Jews, if you have a sentiment of inferiority towards the British ruling class, you cannot get rid of those feelings simply by taking thought. But you can at least recognise that you have them, and prevent them from contaminating your mental processes.
But what this scene, and much else that I saw in Germany, brought home to me was that the 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. Who would not have jumped for joy, in 1940, at the thought of seeing S.S. officers kicked and humiliated? But when the thing becomes possible, it is merely pathetic and disgusting. It is said that when Mussolini’s corpse
At the international level sport is frankly mimic warfare. But the significant thing is not the behaviour of the players but the attitude of the spectators: and, behind the spectators, of the nations who work themselves into furies over these absurd contests, and seriously believe — at any rate for short periods — that running, jumping and kicking a ball are tests of national virtue.
Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.
However, it appears from President Truman’s remarks, and various comments that have been made on them, that the bomb is fantastically expensive and that its manufacture demands an enormous industrial effort, such as only three or four countries in the world are capable of making. This point is of cardinal importance, because it may mean that the discovery of the atomic bomb, so far from reversing history, will simply intensify the trends which have been apparent for a dozen years past.
But suppose — and really this the likeliest development — that the surviving great nations make a tacit agreement never to use the atomic bomb against one another? Suppose they only use it, or the threat of it, against people who are unable to retaliate? In that case we are back where we were before, the only difference being that power is concentrated in still fewer hands and that the outlook for subject peoples and oppressed classes is still more hopeless.
If you plant a walnut you are planting it for your grandchildren, and who cares a damn for his grandchildren?
Every writer, in any case, is rather that kind of person, but the prolonged, indiscriminate reviewing of books is a quite exceptionally thankless, irritating and exhausting job. It not only involves praising trash — though it does involve that, as I will show in a moment — but constantly INVENTING reactions towards books about which one has no spontaneous feelings whatever.
People talk about the horrors of war, but what weapon has man invented that even approaches in cruelty some of the commoner diseases? “Natural” death, almost by definition, means something slow, smelly and painful.
This business of people just dying like animals, for instance, with nobody standing by, nobody interested, the death not even noticed till the morning — this happened more than once.
Machiavelli and his followers taught that in politics decency simply does not exist, and, by doing so, Burnham claims, made it possible to conduct political affairs more intelligently and less oppressively. A ruling class which recognised that its real aim was to stay in power would also recognise that it would be more likely to succeed if it served the common good, and might avoid stiffening into a hereditary aristocracy.
Socialism, until recently, was supposed to connote political democracy, social equality and internationalism. There is not the smallest sign that any of these things is in a way to being established anywhere, and the one great country in which something described as a proletarian revolution once happened, i.e. the USSR, has moved steadily away from the old concept of a free and equal society aiming at universal human brotherhood. In an almost unbroken progress since the early days of the Revolution, liberty has been chipped away and representative institutions smothered, while inequalities have increased and nationalism and militarism have grown stronger.
Political predictions are usually wrong, because they are usually based on wish-thinking, but they can have symptomatic value, especially when they change abruptly.
Such a world-picture fits in with the American tendency to admire size for its own sake and to feel that success constitutes justification, and it fits in with the all-prevailing anti-British
Burnham at least has the honesty to say that Socialism isn’t coming; the others merely say that Socialism is coming, and then give the word “Socialism” a new meaning which makes nonsense of the old one.
If I had to make a prophecy, I should say that a continuation of the Russian policies of the last fifteen years — and internal and external policy, of course, are merely two facets of the same thing — can only lead to a war conducted with atomic bombs, which will make Hitler’s invasion look like a tea-party. But at any rate, the Russian régime will either democratise itself, or it will perish. The huge, invincible, everlasting slave empire of which Burnham appears to dream will not be established, or, if established, will not endure, because slavery is no longer a stable basis for human society.
The question only arises because in exploring the physical universe man has made no attempt to explore himself. Much of what goes by the name of pleasure is simply an effort to destroy consciousness.
This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing. As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of WORDS chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of PHRASES tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house.
PRETENTIOUS DICTION. Words like PHENOMENON, ELEMENT, INDIVIDUAL (as noun), OBJECTIVE, CATEGORICAL, EFFECTIVE, VIRTUAL, BASIS, PRIMARY, PROMOTE, CONSTITUTE, EXHIBIT, EXPLOIT, UTILIZE, ELIMINATE, LIQUIDATE, are used to dress up simple statements and give an air of scientific impartiality to biased judgments.
MEANINGLESS WORDS. In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning. * Words like ROMANTIC, PLASTIC, VALUES, HUMAN, DEAD, SENTIMENTAL, NATURAL, VITALITY, as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly even expected to do so by the reader. When one critic writes, “The outstanding feature of Mr. X’s work is its living quality,” while another writes, “The immediately striking thing about Mr. X’s work is its peculiar deadness,” the reader accepts this as a simple difference of opinion
In the case of a word like DEMOCRACY, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of régime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different.
As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug.
A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly? But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in.
When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases — BESTIAL ATROCITIES, IRON HEEL, BLOODSTAINED TYRANNY, FREE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD, STAND SHOULDER TO SHOULDER— one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy:
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called PACIFICATION.
The inflated style is itself a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were instinctively, to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as “keeping out of politics.” All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find — this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify — that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years as a result of dictatorship.
He has an extraordinarily clear prevision of the spy-haunted “police State”, with its endless heresy-hunts and treason trials, all really designed to neutralize popular discontent by changing it into war hysteria.
If one is capable of intellectual detachment, one can PERCEIVE merit in a writer whom one deeply disagrees with, but ENJOYMENT is a different matter. Supposing that there is such a thing as good or bad art, then the goodness or badness must reside in the work of art itself — not independently of the observer, indeed, but independently of the mood of the observer. In one sense, therefore, it cannot be true that a poem is good on Monday and bad on Tuesday. But if one judges the poem by the appreciation it arouses, then it can certainly be true, because appreciation, or enjoyment, is a subjective condition which cannot be commanded.
In Communist literature the attack on intellectual liberty is usually masked by oratory about “petty-bourgeois individualism”, “the illusions of nineteenth-century liberalism”, etc., and backed up by words of abuse such as “romantic” and “sentimental”, which, since they do not have any agreed meaning, are difficult to answer. In this way the controversy is maneuvered away from its real issue.
From the totalitarian point of view history is something to be created rather than learned. A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened. Then again, every major change in policy demands a corresponding change of doctrine and a revelation of prominent historical figures.
There is no such thing as a genuinely non-political literature, and least of all in an age like our own, when fears, hatreds, and loyalties of a directly political kind are near to the surface of everyone’s consciousness. Even a single taboo can have an all-round crippling effect upon the mind, because there is always the danger that any thought which is freely followed up may lead to the forbidden thought. It follows that the atmosphere of totalitarianism is deadly to any kind of prose writer, though a poet, at any rate a lyric poet, might possibly find it breathable. And in any totalitarian society that survives for more than a couple of generations, it is probable that prose literature, of the kind that has existed during the past four hundred years, must actually come to an end. Literature has sometimes
Some, at least, of the English scientists who speak so enthusiastically of the opportunities to be enjoyed by scientists in Russia are capable of understanding this. But their reflection appears to be: “Writers are persecuted in Russia. So what? I am not a writer.” They do not see that any attack on intellectual liberty, and on the concept of objective truth, threatens in the long run every department of thought.
All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.
One’s real reaction to a book, when one has a reaction at all, is usually “I like this book” or “I don’t like it”, and what follows is a rationalisation. But “I like this book” is not, I think, a non-literary reaction; the non-literary reaction is “This book is on my side, and therefore I must discover merits in it”.
To accept an orthodoxy is always to inherit unresolved contradictions. Take for instance the fact that all sensitive people are revolted by industrialism and its products, and yet are aware that the conquest of poverty and the emancipation of the working class demand not less industrialisation, but more and more. Or take the fact that certain jobs are absolutely necessary and yet are never done except under some kind of coercion. Or take the fact that it is impossible to have a positive foreign policy without having powerful armed forces. One could multiply examples. In every such case there is a conclusion which is perfectly plain but which can only be drawn if one is privately disloyal to the official ideology. The normal response is to push the question, unanswered, into a corner of one’s mind, and then continue repeating contradictory catchwords. One does not have to search far through the reviews and magazines to discover the effects of this kind of thinking.
To yield subjectively, not merely to a party machine, but even to a group ideology, is to destroy yourself as a writer. We feel this dilemma to be a painful one, because we see the need of engaging in politics while also seeing what a dirty, degrading business it is. And most of us still have a lingering belief that every choice, even every political choice, is between good and evil, and that if a thing is necessary it is also right. We should, I think, get rid of this belief, which belongs to the nursery. In politics one can never do more than decide which of two evils is the lesser, and there are some situations from which one can only escape by acting like a devil or a lunatic.
It is difficult to see how Gandhi’s methods could be applied in a country where opponents of the régime disappear in the middle of the night and are never heard of again. Without a free press and the right of assembly, it is impossible not merely to appeal to outside opinion, but to bring a mass movement into being, or even to make your intentions known to your adversary. Is there a Gandhi in Russia at this moment? And if there is, what is he accomplishing?
As a sidenote, one can find many "famous" formulations of Animal Farm or 1984 in these essays before they appeared in the books.
If you read one essay of his, choose this one: Politics and the English Language, probably the most relevant to contemporary times.
I've underlined about a hundred insightful passages which I'm just going to paste here so that you can get a general idea. All others can stop here.
(Keep in mind that most of these essays are written 1938-1949)
It seems to me a safe assumption that the disease loosely called nationalism is now almost universal. Antisemitism is only one manifestation of nationalism, and not everyone will have the disease in that particular form. A Jew, for example, would not be antisemitic: but then many Zionist Jews seem to me to be merely antisemites turned upside-down, just as many Indians and Negroes display the normal colour prejudices in an inverted form.
But that antisemitism will be definitively CURED, without curing the larger disease of nationalism, I do not believe.
Political or military commentators, like astrologers, can survive almost any mistake, because their more devoted followers do not look to them for an appraisal of the facts but for the stimulation of nationalistic loyalties.
In 1927 Chiang Kai Shek boiled hundreds of Communists alive, and yet within ten years he had become one of the heroes of the Left. The re-alignment of world politics had brought him into the anti-Fascist camp, and so it was felt that the boiling of the Communists ‘didn’t count’, or perhaps had not happened.
PACIFIST: Those who ‘abjure’ violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf
There is no limit to the follies that can be swallowed if one is under the influence of feelings of this kind. I have heard it confidently stated, for instance, that the American troops had been brought to Europe not to fight the Germans but to crush an English revolution. One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.
If you hate and fear Russia, if you are jealous of the wealth and power of America, if you despise Jews, if you have a sentiment of inferiority towards the British ruling class, you cannot get rid of those feelings simply by taking thought. But you can at least recognise that you have them, and prevent them from contaminating your mental processes.
But what this scene, and much else that I saw in Germany, brought home to me was that the 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. Who would not have jumped for joy, in 1940, at the thought of seeing S.S. officers kicked and humiliated? But when the thing becomes possible, it is merely pathetic and disgusting. It is said that when Mussolini’s corpse
At the international level sport is frankly mimic warfare. But the significant thing is not the behaviour of the players but the attitude of the spectators: and, behind the spectators, of the nations who work themselves into furies over these absurd contests, and seriously believe — at any rate for short periods — that running, jumping and kicking a ball are tests of national virtue.
Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.
However, it appears from President Truman’s remarks, and various comments that have been made on them, that the bomb is fantastically expensive and that its manufacture demands an enormous industrial effort, such as only three or four countries in the world are capable of making. This point is of cardinal importance, because it may mean that the discovery of the atomic bomb, so far from reversing history, will simply intensify the trends which have been apparent for a dozen years past.
But suppose — and really this the likeliest development — that the surviving great nations make a tacit agreement never to use the atomic bomb against one another? Suppose they only use it, or the threat of it, against people who are unable to retaliate? In that case we are back where we were before, the only difference being that power is concentrated in still fewer hands and that the outlook for subject peoples and oppressed classes is still more hopeless.
If you plant a walnut you are planting it for your grandchildren, and who cares a damn for his grandchildren?
Every writer, in any case, is rather that kind of person, but the prolonged, indiscriminate reviewing of books is a quite exceptionally thankless, irritating and exhausting job. It not only involves praising trash — though it does involve that, as I will show in a moment — but constantly INVENTING reactions towards books about which one has no spontaneous feelings whatever.
People talk about the horrors of war, but what weapon has man invented that even approaches in cruelty some of the commoner diseases? “Natural” death, almost by definition, means something slow, smelly and painful.
This business of people just dying like animals, for instance, with nobody standing by, nobody interested, the death not even noticed till the morning — this happened more than once.
Machiavelli and his followers taught that in politics decency simply does not exist, and, by doing so, Burnham claims, made it possible to conduct political affairs more intelligently and less oppressively. A ruling class which recognised that its real aim was to stay in power would also recognise that it would be more likely to succeed if it served the common good, and might avoid stiffening into a hereditary aristocracy.
Socialism, until recently, was supposed to connote political democracy, social equality and internationalism. There is not the smallest sign that any of these things is in a way to being established anywhere, and the one great country in which something described as a proletarian revolution once happened, i.e. the USSR, has moved steadily away from the old concept of a free and equal society aiming at universal human brotherhood. In an almost unbroken progress since the early days of the Revolution, liberty has been chipped away and representative institutions smothered, while inequalities have increased and nationalism and militarism have grown stronger.
Political predictions are usually wrong, because they are usually based on wish-thinking, but they can have symptomatic value, especially when they change abruptly.
Such a world-picture fits in with the American tendency to admire size for its own sake and to feel that success constitutes justification, and it fits in with the all-prevailing anti-British
Burnham at least has the honesty to say that Socialism isn’t coming; the others merely say that Socialism is coming, and then give the word “Socialism” a new meaning which makes nonsense of the old one.
If I had to make a prophecy, I should say that a continuation of the Russian policies of the last fifteen years — and internal and external policy, of course, are merely two facets of the same thing — can only lead to a war conducted with atomic bombs, which will make Hitler’s invasion look like a tea-party. But at any rate, the Russian régime will either democratise itself, or it will perish. The huge, invincible, everlasting slave empire of which Burnham appears to dream will not be established, or, if established, will not endure, because slavery is no longer a stable basis for human society.
The question only arises because in exploring the physical universe man has made no attempt to explore himself. Much of what goes by the name of pleasure is simply an effort to destroy consciousness.
This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing. As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of WORDS chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of PHRASES tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house.
PRETENTIOUS DICTION. Words like PHENOMENON, ELEMENT, INDIVIDUAL (as noun), OBJECTIVE, CATEGORICAL, EFFECTIVE, VIRTUAL, BASIS, PRIMARY, PROMOTE, CONSTITUTE, EXHIBIT, EXPLOIT, UTILIZE, ELIMINATE, LIQUIDATE, are used to dress up simple statements and give an air of scientific impartiality to biased judgments.
MEANINGLESS WORDS. In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning. * Words like ROMANTIC, PLASTIC, VALUES, HUMAN, DEAD, SENTIMENTAL, NATURAL, VITALITY, as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly even expected to do so by the reader. When one critic writes, “The outstanding feature of Mr. X’s work is its living quality,” while another writes, “The immediately striking thing about Mr. X’s work is its peculiar deadness,” the reader accepts this as a simple difference of opinion
In the case of a word like DEMOCRACY, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of régime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different.
As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug.
A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly? But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in.
When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases — BESTIAL ATROCITIES, IRON HEEL, BLOODSTAINED TYRANNY, FREE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD, STAND SHOULDER TO SHOULDER— one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy:
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called PACIFICATION.
The inflated style is itself a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were instinctively, to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as “keeping out of politics.” All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find — this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify — that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years as a result of dictatorship.
He has an extraordinarily clear prevision of the spy-haunted “police State”, with its endless heresy-hunts and treason trials, all really designed to neutralize popular discontent by changing it into war hysteria.
If one is capable of intellectual detachment, one can PERCEIVE merit in a writer whom one deeply disagrees with, but ENJOYMENT is a different matter. Supposing that there is such a thing as good or bad art, then the goodness or badness must reside in the work of art itself — not independently of the observer, indeed, but independently of the mood of the observer. In one sense, therefore, it cannot be true that a poem is good on Monday and bad on Tuesday. But if one judges the poem by the appreciation it arouses, then it can certainly be true, because appreciation, or enjoyment, is a subjective condition which cannot be commanded.
In Communist literature the attack on intellectual liberty is usually masked by oratory about “petty-bourgeois individualism”, “the illusions of nineteenth-century liberalism”, etc., and backed up by words of abuse such as “romantic” and “sentimental”, which, since they do not have any agreed meaning, are difficult to answer. In this way the controversy is maneuvered away from its real issue.
From the totalitarian point of view history is something to be created rather than learned. A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened. Then again, every major change in policy demands a corresponding change of doctrine and a revelation of prominent historical figures.
There is no such thing as a genuinely non-political literature, and least of all in an age like our own, when fears, hatreds, and loyalties of a directly political kind are near to the surface of everyone’s consciousness. Even a single taboo can have an all-round crippling effect upon the mind, because there is always the danger that any thought which is freely followed up may lead to the forbidden thought. It follows that the atmosphere of totalitarianism is deadly to any kind of prose writer, though a poet, at any rate a lyric poet, might possibly find it breathable. And in any totalitarian society that survives for more than a couple of generations, it is probable that prose literature, of the kind that has existed during the past four hundred years, must actually come to an end. Literature has sometimes
Some, at least, of the English scientists who speak so enthusiastically of the opportunities to be enjoyed by scientists in Russia are capable of understanding this. But their reflection appears to be: “Writers are persecuted in Russia. So what? I am not a writer.” They do not see that any attack on intellectual liberty, and on the concept of objective truth, threatens in the long run every department of thought.
All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.
One’s real reaction to a book, when one has a reaction at all, is usually “I like this book” or “I don’t like it”, and what follows is a rationalisation. But “I like this book” is not, I think, a non-literary reaction; the non-literary reaction is “This book is on my side, and therefore I must discover merits in it”.
To accept an orthodoxy is always to inherit unresolved contradictions. Take for instance the fact that all sensitive people are revolted by industrialism and its products, and yet are aware that the conquest of poverty and the emancipation of the working class demand not less industrialisation, but more and more. Or take the fact that certain jobs are absolutely necessary and yet are never done except under some kind of coercion. Or take the fact that it is impossible to have a positive foreign policy without having powerful armed forces. One could multiply examples. In every such case there is a conclusion which is perfectly plain but which can only be drawn if one is privately disloyal to the official ideology. The normal response is to push the question, unanswered, into a corner of one’s mind, and then continue repeating contradictory catchwords. One does not have to search far through the reviews and magazines to discover the effects of this kind of thinking.
To yield subjectively, not merely to a party machine, but even to a group ideology, is to destroy yourself as a writer. We feel this dilemma to be a painful one, because we see the need of engaging in politics while also seeing what a dirty, degrading business it is. And most of us still have a lingering belief that every choice, even every political choice, is between good and evil, and that if a thing is necessary it is also right. We should, I think, get rid of this belief, which belongs to the nursery. In politics one can never do more than decide which of two evils is the lesser, and there are some situations from which one can only escape by acting like a devil or a lunatic.
It is difficult to see how Gandhi’s methods could be applied in a country where opponents of the régime disappear in the middle of the night and are never heard of again. Without a free press and the right of assembly, it is impossible not merely to appeal to outside opinion, but to bring a mass movement into being, or even to make your intentions known to your adversary. Is there a Gandhi in Russia at this moment? And if there is, what is he accomplishing?
December 22, 2015
I just loved this book. I gave it 4.5 stars because I never give 5 stars to any book on a first reading but I intend to buy it and go thru it over again and it could very well earn its last star. Not only do I want to buy this book but I yearn for a whole collection of Orwell’s work even though I already own “1984”, “Animal Farm” and “Down and Out in Paris”.
This volume is a series of essays written by Orwell between 1928 and 1949 on war, economy, literature and day to day living.
Some of the essays that I appreciated the most fall in the latest category such as the longer one called “Such, Such Were the Joys”, one of his last texts, where he tells his life at a boarding school, St Stephen. A harsh environment where boys were thought some the worst behaviours at a very young age: cowardice, class distinction and fascism. His experience feels universal. I could relate to it even though I am a woman, in a different time, in a different country who never went to a boarding school. He’s putting words to some of my own experiences that I could not express. About being punished:
“I was crying partly because I felt that this was expected of me, partly from genuine repentance, but partly also because of a deeper grief which is peculiar to childhood and not easy to convey: a sense of desolate loneliness and helplessness; of being locked up not only in a hostile world but in a world of good and evil where the rules were such that it was actually not possible for me to keep them.”
George Orwell is well read, an excellent writer, compassionate and true to himself. He never follows the crowd. Orwell’s talent is such that his essays felt contemporary and pertinent even though they were written almost 100 years ago. Whether it is comments on economic disparities, on war or religion, what he had to say then is still valid now. War in the 21st century continues to be old rich men sending poor young men to the battlefield; we are still debating whether or not we should accept refugees.
About pacifism he said that we should not forget that we can be pacifists because someone else is fighting on our behalf. It was true then when we were fighting the Nazis it’s still true now that we are fighting ISIS. As a teenager, I was violently anti-military. Not so much anymore. It’s a mark of old age to have one’s position evolve, to show more grey zone, be subtler in one’s opinion. My younger self would call it “coping out”. I don’t have to ask such question about Orwell whose moral compass always pointed thru North.
Since he lived during two world wars, it’s to be expected that a lot of his essays would touch on that subject. And, because he participated in the Spanish war he knew what he was talking about.
“All wars are the same. The essential horror of army life (whoever has been a soldier will know what I mean by the essential horror of army life) is barely affected by the nature of the war you happen to be fighting in. Discipline, for instance, is ultimately the same in all armies. Orders have to be obeyed and enforced by punishment if necessary, the relationship of the officer and their soldiers has to be the relationship of superior and inferior. The picture of war set forth in books like “All Quiet on the Western Front” is substantially true. Bullets hurt, corpses stink, men under fire are often so frightened that they wet their trousers… (People forget that a soldier anywhere near the front line is usually too hungry, or frightened, or cold or, above all, too tired to bother about the political origins of the war.) …a louse is a louse and a bomb is a bomb, although the cause you are fighting for happens to be just. As far as the mass of people go, the extraordinary swings of opinions which occur nowadays, the emotions which can be turned off and off like a tap, are the result of newspaper and radio hypnosis. In the intelligentsia I should say they result rather from money and mere physical safety. At a given moment they may be pro-war or anti-war but in either case they have no realistic picture of war in their minds…We have become too civilized to grasp the obvious. For the truth is very simple. To survive you often have to fight, and to fight you have to dirty yourself. War is evil, and it is often the lesser evil. Those who take the sword perish by the sword, and those who don’t take the sword perish by smelly diseases. “
The soldiers often have more in common between them than with the civil back home. “…I had come here to shoot at “Fascists”; but a man who is holding up his trousers isn’t a “Fascist”, he is visibly a fellow creature, similar to yourself, and you don’t feel like shooting at him.”
His literary criticism of books I have not read, made me want to discover new authors (new to me) or rediscover authors I already know. The question, “Should a good book also be a moral book," is one I’ve been asking myself. For example, I hesitate to read Michel Houellebecq’s “Submission” because I’m afraid that it’s an anti-Muslim pamphlet, even though it’s one of the 100 notable books of the New-York Time for 2015. Orwell answer to this question is “Yes, we can appreciate the literary quality of a book, even give the author a literary prize, but we should not sweep under the rug the author’s political and moral position."
Even when he writes about authors I have never heard of – and there are many of those – he’s still interesting.
Some of his essays have a more philosophical bent:
“…conscious futility is something only for the young. One cannot go on “despairing of life” into a ripe old age.” About T.S. Elliot
“Can Socialist be happy?” (1943)
“All efforts to describe permanent happiness, on the other hand, have been failures, from earliest history onwards. Utopia…has been common in the literature of the past three of four hundred years, but the “favourable” ones are invariably unappetizing, and usually lacking in vitality as well.”
“As I Please 14” (1944)
“I do not want the belief in life after death to return, and in any case it is not likely to return. What I do point out is that its disappearance has left a big hole, and that we ought to take notice of that fact. Reared for thousands of years on the notion that the individual survives, man has got to make a considerable psychological effort to get used to the notion that the individual perishes. He is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell…when one’s belly is empty, one’s only problem is an empty belly. It is when we have got away from drudgery and exploitation that we shall really start wondering about man’s destiny and the reason for his existence.”
In a long essay, “Politics and the English Language”, written in 1945, he denounces meaningless words, or words that hide the truth which he called “Newspeak” in “1984”. “If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. The debased language…is in some ways very convenient.”
In this essay, his own language is far from debased. He uses great images “…his words, like cavalry horses answering the bugle, group themselves automatically into the familiar dreary pattern. This invasion of one’s mind by ready-made phrases can only be prevented if one is constantly on guard against them, and every such phrase anaesthetizes a portion of one’s brain.”
While I was reading his essays, he was my friend. I found myself talking to him; explaining what had happened since he died; how the world had changed sometime for the best, sometimes for the worse. For example, he would have been happy to hear of the invention of the dishwasher which came as a result of the war and women’s liberation and, also, because technology allowed it. Here is what he wrote on the subject of dishes in 1945 in “As I Please”, his chronicle in the “Tribune” a British left-wing paper:
“Every time I wash up a batch of crockery I marvel at the unimaginativeness of human beings who can travel under the sea and fly through the clouds, and yet have not known how to eliminate this sordid time-wasting drudgery from their daily lives.”
I tried to look at current events with his eyes wondering what he would have thought. When I finished the book on December 2, I felt as if a friend had died. Of course I knew that he had died in 1950 – too soon – but reading his essays, I had the impression that he was alive and that he had been my companion for the last few months – it’s a big book. A companion that was wise, compassionate, and humorous; a companion who wrote well.
This volume is a series of essays written by Orwell between 1928 and 1949 on war, economy, literature and day to day living.
Some of the essays that I appreciated the most fall in the latest category such as the longer one called “Such, Such Were the Joys”, one of his last texts, where he tells his life at a boarding school, St Stephen. A harsh environment where boys were thought some the worst behaviours at a very young age: cowardice, class distinction and fascism. His experience feels universal. I could relate to it even though I am a woman, in a different time, in a different country who never went to a boarding school. He’s putting words to some of my own experiences that I could not express. About being punished:
“I was crying partly because I felt that this was expected of me, partly from genuine repentance, but partly also because of a deeper grief which is peculiar to childhood and not easy to convey: a sense of desolate loneliness and helplessness; of being locked up not only in a hostile world but in a world of good and evil where the rules were such that it was actually not possible for me to keep them.”
George Orwell is well read, an excellent writer, compassionate and true to himself. He never follows the crowd. Orwell’s talent is such that his essays felt contemporary and pertinent even though they were written almost 100 years ago. Whether it is comments on economic disparities, on war or religion, what he had to say then is still valid now. War in the 21st century continues to be old rich men sending poor young men to the battlefield; we are still debating whether or not we should accept refugees.
About pacifism he said that we should not forget that we can be pacifists because someone else is fighting on our behalf. It was true then when we were fighting the Nazis it’s still true now that we are fighting ISIS. As a teenager, I was violently anti-military. Not so much anymore. It’s a mark of old age to have one’s position evolve, to show more grey zone, be subtler in one’s opinion. My younger self would call it “coping out”. I don’t have to ask such question about Orwell whose moral compass always pointed thru North.
Since he lived during two world wars, it’s to be expected that a lot of his essays would touch on that subject. And, because he participated in the Spanish war he knew what he was talking about.
“All wars are the same. The essential horror of army life (whoever has been a soldier will know what I mean by the essential horror of army life) is barely affected by the nature of the war you happen to be fighting in. Discipline, for instance, is ultimately the same in all armies. Orders have to be obeyed and enforced by punishment if necessary, the relationship of the officer and their soldiers has to be the relationship of superior and inferior. The picture of war set forth in books like “All Quiet on the Western Front” is substantially true. Bullets hurt, corpses stink, men under fire are often so frightened that they wet their trousers… (People forget that a soldier anywhere near the front line is usually too hungry, or frightened, or cold or, above all, too tired to bother about the political origins of the war.) …a louse is a louse and a bomb is a bomb, although the cause you are fighting for happens to be just. As far as the mass of people go, the extraordinary swings of opinions which occur nowadays, the emotions which can be turned off and off like a tap, are the result of newspaper and radio hypnosis. In the intelligentsia I should say they result rather from money and mere physical safety. At a given moment they may be pro-war or anti-war but in either case they have no realistic picture of war in their minds…We have become too civilized to grasp the obvious. For the truth is very simple. To survive you often have to fight, and to fight you have to dirty yourself. War is evil, and it is often the lesser evil. Those who take the sword perish by the sword, and those who don’t take the sword perish by smelly diseases. “
The soldiers often have more in common between them than with the civil back home. “…I had come here to shoot at “Fascists”; but a man who is holding up his trousers isn’t a “Fascist”, he is visibly a fellow creature, similar to yourself, and you don’t feel like shooting at him.”
His literary criticism of books I have not read, made me want to discover new authors (new to me) or rediscover authors I already know. The question, “Should a good book also be a moral book," is one I’ve been asking myself. For example, I hesitate to read Michel Houellebecq’s “Submission” because I’m afraid that it’s an anti-Muslim pamphlet, even though it’s one of the 100 notable books of the New-York Time for 2015. Orwell answer to this question is “Yes, we can appreciate the literary quality of a book, even give the author a literary prize, but we should not sweep under the rug the author’s political and moral position."
Even when he writes about authors I have never heard of – and there are many of those – he’s still interesting.
Some of his essays have a more philosophical bent:
“…conscious futility is something only for the young. One cannot go on “despairing of life” into a ripe old age.” About T.S. Elliot
“Can Socialist be happy?” (1943)
“All efforts to describe permanent happiness, on the other hand, have been failures, from earliest history onwards. Utopia…has been common in the literature of the past three of four hundred years, but the “favourable” ones are invariably unappetizing, and usually lacking in vitality as well.”
“As I Please 14” (1944)
“I do not want the belief in life after death to return, and in any case it is not likely to return. What I do point out is that its disappearance has left a big hole, and that we ought to take notice of that fact. Reared for thousands of years on the notion that the individual survives, man has got to make a considerable psychological effort to get used to the notion that the individual perishes. He is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell…when one’s belly is empty, one’s only problem is an empty belly. It is when we have got away from drudgery and exploitation that we shall really start wondering about man’s destiny and the reason for his existence.”
In a long essay, “Politics and the English Language”, written in 1945, he denounces meaningless words, or words that hide the truth which he called “Newspeak” in “1984”. “If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. The debased language…is in some ways very convenient.”
In this essay, his own language is far from debased. He uses great images “…his words, like cavalry horses answering the bugle, group themselves automatically into the familiar dreary pattern. This invasion of one’s mind by ready-made phrases can only be prevented if one is constantly on guard against them, and every such phrase anaesthetizes a portion of one’s brain.”
While I was reading his essays, he was my friend. I found myself talking to him; explaining what had happened since he died; how the world had changed sometime for the best, sometimes for the worse. For example, he would have been happy to hear of the invention of the dishwasher which came as a result of the war and women’s liberation and, also, because technology allowed it. Here is what he wrote on the subject of dishes in 1945 in “As I Please”, his chronicle in the “Tribune” a British left-wing paper:
“Every time I wash up a batch of crockery I marvel at the unimaginativeness of human beings who can travel under the sea and fly through the clouds, and yet have not known how to eliminate this sordid time-wasting drudgery from their daily lives.”
I tried to look at current events with his eyes wondering what he would have thought. When I finished the book on December 2, I felt as if a friend had died. Of course I knew that he had died in 1950 – too soon – but reading his essays, I had the impression that he was alive and that he had been my companion for the last few months – it’s a big book. A companion that was wise, compassionate, and humorous; a companion who wrote well.
February 14, 2024
George Orwell, acclaimed for his works of fiction such as Animal Farm and 1984, also left behind a rich legacy of essays that offer profound insights into politics, society, and human nature. Written during tumultuous times of political upheaval and social change, Orwell's essays reflect his keen intellect, unwavering commitment to truth, and unflinching criticism of authoritarianism.
Orwell's essays draw inspiration from a wide range of topics, including politics, literature, language, and everyday life. Many of his political essays are marked by their incisive analysis of power dynamics, propaganda, and the erosion of democratic values. Orwell's experiences fighting in the Spanish Civil War and his disillusionment with Soviet communism heavily influenced his political writings, leading to seminal works such as Homage to Catalonia and Politics and the English Language- both excellent works.
Written against the backdrop of World War II and the rise of totalitarian regimes, Orwell's essays offer a trenchant critique of fascism, communism, and imperialism. His uncompromising stance against tyranny and oppression resonated with readers grappling with the moral complexities of the era. Additionally, Orwell's essays provide valuable historical context for understanding the social and political forces at play during his lifetime.
Orwell's essays are characterised by their clarity, precision, and lucid prose. His writing style is marked by a straightforward simplicity that belies the depth of his insights. Whether dissecting political rhetoric or reflecting on the nuances of everyday life, Orwell's essays are a testament to his mastery of the English language and his ability to communicate complex ideas with clarity and eloquence.
For me, Orwell's political essays, including Shooting an Elephant, Politics and the English Language, and Notes on Nationalism, in particular, stand out as highlights of the collection, offering incisive commentary on the pressing issues of his time.
Orwell's political essays are characterised by their rigorous analysis, moral clarity, and unwavering commitment to truth. His ability to dissect propaganda and expose the mechanisms of power remains as relevant today as it was during Orwell's lifetime. Readers will find themselves engrossed in Orwell's astute observations and prophetic warnings about the dangers of totalitarianism and ideological fanaticism. An absolute legend.
The collection also includes essays of a more personal and idiosyncratic nature, such as A Nice Cup of Tea, and Some Thoughts on the Common Toad. I’ll be honest I just felt sad reading these, sometimes a guy needs to know when to stop writing every thought he has and just go to the pub and talk it out with some mates.
Despite the random, weird ones, Orwell's essays remain essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of the modern world, and I’d definitely recommend them to absolutely anyone.
Orwell's essays draw inspiration from a wide range of topics, including politics, literature, language, and everyday life. Many of his political essays are marked by their incisive analysis of power dynamics, propaganda, and the erosion of democratic values. Orwell's experiences fighting in the Spanish Civil War and his disillusionment with Soviet communism heavily influenced his political writings, leading to seminal works such as Homage to Catalonia and Politics and the English Language- both excellent works.
Written against the backdrop of World War II and the rise of totalitarian regimes, Orwell's essays offer a trenchant critique of fascism, communism, and imperialism. His uncompromising stance against tyranny and oppression resonated with readers grappling with the moral complexities of the era. Additionally, Orwell's essays provide valuable historical context for understanding the social and political forces at play during his lifetime.
Orwell's essays are characterised by their clarity, precision, and lucid prose. His writing style is marked by a straightforward simplicity that belies the depth of his insights. Whether dissecting political rhetoric or reflecting on the nuances of everyday life, Orwell's essays are a testament to his mastery of the English language and his ability to communicate complex ideas with clarity and eloquence.
For me, Orwell's political essays, including Shooting an Elephant, Politics and the English Language, and Notes on Nationalism, in particular, stand out as highlights of the collection, offering incisive commentary on the pressing issues of his time.
Orwell's political essays are characterised by their rigorous analysis, moral clarity, and unwavering commitment to truth. His ability to dissect propaganda and expose the mechanisms of power remains as relevant today as it was during Orwell's lifetime. Readers will find themselves engrossed in Orwell's astute observations and prophetic warnings about the dangers of totalitarianism and ideological fanaticism. An absolute legend.
The collection also includes essays of a more personal and idiosyncratic nature, such as A Nice Cup of Tea, and Some Thoughts on the Common Toad. I’ll be honest I just felt sad reading these, sometimes a guy needs to know when to stop writing every thought he has and just go to the pub and talk it out with some mates.
Despite the random, weird ones, Orwell's essays remain essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of the modern world, and I’d definitely recommend them to absolutely anyone.
December 23, 2015
I received this weighty book as a Christmas present, and made it my 2015 reading goal to complete it by the end of the year. Thanks to Orwell's brilliant essays, his surprisingly readable prose, and to my persistence, I finished four months early.
Most readers know Orwell for Animal Farm and 1984, and perhaps for his most famous essay, "Politics and the English Language." I was in that group, but I wanted to know more, so I dug in deeper. And this book is about as comprehensive as it gets. It is quite impossible to summarize all the ideas present in this massive volume. In short, here are Orwell's major themes:
Imperialism. Having been a part of an imperialist force but who hated himself for it, Orwell offers a unique insiders/outsiders perspective on British colonialism. He hates imperialism but is brutally realistic about the chances of liberated colonies to self-rule.
Nationalism. Writing in the time of the rise of Fascism and Communism, Orwell watched world leaders drum the support of their people into a frenzy and send them to their deaths. But he does not wholeheartedly reject nationalism, either, for he had no tolerance for flowery pacifist utopias. He saw what pacifism did to stop the Nazis-- nothing.
Language. Orwell avoided and advocated against ornate and flowery language. This is clear in his very straightforward, readable prose. But he warns against the dangers of euphemism and jargon. His essay "Politics and the English Language" is probably the purest distillation of this idea, but numerous essays in the volume develop it.
Literary Criticism. Orwell is sometimes overlooked as a literary critic. This volume offers a great number of critiques and reviews. The most useful, in my opinion, were his explorations of Dickens, Swift, Joyce, Gissing, and Tolstoy's criticism of Shakespeare (really, a criticism of a critique).
This is a comprehensive volume. There are also a number of shorter pieces he wrote for The Tribune that are more varied and fanciful in nature-- he reflects on how to make a good cup of tea, reflects on current events or things he missed from his childhood, and other trivialities. This pieces, I felt, lightened the tone of the volume and made it more enjoyable to read.
I'm sure there are plenty of "greatest essays of Orwell" collections out there if you want the highlights. But one of the chief pleasures of undertaking this project was that I was able to observe Orwell's ideas and interests evolve over time. I could not help underlining and taking notes throughout on concepts that later appear in Animal Farm and 1984. These two novels, written toward the end of his short life, were fictional enactments of concerns that were nascent in his writing a decade earlier. If you just read those two novels, you are looking at the edifice of an impressive building. If you read this collection of essays, you are seeing the very frame of the house, down to every last joint and joist. It took time for me to get through these 1300 pages. But it has left an indelible mark on me as a reader, as a writer, and as a citizen of the 21st century.
Most readers know Orwell for Animal Farm and 1984, and perhaps for his most famous essay, "Politics and the English Language." I was in that group, but I wanted to know more, so I dug in deeper. And this book is about as comprehensive as it gets. It is quite impossible to summarize all the ideas present in this massive volume. In short, here are Orwell's major themes:
Imperialism. Having been a part of an imperialist force but who hated himself for it, Orwell offers a unique insiders/outsiders perspective on British colonialism. He hates imperialism but is brutally realistic about the chances of liberated colonies to self-rule.
Nationalism. Writing in the time of the rise of Fascism and Communism, Orwell watched world leaders drum the support of their people into a frenzy and send them to their deaths. But he does not wholeheartedly reject nationalism, either, for he had no tolerance for flowery pacifist utopias. He saw what pacifism did to stop the Nazis-- nothing.
Language. Orwell avoided and advocated against ornate and flowery language. This is clear in his very straightforward, readable prose. But he warns against the dangers of euphemism and jargon. His essay "Politics and the English Language" is probably the purest distillation of this idea, but numerous essays in the volume develop it.
Literary Criticism. Orwell is sometimes overlooked as a literary critic. This volume offers a great number of critiques and reviews. The most useful, in my opinion, were his explorations of Dickens, Swift, Joyce, Gissing, and Tolstoy's criticism of Shakespeare (really, a criticism of a critique).
This is a comprehensive volume. There are also a number of shorter pieces he wrote for The Tribune that are more varied and fanciful in nature-- he reflects on how to make a good cup of tea, reflects on current events or things he missed from his childhood, and other trivialities. This pieces, I felt, lightened the tone of the volume and made it more enjoyable to read.
I'm sure there are plenty of "greatest essays of Orwell" collections out there if you want the highlights. But one of the chief pleasures of undertaking this project was that I was able to observe Orwell's ideas and interests evolve over time. I could not help underlining and taking notes throughout on concepts that later appear in Animal Farm and 1984. These two novels, written toward the end of his short life, were fictional enactments of concerns that were nascent in his writing a decade earlier. If you just read those two novels, you are looking at the edifice of an impressive building. If you read this collection of essays, you are seeing the very frame of the house, down to every last joint and joist. It took time for me to get through these 1300 pages. But it has left an indelible mark on me as a reader, as a writer, and as a citizen of the 21st century.
March 17, 2014
There are a few authors that you are forced to read in school, or that you know the name of, even if you haven't read them. They are considered 'good' or 'important writers' and after a while they get the stigma of people only reading them because they want to sound impressive. So they can say for example, oh yes I've read Shakespeare, or oh yes The Grapes of Wrath, I've read that. And I always watch myself because I know part of me wants to read books by people like this, simply so I too can say, oh George Orwell yes I've actually read his essays as well as his novels. Or something along those lines.
I've read 1984 but it was more of a skim then a read, and I try not to claim I've read it too often because it feels like a lie in my head. Animal Farm I missed out on at school and the ratty copy I bought second hand is currently still on my bookshelf, unread. I happened across this rather large book of essay's at work one day. It was a brand new book so shelving it, it drew my attention. The size did as well, it was huge. I borrowed it that day, out of a sense of curiosity. I didn't know much about Orwell but I was interested in learning more. I figured I'd flip through it, maybe read one or two essay's and then give up, bored and disappointed in both the author and in myself.
Oddly this did not happen. I've finished the entire book and as you can see by my rating, I very much enjoyed it. Orwell has a writing style that's clever and amusing. It took me a while but I realized he reminded me of Lemony Snicket and later, my History/Political Science teacher. I became very interested in what he thought about things and his writing on politics was fascinating. He called out people and systems when they needed to be called out and managed to do all of this without becoming overly depressive.
I loved the little odd things he'd add in here and there. A fake interview with Johnathon Swift, or a play transcript he made up. I laughed at more then a few moments and you really got the sense of what things were like while he was writing them. His writing has a way of stripping away everything until the truth is the only thing left. I found myself wondering what he would have thought of certain things happening now, or even what his opinion on various books, video games and the like would have been.
I can now say I'm a fan of George Orwell and I want to read more about him and by him. I'll have to get that copy of Animal Farm down from my bookshelf and read it. And I also now want to reread 1984.
All in all, a really interesting book and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about George Orwell or even what England was like during the second world war.
I've read 1984 but it was more of a skim then a read, and I try not to claim I've read it too often because it feels like a lie in my head. Animal Farm I missed out on at school and the ratty copy I bought second hand is currently still on my bookshelf, unread. I happened across this rather large book of essay's at work one day. It was a brand new book so shelving it, it drew my attention. The size did as well, it was huge. I borrowed it that day, out of a sense of curiosity. I didn't know much about Orwell but I was interested in learning more. I figured I'd flip through it, maybe read one or two essay's and then give up, bored and disappointed in both the author and in myself.
Oddly this did not happen. I've finished the entire book and as you can see by my rating, I very much enjoyed it. Orwell has a writing style that's clever and amusing. It took me a while but I realized he reminded me of Lemony Snicket and later, my History/Political Science teacher. I became very interested in what he thought about things and his writing on politics was fascinating. He called out people and systems when they needed to be called out and managed to do all of this without becoming overly depressive.
I loved the little odd things he'd add in here and there. A fake interview with Johnathon Swift, or a play transcript he made up. I laughed at more then a few moments and you really got the sense of what things were like while he was writing them. His writing has a way of stripping away everything until the truth is the only thing left. I found myself wondering what he would have thought of certain things happening now, or even what his opinion on various books, video games and the like would have been.
I can now say I'm a fan of George Orwell and I want to read more about him and by him. I'll have to get that copy of Animal Farm down from my bookshelf and read it. And I also now want to reread 1984.
All in all, a really interesting book and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about George Orwell or even what England was like during the second world war.
July 12, 2014
Already a year (or just about) has gone by since I started this 1366-page collection, reading a few essays here and there, in between other books, and while I really liked reading about Orwell's thoughts on a variety of subjects, I'm glad I'm done reading this book. Now I can move on to something else.
Some thoughts, then:
This book is best enjoyed when read in small doses. That way you can (1) avoid getting bored/annoyed with a seemingly endless string of essays, (2) take the time to reflect on what you've read and maybe even start a discussion with someone (perish the thought!) on that same subject, and (3) probably retain more of what you read, as opposed to 'cramming' info or 'sprinting' through the book. Just a thought.
Of course I recommend it.
There are really few essays that were tedious reads. Some I enjoyed more than others. Here are the ones that I actually took the time to mark with a post-it:
Some thoughts, then:
This book is best enjoyed when read in small doses. That way you can (1) avoid getting bored/annoyed with a seemingly endless string of essays, (2) take the time to reflect on what you've read and maybe even start a discussion with someone (perish the thought!) on that same subject, and (3) probably retain more of what you read, as opposed to 'cramming' info or 'sprinting' through the book. Just a thought.
Of course I recommend it.
There are really few essays that were tedious reads. Some I enjoyed more than others. Here are the ones that I actually took the time to mark with a post-it:
August 4, 2020
I'm not qualified to review a writer of this stature and complexity really. But it fleshed out my sense of the man. He was raised in horrific circumstances, terribly abused psychologically by stupid, repressed 19th century teachers, but his brilliance served him well and he came into his own. As the politically astute intellectual he was, he criticizes Dickens' obliviousness to the hardened economic structures of England, and Dickens' sense that oppression was at root a moral issue that could be corrected by appeal to our "better spirits." The Spanish War awakened him to his sense of country and patriotism, something the Left could be more assertive about in modern America. But Orwell was talking about racism and communism set in Germany and Russia. Still, think how 1984 finally, accurately predicts the Internet's threatened destruction of reality, if by technological means unsuspected in 1948.
The Essays is a bit of a slog when, as an accomplished literary critic, Orwell is taking to task failures in literary technique and attacking writers you may not have heard of, but there are valuable nuggets along the way that make it worth it. Probing critical comments on Tolstoy and Arthur Koestler and Kipling, though. He loves Henry Miller and detests Salvador Dali.
Check it out.
The Essays is a bit of a slog when, as an accomplished literary critic, Orwell is taking to task failures in literary technique and attacking writers you may not have heard of, but there are valuable nuggets along the way that make it worth it. Probing critical comments on Tolstoy and Arthur Koestler and Kipling, though. He loves Henry Miller and detests Salvador Dali.
Check it out.
April 30, 2021
Essay on politics, culture, and literature. These are the ones I've read till now.
1. A Farthing Newspaper - 5 Stars
2. The Spike - 5 Stars
3. A Hanging -5 Stars
4. Clink - 4 Stars
5. Common Lodging Houses - 3 Stars
6. Shooting an Elephant - 5 Stars
7. Review of Tolstoy: His Life ad Work by Derrick Leon - 2 Stars
8. Are Books Too Dear? - 5 Stars
9. Review of The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky; translated by Constance Garnett - 2 Stars
10. Reflections on Gandhi - 4 Stars
11. Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool - 2 Stars
12. Review of The Sword and the Sickle by Mulk Raj Anand - 3 Stars
13. The Meaning of a Poem -5 Stars
14. Interview with George Orwell and Jonathan Swift - 5 Stars
15. Politics vs Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's Travels -5 Stars
16. Spilling the Spanish Beans -5 Stars
17. Unpublished Response to Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War -5 Stars
18. Politics and the English Language -5 Stars
19. Why I Write - 4.5 Stars
20. Notes on Nationalism - 5 Stars
21. How the poor die - 5 Stars
22. Inside the Whale - 4 Stars
23. Personal Notes on Scientifiction - 4 Stars
24. Tobias Smollett: Scotland's Best Novelist - 4 Stars
25. Nonsense Poetry: The Lear Omnibus edited by R.L. Megroz - 4.5 Stars
26. In Defense of the Novel - 4 Stars
27. In Defence of P.G. Wodehouse -4 Stars
1. A Farthing Newspaper - 5 Stars
2. The Spike - 5 Stars
3. A Hanging -5 Stars
4. Clink - 4 Stars
5. Common Lodging Houses - 3 Stars
6. Shooting an Elephant - 5 Stars
7. Review of Tolstoy: His Life ad Work by Derrick Leon - 2 Stars
8. Are Books Too Dear? - 5 Stars
9. Review of The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky; translated by Constance Garnett - 2 Stars
10. Reflections on Gandhi - 4 Stars
11. Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool - 2 Stars
12. Review of The Sword and the Sickle by Mulk Raj Anand - 3 Stars
13. The Meaning of a Poem -5 Stars
14. Interview with George Orwell and Jonathan Swift - 5 Stars
15. Politics vs Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's Travels -5 Stars
16. Spilling the Spanish Beans -5 Stars
17. Unpublished Response to Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War -5 Stars
18. Politics and the English Language -5 Stars
19. Why I Write - 4.5 Stars
20. Notes on Nationalism - 5 Stars
21. How the poor die - 5 Stars
22. Inside the Whale - 4 Stars
23. Personal Notes on Scientifiction - 4 Stars
24. Tobias Smollett: Scotland's Best Novelist - 4 Stars
25. Nonsense Poetry: The Lear Omnibus edited by R.L. Megroz - 4.5 Stars
26. In Defense of the Novel - 4 Stars
27. In Defence of P.G. Wodehouse -4 Stars
Want to read
November 18, 2007I'm definitely not going to read the whole thing. It's way too long. I'm just going to skip around and sample a little bit every day or so, until it has to go back to the library.
September 27, 2022
Several themes emerge from this 1,300 page volume: Hitler, Pacifism, Socialism, and Literature. Regarding Hitler and Socialism, Orwell has strong opinions, but his conclusions might surprise you.
Hitler
Review of Mein Kampf
Orwell explains, no doubt in terms that will be unintelligible to today’s intelligentsia, Hitler’s rise to power. Like all demagogues, Hitler captured the sentiments against the prevailing world order, this one being the decadence of progressive living. If all one desires is comfort and ease, it’s hard to imagine a world of patriotism and virtue. As Orwell notes, “The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do” (251).
Pacifism
Orwell, rightly, has nothing but contempt for bourgeois pacifism. Leaving rhetoric and emotion aside, the position is ultimately incoherent. Pacifists know they do not really have an answer to the “Hitler problem.”
The pacifist will not resist Hitler. So far, he is consistent. If he lives in Germany he has a few choices: roll over and probably be arrested, or he can move to an Allied country. That seems logical. Here is where the problem is: in order for the pacifist to continue to believe in ideals like democracy, he has to hope that war-like countries can defeat Hitler. By force. If killing is a moral wrong, then for the pacifist it must be just as wrong for Churchill as for Hitler. In the following line, Orwell skewers the pacifist on the horns of a dilemma:
“You can let the Nazis rule the world; that is evil; or you can overthrow them by war, which is also evil. Whichever choice you choose you will not come out with clean hands” (389).
Socialism
Orwell’s socialism is simple: abolish private property. What he never connects, at least I have not seen him connect, is that such an abolition entails the statism he so eloquently condemns elsewhere. Orwell is quick to assure us, though, that the abolition of private property does not entail a stripping of private possessions (316). Technically, he is correct but if the State were to do so, it is hard to see on what grounds Orwell would oppose it.
It is actually refreshing to see a Socialist come to grips with the key problem of socialism. Orwell writes, “The State simply calculates what goods will be needed and does its best to produce them” (316). I said Orwell wrestles with this problem. In fact, I do not think he does. As every serious free market economist has pointed out, “By what criteria does the State know what will be needed?” Even worse, at what price should these goods be charged? This question is unanswerable on socialist grounds.
Literature
Politics and the English Language
Orwell’s insights on modern literature pervade this volume and probably deserve their own review. His most important essay, moreover, is “Politics and the English Language.” He does two things in this piece: exposes garbled prose and shows how that such prose warps reality. The death sentence for any writer is “You sound like a textbook” or “You sound like a sociologist.” Orwell gives you pointers for avoiding this fate.
“Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes” (954).
Modern English prosody prefers catchy phrases than precise words (956ff). Verbs now become phrases. “Noun constructions are preferred to gerunds (‘by examination of’ instead of ‘by examining’)” (958).
A good writer, therefore, follows:
a) avoid pretentious diction
b) avoid meaningless words
c) prefer the concrete over the abstract.
A good writer asks the following questions:
a) What am I trying to say?
b) What words will express it?
c) What image or idiom will make it clear?
d) Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?
Orwell suggests, though he understands its limits, the following maxim: use the fewest and shortest words to convey one’s meaning (965). There is a danger to this. If applied too strictly, the writing loses all elegance and begins to look like an outline in prose form.
Conclusion
Readers of all political and cultural backgrounds should read Orwell. He serves as a model for clarity in writing and in thinking. In politics he is brave enough to avoid the party line. He is a socialist, but socialists come under far worse criticism than nationalists or conservatives. These are the ideas that formed his more famous dystopian novels.
Hitler
Review of Mein Kampf
Orwell explains, no doubt in terms that will be unintelligible to today’s intelligentsia, Hitler’s rise to power. Like all demagogues, Hitler captured the sentiments against the prevailing world order, this one being the decadence of progressive living. If all one desires is comfort and ease, it’s hard to imagine a world of patriotism and virtue. As Orwell notes, “The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do” (251).
Pacifism
Orwell, rightly, has nothing but contempt for bourgeois pacifism. Leaving rhetoric and emotion aside, the position is ultimately incoherent. Pacifists know they do not really have an answer to the “Hitler problem.”
The pacifist will not resist Hitler. So far, he is consistent. If he lives in Germany he has a few choices: roll over and probably be arrested, or he can move to an Allied country. That seems logical. Here is where the problem is: in order for the pacifist to continue to believe in ideals like democracy, he has to hope that war-like countries can defeat Hitler. By force. If killing is a moral wrong, then for the pacifist it must be just as wrong for Churchill as for Hitler. In the following line, Orwell skewers the pacifist on the horns of a dilemma:
“You can let the Nazis rule the world; that is evil; or you can overthrow them by war, which is also evil. Whichever choice you choose you will not come out with clean hands” (389).
Socialism
Orwell’s socialism is simple: abolish private property. What he never connects, at least I have not seen him connect, is that such an abolition entails the statism he so eloquently condemns elsewhere. Orwell is quick to assure us, though, that the abolition of private property does not entail a stripping of private possessions (316). Technically, he is correct but if the State were to do so, it is hard to see on what grounds Orwell would oppose it.
It is actually refreshing to see a Socialist come to grips with the key problem of socialism. Orwell writes, “The State simply calculates what goods will be needed and does its best to produce them” (316). I said Orwell wrestles with this problem. In fact, I do not think he does. As every serious free market economist has pointed out, “By what criteria does the State know what will be needed?” Even worse, at what price should these goods be charged? This question is unanswerable on socialist grounds.
Literature
Politics and the English Language
Orwell’s insights on modern literature pervade this volume and probably deserve their own review. His most important essay, moreover, is “Politics and the English Language.” He does two things in this piece: exposes garbled prose and shows how that such prose warps reality. The death sentence for any writer is “You sound like a textbook” or “You sound like a sociologist.” Orwell gives you pointers for avoiding this fate.
“Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes” (954).
Modern English prosody prefers catchy phrases than precise words (956ff). Verbs now become phrases. “Noun constructions are preferred to gerunds (‘by examination of’ instead of ‘by examining’)” (958).
A good writer, therefore, follows:
a) avoid pretentious diction
b) avoid meaningless words
c) prefer the concrete over the abstract.
A good writer asks the following questions:
a) What am I trying to say?
b) What words will express it?
c) What image or idiom will make it clear?
d) Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?
Orwell suggests, though he understands its limits, the following maxim: use the fewest and shortest words to convey one’s meaning (965). There is a danger to this. If applied too strictly, the writing loses all elegance and begins to look like an outline in prose form.
Conclusion
Readers of all political and cultural backgrounds should read Orwell. He serves as a model for clarity in writing and in thinking. In politics he is brave enough to avoid the party line. He is a socialist, but socialists come under far worse criticism than nationalists or conservatives. These are the ideas that formed his more famous dystopian novels.
December 31, 2009
Indispensable and important to me in a beyond-words kind of way. I read every single essay in this sucker -- with joy in my heart, I might add -- and am so glad I didn't just pick my way through the appealing-sounding ones, but for you picker-throughers (i.e. non-insane people), here are the best offerings from the best writer of non-fiction of ever, nothing less than a unintentional primer on how to write, think, and act like a human being. You're welcome, and Happy New Year!
A Hanging
Shooting an Elephant
Bookshop Memories
In Defense of the Novel
Charles Dickens
Boys' Weeklies
Inside the Whale
New Words
My Country Right or Left
The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius
Tolstoy and Shakespeare
The Meaning of a Poem
Literature and Totalitarianism
No, Not One
Benefit of the Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dali
As I Please 36, 55, 58
In Defense of P.G. Wodehouse
Anti-Semitism in Britain
Revenge is Sour
The Prevention of Literature
Politics and the English Language
A Nice Cup of Tea
Bad Climates are Best
The Moon Under Water
Some Thoughts on the Common Toad
A Good Word for the Vicar of Bray
Why I Write
Such, Such Were the Joys
Reflections on Gandhi
A Hanging
Shooting an Elephant
Bookshop Memories
In Defense of the Novel
Charles Dickens
Boys' Weeklies
Inside the Whale
New Words
My Country Right or Left
The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius
Tolstoy and Shakespeare
The Meaning of a Poem
Literature and Totalitarianism
No, Not One
Benefit of the Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dali
As I Please 36, 55, 58
In Defense of P.G. Wodehouse
Anti-Semitism in Britain
Revenge is Sour
The Prevention of Literature
Politics and the English Language
A Nice Cup of Tea
Bad Climates are Best
The Moon Under Water
Some Thoughts on the Common Toad
A Good Word for the Vicar of Bray
Why I Write
Such, Such Were the Joys
Reflections on Gandhi
September 15, 2020
Lenin once said that your heart ought to be on fire, but your brain should be on ice.
George Orwell is one of those few individuals who seems to have taken this maxim to heart.
This volume, being a little under 1400 pages, contains Orwell's thoughts about a wide range of subjects including literary criticism, democratic socialism, the Spanish civil war, British imperialism, the second world war and of course Totalitarianism and everything related to all that.
Few of these essays have lost their relevance, and in none of them Orwell shies away from the facts or reverts to cynicism, very much contrasting him with many contemporary intellectuals.
Above all, reading Orwell is a lesson in intellectual honesty.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in English literature and/or the politics of the early 20th century.
Personal favourite essays of mine were; A hanging, shooting an Elephant, Bookshop memories, my country right or left, Gandhi in Mayfair, Can socialists be happy?, What is fascism (or as I please 17), As i please 28, Notes on Nationalism(George, the word you were looking for was tribalism), politics and the English language, As i please 80 and Marx and Russia.
George Orwell is one of those few individuals who seems to have taken this maxim to heart.
This volume, being a little under 1400 pages, contains Orwell's thoughts about a wide range of subjects including literary criticism, democratic socialism, the Spanish civil war, British imperialism, the second world war and of course Totalitarianism and everything related to all that.
Few of these essays have lost their relevance, and in none of them Orwell shies away from the facts or reverts to cynicism, very much contrasting him with many contemporary intellectuals.
Above all, reading Orwell is a lesson in intellectual honesty.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in English literature and/or the politics of the early 20th century.
Personal favourite essays of mine were; A hanging, shooting an Elephant, Bookshop memories, my country right or left, Gandhi in Mayfair, Can socialists be happy?, What is fascism (or as I please 17), As i please 28, Notes on Nationalism(George, the word you were looking for was tribalism), politics and the English language, As i please 80 and Marx and Russia.
May 23, 2008
A splendid doorstop (at 1369 pages), this Everyman edition of Orwell's essays has given me many hours of deep pleasure. The classics are worth revisiting: the disturbing "Shooting an Elephant" and "Marrakech;" the astringent "Politics and the English Language" (the moralist's version of Strunk and White's Elements of Style); the confused, almost plaintive "Why I Write." My favorite is Orwell's blistering mini-memoir "Such, Such Were the Joys," closely followed by "A Nice Cup of Tea," the authoritative guide to brewing.
"Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter." There you have Orwell, in a sip out of a saucer.
"Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter." There you have Orwell, in a sip out of a saucer.
May 6, 2021
As famine struck Europe after World War II, a “Save Europe Now” committee was formed to spread awareness to this problem. It proposed a program for well-off people in Britain to voluntarily give some of their food to those who were starving in European countries. Naturally, this idea was not received well by the public. Sir Philip Joubert, a commander in the Royal Air Force, wrote that many Britons surely would have objected sending food to Germany because the Germans might be “using their strength to make war on the world again in another generation.” (quoted in p. 993) George Orwell, in his 1946 essay “The Politics of Starvation”, found this argument specious. He remarked that the program proposed to send food not only to Germany — as there were also people in Hungary, Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, and Greece who were starving — and he lamented the dishonesty that presented the proposal only as something that will take away much-needed British food and send it to their former enemy. He closed the essay by drawing a parallel to the end of World War I:
This essay, one of the 240 collected in this book, is not Orwell’s best piece of writing or his most famous, but it shows the characteristics that make him still worth reading today: his ability to dismantle political obfuscations out of a contemporary problem and his use of clear, conversational language in expressing his thoughts. The debate around the issue above feels like something that can happen today, where there is a morally simple problem — people starving — but whose solution seems difficult because it is mired in various political calculations. In his writings, Orwell chose moral clarity as much as he could, being aware that lower-class people are the ones who suffer from the unfair decisions of world leaders.
The one essay in this book that shows the essentials of Orwell’s thinking is “Notes on Nationalism”. Here, he wrote about a phenomenon he chose to call “nationalism”, by which he meant “the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of people can be confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’.” (p. 865) The people who adopts this mindset,
He pointed out the dishonesty that led “nationalists” to justify the alteration of historical record, such as what happened in Stalin’s Russia, where mentions of the Hitler-Stalin Pact in 1939 were “being effaced as quickly as possible from public memory.” (p. 1367)* Orwell also abhorred the acceptance of an argument for one’s own side, but the rejection of the same logic for the other:
What separates Orwell from most political commentators, however, is his honesty in recognizing his own limitations and biases — he never writes from an elitist point of view. In the same essay, he acknowledged the shortcomings of his argument:
And he certainly didn’t present himself as one was not susceptible to faulty thinking, or as one who has all the answers:
With all that said, I don’t intend to romanticize Orwell here, as he could be “an outstandingly silly as well as a very intelligent and observant man”†. For all his acuity, Orwell was still prone to using bad arguments. To pick a small, non-political example, he argued against the adoption of the metric system, saying that
This is a silly argument, as I (and certainly many other people) can perfectly visualize how tall 142 cm or 201 cm are. Orwell ignores the fact that intuitions of measurement units are largely a matter of habit: A person who has used the centimeter for all of his or her life will be able to visualize accurately how long 30 cm is, just as an average American knows intuitively how long 12 inches is. In this case, Orwell was unable to see the world past his English way of life. I’m sure other readers can spot more of Orwell’s dubious arguments in his other essays; indeed, it’s still important to read him with some skepticism.
But, even with all his limitations, George Orwell undeniably wrote some of the best and most prescient political writings of the twentieth century, and we are fortunate to have free access to a lot of his essays.‡ Orwell’s writings show how puzzling and uncertain political issues are for the people who live through them. In these essays, we can see one writer who tries as best he could to bring honesty and clarity to these debates. The enduring value of Orwell, in the words of Christopher Hitchens, is that he “showed how much can be accomplished by an individual who unites the qualities of intellectual honesty and moral courage.”§
-- 6 May 2021
--------------------
* Orwell was wrong, however, in saying that no “Marxist or other left-wing writer, of whatever colour, came anywhere near foretelling the Pact.” (p. 1367) Leon Trotsky, writing for the American newspaper Socialist Appeal in 1938, said that it could be expected “with certainty [that] Soviet diplomacy [will] attempt rapprochement with Hitler at the cost of new retreats and capitulations”.
† Kingsley Amis, The King's English: A Guide to Modern Usage (London: HarperCollins, 1998), p. 136. Amis was criticizing Orwell’s bad example of the double negative not un- in his classic essay “Politics and the English Language”.
‡ See the pages of the Orwell Foundation and George Orwell’s Library.
§ From the introduction of George Orwell, Diaries, ed. Peter Davison (New York: Liveright, 2012), p. xvi.
Air Marshal Joubert advises us to feed ourselves rather than feed German children who will be fighting against us a generation hence. This is the “realistic” view. In 1918 the “realistic” ones were also in favour of keeping up the blockade after the Armistice. We did keep up the blockade, and the children we starved then were the young men who were bombing us in 1940. No one, perhaps, could have foreseen just that result, but people of good will could and did foresee that the results of wantonly starving Germany, and of making a vindictive peace, would be evil. ... [I]f we do decide to do this, at least let the issues be plainly discussed, and let the photographs of starving children be well publicised in the press, so that the people of this country may realise just what they are doing. (p. 996)
This essay, one of the 240 collected in this book, is not Orwell’s best piece of writing or his most famous, but it shows the characteristics that make him still worth reading today: his ability to dismantle political obfuscations out of a contemporary problem and his use of clear, conversational language in expressing his thoughts. The debate around the issue above feels like something that can happen today, where there is a morally simple problem — people starving — but whose solution seems difficult because it is mired in various political calculations. In his writings, Orwell chose moral clarity as much as he could, being aware that lower-class people are the ones who suffer from the unfair decisions of world leaders.
The one essay in this book that shows the essentials of Orwell’s thinking is “Notes on Nationalism”. Here, he wrote about a phenomenon he chose to call “nationalism”, by which he meant “the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of people can be confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’.” (p. 865) The people who adopts this mindset,
having picked his side, he persuades himself that it is the strongest, and is able to stick to his belief even when the facts are overwhelmingly against him. Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception. Every nationalist is capable of the most flagrant dishonesty, but he is also – since he is conscious of serving something bigger than himself – unshakeably certain of being in the right. (p. 867)
He pointed out the dishonesty that led “nationalists” to justify the alteration of historical record, such as what happened in Stalin’s Russia, where mentions of the Hitler-Stalin Pact in 1939 were “being effaced as quickly as possible from public memory.” (p. 1367)* Orwell also abhorred the acceptance of an argument for one’s own side, but the rejection of the same logic for the other:
A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage – torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians – which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side. (p. 872-73)
What separates Orwell from most political commentators, however, is his honesty in recognizing his own limitations and biases — he never writes from an elitist point of view. In the same essay, he acknowledged the shortcomings of his argument:
In the classification I have attempted above, it will seem that I have often exaggerated, oversimplified, made unwarranted assumptions and have left out of account the existence of ordinarily decent motives. ... It is important at this point to correct the over-simplified picture which I have been obliged to make. To begin with, one has no right to assume that everyone, or even every intellectual, is infected by nationalism. (p. 880)
And he certainly didn’t present himself as one was not susceptible to faulty thinking, or as one who has all the answers:
The Eltons [“Neo-Tories”] and Pritts [Stalinist sympathizers] and Coughlins [fascist sympathizers] ... are obviously extreme cases, but we deceive ourselves if we do not realize that we can all resemble them in unguarded moments. Let a certain note be struck ... and the most fair-minded and sweet-tempered person may suddenly be transformed into a vicious partisan ... (p. 881)
...
As for the nationalistic loves and hatreds that I have spoken of, they are part of the make-up of most of us, whether we like it or not. Whether it is possible to get rid of them I do not know, but I do believe that it is possible to struggle against them, and that this is essentially a moral effort. (p. 883)
With all that said, I don’t intend to romanticize Orwell here, as he could be “an outstandingly silly as well as a very intelligent and observant man”†. For all his acuity, Orwell was still prone to using bad arguments. To pick a small, non-political example, he argued against the adoption of the metric system, saying that
the metric system does not possess, or has not succeeded in establishing, a large number of units that can be visualised. ... In English you can describe someone as being five feet three inches high, or five feet nine inches, or six feet one inch, and your hearer will know fairly accurately what you mean. But I have never heard a Frenchman say, “He is a hundred and forty-two centimetres high”; it would not convey any visual image. (p. 1204)
This is a silly argument, as I (and certainly many other people) can perfectly visualize how tall 142 cm or 201 cm are. Orwell ignores the fact that intuitions of measurement units are largely a matter of habit: A person who has used the centimeter for all of his or her life will be able to visualize accurately how long 30 cm is, just as an average American knows intuitively how long 12 inches is. In this case, Orwell was unable to see the world past his English way of life. I’m sure other readers can spot more of Orwell’s dubious arguments in his other essays; indeed, it’s still important to read him with some skepticism.
But, even with all his limitations, George Orwell undeniably wrote some of the best and most prescient political writings of the twentieth century, and we are fortunate to have free access to a lot of his essays.‡ Orwell’s writings show how puzzling and uncertain political issues are for the people who live through them. In these essays, we can see one writer who tries as best he could to bring honesty and clarity to these debates. The enduring value of Orwell, in the words of Christopher Hitchens, is that he “showed how much can be accomplished by an individual who unites the qualities of intellectual honesty and moral courage.”§
-- 6 May 2021
--------------------
* Orwell was wrong, however, in saying that no “Marxist or other left-wing writer, of whatever colour, came anywhere near foretelling the Pact.” (p. 1367) Leon Trotsky, writing for the American newspaper Socialist Appeal in 1938, said that it could be expected “with certainty [that] Soviet diplomacy [will] attempt rapprochement with Hitler at the cost of new retreats and capitulations”.
† Kingsley Amis, The King's English: A Guide to Modern Usage (London: HarperCollins, 1998), p. 136. Amis was criticizing Orwell’s bad example of the double negative not un- in his classic essay “Politics and the English Language”.
‡ See the pages of the Orwell Foundation and George Orwell’s Library.
§ From the introduction of George Orwell, Diaries, ed. Peter Davison (New York: Liveright, 2012), p. xvi.
May 14, 2022
Years before, in fact, generations before neoliberalism reared its ugly head, George Orwell had the courage to say many politically undesirable things, and the one I found noteworthy was that planned economies are stronger than market economies. Orwell targeted the everyday aspect of ideology and charged it with the political weight on his desire to see a Socialist Democratic society come into being. I have found Orwell's political outlook highly instructive. What I have learned about Fascism in the last few books I have read, dating back to mid-April of this year, is that fascism stands for those on the side of unfairness, whereas socialism and Marxism (in its original and uncorrupted form), on the other hand, are on the side of fairness in terms of political customs and the legitimate recognition of human rights in a democratic way.
Orwell demonstrates in these essays a political belief-system that would eventually lend itself to creating the technical approach he would take in writing his two great political narrative works, 1984 and Animal Farm, which portray societies of profound masculinity through political technocracy. Although sometimes he repeats himself, he is far from meretricious in the rhapsodic, journalistic approach in these essays, which are lighter and more effective than the allegorical, and in some respects uni-dimensional, dystopian fiction he became famous for. I am reminded of a book I read earlier this year by E.J. Hobsbawm, who said that if you are more concerned with preserving the social order, you vote Conservative, but if you feel more strongly that Liberal Democracy is worth preserving, you vote accordingly. Be that as it may, most people believe that national and political loyalties are not as important as their understanding of social experience, which will be of critical importance for the development of international socialism.
I see George Orwell's politics as a pre-Marxist theoretical circle lying within the circumference of late 20th century politics. If he had lived into his sixties, say, instead of dying of tuberculosis at age fifty, it is possible he would have seen the fad for left-wing Anglo-American Marxist theories as an just another ideology of those monopolizers of cultural capital, who would use it to reinforce their class status over the powerless, the cultural reinforcement of the prevalence of the existing power-structure and, by extension, the legitimacy of the monopoly. I find that George Orwell has given me a considerable amount of food for thought, especially in regarding my endless bantering with Jeremy Good's as to why I, as an intellectual, consider politics and politicians so beneath me to the point that I do not wish to take part in political elections. Jeremy said that "You regard politics as beneath you because you think they are non-intellectual unless there is some intellectual, like Marx, to discuss them in an abstract way. I don’t compartmentalize my life like that. We live in an intellectual universe where there are real laws that can only be understood by trying to think about them. Not by pretending that they don’t exist and that our souls go to heaven when we die but maybe Marx was right because he was an 'intellectual'." The answer may be due in part to what Raymond Williams has to say about Boudieu's statement that although intellectuals attempt to "maximize the autonomy of the cultural field and raise the social value of the specific competencies of the involved, they simultaneously attempt to promote the scarcity of those competencies. This is the reason why, although intellectuals may mobilize wider concepts of political democracy or economic equality in their struggle against economic capital, they always resist as a body moves towards cultural democracy." While I don't think that's quite correct in my case, it is interesting in that it points to a possible psychodynamic situation in which I am in psychological agreement in some way by means of an apologetic proof.
In Orwell's post-WWII England, due to the relative inefficiency of cultural capital for reproduction, the dominant class was presented with a major problem. As a result of the increasing democratization of education due to reforminst pressures (and these pressure themselves were necessary in order to reinforce the legitimizing power of schooling as a mechanism for social reproduction) and the attendant raising of working class' educational expectations, who, sending the linkage between a better job associated with the attained education level, the political outcome was that the Labour party won a series of national elections. However, as history has shown, in both England and in America, these expectations are not being met and cannot be met in existing capitalistic society for the simple logic that in order to retain schooling as a hierarchization through which the dominance clas-structures retain their control and in order to build new center of economic power and thus extend the legitimation of their control-process, the dominant class is force to devalue educational qualifications, while at the same time the objective developments in the field of material production are yielding to massive de-skilling and proletarianization of traditional mental labor. This is Orwell's dystopian fantasy come true, a strategy of dominance and subjugation that is increasingly reliant on direct rather than symbolic violence. Orwell's lifelong opinion, and mine as well, is that a sustainable Democratic Socialism is required to break us out of this political quagmire.
According to Orwell, no class of societies is more bourgeois (in terms of morality) than the proletariat. And no group is more tied to their class-convictions regarding the primacy of property rights than the petit-bourgeois. Societies should not be a clubhouse for the rich based on a universalist neo-culture, Socialist Democracy society would combine freedom with the extreme morality needed for systemic purpose, not a clumsy participation by the general body of the public. In contrast to critiques of writers in terms of their various levels of the textual determination of meaning, I can only do overviews and approximations, not close readings, for which I am labelled as a "B"-level student.
Unlike much of the pro-Russian British populace, or ever those who saw no difference between communism and fascism, Orwell is quick to point the fallacy the notion of the so-called superiority of socialist realism, an argument that has been seemingly been taken out of modern debate by the elimination of such writing from the principle vendors of this perspective from its platform, authors such as Althusser, Malraux and Mikhail Sholokhov and other more minor figures. In Orwell's last essay, on the awarding of a prize to the poetry of Ezra Pound, he leaves us with an implicit prophecy that art cannot survive if it is based on a pure expression identical with the politics of the victor; therefore, it's not a surprise when he labels the prospects of literature as "outmoded." Three stars.
Orwell demonstrates in these essays a political belief-system that would eventually lend itself to creating the technical approach he would take in writing his two great political narrative works, 1984 and Animal Farm, which portray societies of profound masculinity through political technocracy. Although sometimes he repeats himself, he is far from meretricious in the rhapsodic, journalistic approach in these essays, which are lighter and more effective than the allegorical, and in some respects uni-dimensional, dystopian fiction he became famous for. I am reminded of a book I read earlier this year by E.J. Hobsbawm, who said that if you are more concerned with preserving the social order, you vote Conservative, but if you feel more strongly that Liberal Democracy is worth preserving, you vote accordingly. Be that as it may, most people believe that national and political loyalties are not as important as their understanding of social experience, which will be of critical importance for the development of international socialism.
I see George Orwell's politics as a pre-Marxist theoretical circle lying within the circumference of late 20th century politics. If he had lived into his sixties, say, instead of dying of tuberculosis at age fifty, it is possible he would have seen the fad for left-wing Anglo-American Marxist theories as an just another ideology of those monopolizers of cultural capital, who would use it to reinforce their class status over the powerless, the cultural reinforcement of the prevalence of the existing power-structure and, by extension, the legitimacy of the monopoly. I find that George Orwell has given me a considerable amount of food for thought, especially in regarding my endless bantering with Jeremy Good's as to why I, as an intellectual, consider politics and politicians so beneath me to the point that I do not wish to take part in political elections. Jeremy said that "You regard politics as beneath you because you think they are non-intellectual unless there is some intellectual, like Marx, to discuss them in an abstract way. I don’t compartmentalize my life like that. We live in an intellectual universe where there are real laws that can only be understood by trying to think about them. Not by pretending that they don’t exist and that our souls go to heaven when we die but maybe Marx was right because he was an 'intellectual'." The answer may be due in part to what Raymond Williams has to say about Boudieu's statement that although intellectuals attempt to "maximize the autonomy of the cultural field and raise the social value of the specific competencies of the involved, they simultaneously attempt to promote the scarcity of those competencies. This is the reason why, although intellectuals may mobilize wider concepts of political democracy or economic equality in their struggle against economic capital, they always resist as a body moves towards cultural democracy." While I don't think that's quite correct in my case, it is interesting in that it points to a possible psychodynamic situation in which I am in psychological agreement in some way by means of an apologetic proof.
In Orwell's post-WWII England, due to the relative inefficiency of cultural capital for reproduction, the dominant class was presented with a major problem. As a result of the increasing democratization of education due to reforminst pressures (and these pressure themselves were necessary in order to reinforce the legitimizing power of schooling as a mechanism for social reproduction) and the attendant raising of working class' educational expectations, who, sending the linkage between a better job associated with the attained education level, the political outcome was that the Labour party won a series of national elections. However, as history has shown, in both England and in America, these expectations are not being met and cannot be met in existing capitalistic society for the simple logic that in order to retain schooling as a hierarchization through which the dominance clas-structures retain their control and in order to build new center of economic power and thus extend the legitimation of their control-process, the dominant class is force to devalue educational qualifications, while at the same time the objective developments in the field of material production are yielding to massive de-skilling and proletarianization of traditional mental labor. This is Orwell's dystopian fantasy come true, a strategy of dominance and subjugation that is increasingly reliant on direct rather than symbolic violence. Orwell's lifelong opinion, and mine as well, is that a sustainable Democratic Socialism is required to break us out of this political quagmire.
According to Orwell, no class of societies is more bourgeois (in terms of morality) than the proletariat. And no group is more tied to their class-convictions regarding the primacy of property rights than the petit-bourgeois. Societies should not be a clubhouse for the rich based on a universalist neo-culture, Socialist Democracy society would combine freedom with the extreme morality needed for systemic purpose, not a clumsy participation by the general body of the public. In contrast to critiques of writers in terms of their various levels of the textual determination of meaning, I can only do overviews and approximations, not close readings, for which I am labelled as a "B"-level student.
Unlike much of the pro-Russian British populace, or ever those who saw no difference between communism and fascism, Orwell is quick to point the fallacy the notion of the so-called superiority of socialist realism, an argument that has been seemingly been taken out of modern debate by the elimination of such writing from the principle vendors of this perspective from its platform, authors such as Althusser, Malraux and Mikhail Sholokhov and other more minor figures. In Orwell's last essay, on the awarding of a prize to the poetry of Ezra Pound, he leaves us with an implicit prophecy that art cannot survive if it is based on a pure expression identical with the politics of the victor; therefore, it's not a surprise when he labels the prospects of literature as "outmoded." Three stars.
August 2, 2023
Some of my favourite (arbitrarily rated) essays in this collection:
A Hanging, August 1931 (5*)
The Freedom of the Press (Animal Farm), August 1945 (5*)
Shooting an Elephant, Autumn 1936 (4.75*)
As I Please 67, December 1946 (4.5*)
Preface to the Ukrainian Edition of Animal Farm, March 1947 (4.5*)
Charles Dickens, March 1940 (4.25*)
The Frontiers of Art and Propaganda, April 1941 (4.25*)
Looking Back on the Spanish War, 1942? (4.25*)
Can Socialists be Happy?, December 1943 (4.25*)
As I Please 12, February 1944 (4.25*)
As I Please 14, March 1944 (4.25*)
As I Please 24, May 1944 (4.25*)
As I Please 56, January 1945 (4.25*)
Anti-Semitism in Britain, April 1945 (4.25*)
The Prevention of Literature, March 1947 (4.25*)
Politics and the English Language, December 1945 (4.25*)
Some Thoughts on the Common Toad, April 1946 (4.25*)
Why I Write, Summer 1946 (4.25*)
How the Poor Die, November 1946 (4.25*)
As I Please 70, January 1947 (4.25*)
Toward European Unity, July-August 1947 (4.25*)
Reflections on Gandhi, January 1949 (4.25*)
You and the Atom Bomb, October 1945 (3.25*)
Some of these are available on https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-...
A Hanging, August 1931 (5*)
The Freedom of the Press (Animal Farm), August 1945 (5*)
Shooting an Elephant, Autumn 1936 (4.75*)
As I Please 67, December 1946 (4.5*)
Preface to the Ukrainian Edition of Animal Farm, March 1947 (4.5*)
Charles Dickens, March 1940 (4.25*)
The Frontiers of Art and Propaganda, April 1941 (4.25*)
Looking Back on the Spanish War, 1942? (4.25*)
Can Socialists be Happy?, December 1943 (4.25*)
As I Please 12, February 1944 (4.25*)
As I Please 14, March 1944 (4.25*)
As I Please 24, May 1944 (4.25*)
As I Please 56, January 1945 (4.25*)
Anti-Semitism in Britain, April 1945 (4.25*)
The Prevention of Literature, March 1947 (4.25*)
Politics and the English Language, December 1945 (4.25*)
Some Thoughts on the Common Toad, April 1946 (4.25*)
Why I Write, Summer 1946 (4.25*)
How the Poor Die, November 1946 (4.25*)
As I Please 70, January 1947 (4.25*)
Toward European Unity, July-August 1947 (4.25*)
Reflections on Gandhi, January 1949 (4.25*)
You and the Atom Bomb, October 1945 (3.25*)
Some of these are available on https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-...
March 7, 2024
Let's be honest, there was basically no chance of me rating this less than 5 stars. Orwell has been my favorite author for several years now, and with well over 1000 pages of his essays in here I do think this is an incredible compilation of a lot of his best work.
There's so much I could say about everything in here. It's laid out chronologically, and I find it kind of thrilling to be able to trace aspects of his thought through the years as they shift or become more robust and developed. Orwell is perhaps at his best as a literary critic, and he is also terribly catty at times - in a way that I find very fun. Reading his book reviews may not be for everyone, but it is for me. Not that it's all reviews, of course - there are several longer works as well, some of which are remarkable.
While he is best known today for 1984 and for his novels in general, George was gifted in shorter forms - capable of making his points quickly and well, and being remarkably entertaining all the while. This volume is a must for anyone interested in really exploring Orwell, and I give it my highest recommendation.
There's so much I could say about everything in here. It's laid out chronologically, and I find it kind of thrilling to be able to trace aspects of his thought through the years as they shift or become more robust and developed. Orwell is perhaps at his best as a literary critic, and he is also terribly catty at times - in a way that I find very fun. Reading his book reviews may not be for everyone, but it is for me. Not that it's all reviews, of course - there are several longer works as well, some of which are remarkable.
While he is best known today for 1984 and for his novels in general, George was gifted in shorter forms - capable of making his points quickly and well, and being remarkably entertaining all the while. This volume is a must for anyone interested in really exploring Orwell, and I give it my highest recommendation.
October 4, 2024
Essays collects most if not all of Orwell’s non-fiction essays from over two decades of newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, and other printed material. Eqch piece provides insights into the mind of Orwell and his thoughts and perceptions of the world during the 1930s and 1940s. Book reviews bring out the analytical English teacher, sometimes mingling author comparisons to peers with political analysis. His political pieces range from his stances on democratic socialism, anti-authoritarian advocacy, and nuanced criticisms of the media and intelligencia, progressive, liberal, and conservative. Opinion pieces reveal his views on life during and after wartime. Ramblings on the English language, while appearing to be the ranting of a preservationist, touch on the point of manipulating words to sound smarter or disguise your true intentions.
More importantly, this book is a record of his life and the real world sources for many of the themes—totalitarianism, super states, newspeak, doublethink, propaganda—and imagery—doodlebugs/V1s, wartime Britain, rations, the junk shop—that ultimately culminated in 1984.
More importantly, this book is a record of his life and the real world sources for many of the themes—totalitarianism, super states, newspeak, doublethink, propaganda—and imagery—doodlebugs/V1s, wartime Britain, rations, the junk shop—that ultimately culminated in 1984.
February 28, 2024
Although the essays were published more than 70 years ago, they still feel sharp and relevant. The language is a bit antiquated and old school judged by current style, but it has a special kind of charm. He can't simply be put into buckets of other the leftists or the conservatives, and he occupies a space of his own. He despises all ruling classes, sympathizes with the working classes, ridicules pop culture icons of the time and recognizes the value of literature giants while pointing out their shortcomings. His idea of how to use language effectively as a communication tool is a good reminder for all serious writers.
February 5, 2025
Orwell proves himself to be a smart man with keen insight on the world. Some of his observations seem downright prophetic in retrospect. However, he is not without his own biases and that shines through very clearly. And some of the things the collector of these messages chose to focus on were repetitive in nature. I think a more eclectic mix showing his strongest writing on just one topic a piece would be more fruitful over three different pieces of writing on British cuisine. Also would have been nice if the essays were clearly labelled with the year of publication.
Also a public service announcement, Oscar Wilde was Irish, not English.
Also a public service announcement, Oscar Wilde was Irish, not English.
September 16, 2023
I absolutely loved this book of essays. Not all of them, but I learned so much about early 20th century Britian, British literature, and politics. Surprisingly, for just under 1400 pages I learned little about the personal life of the author-just one essay on his "public school days" almost at the end of the book. If you are not as OCD as me you can read what you like. I suspect most younger/modern readers however will not enjoy it.
October 29, 2023
It feels kinda hard to rate this because it’s just kinda my default audiobook and it’s just an essay collection. I mean me just stanning George Orwell at this point. There’s a lot of really great essays in this collection, and a quote that I
and can’t read Orwell without thinking about. It goes something like, “everything I’ve ever written consciously or not was written against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism.” and that line is at the beginning of this collection.
and can’t read Orwell without thinking about. It goes something like, “everything I’ve ever written consciously or not was written against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism.” and that line is at the beginning of this collection.
January 11, 2024
I didn’t get all the way through this beast, but it’s length and chronological organization was awesome for finding the heavy-hitting essays and his overall tone through particular events in European/World history and other contemporary authors. Good source to use as the Orwell file cabinet. Moving on to a smaller, directed collection next.
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