A Collection Of Essays: (Authorized Orwell Edition): A Mariner Books Classic (Harvest Book)

by George Orwell

In borrowing from William Faulkner’s Sanctuary, Chase only took the plot; the mental atmosphere of the two books is not similar. Chase really derives from other sources, and this particular bit of borrowing is only symbolic. What it symbolises is the vulgarisation of ideas which is constantly happening, and which probably happens faster in an age of print. Chase has been described as “Faulkner for the masses,” but it would be more accurate to describe him as Carlyle for the masses. He is a popular writer—there are many such in America, but they are still rarities in England—who has caught up with what it is now fashionable to call “realism,” meaning the doctrine that might is right. The growth of “realism” has been the great feature of the intellectual history of our own age. Why this should be so is a complicated question. The interconnection, between sadism, masochism, success-worship, power-worship, nationalism and totalitarianism is a huge subject whose edges have barely been scratched, and even to mention it is considered somewhat indelicate.