Orwell's Roses

by Rebecca Solnit

Enclosure was to its time what privatization was to the neoliberal era, a dispossession of the many for the benefit of the few and an assault on the idea of both literal commons and the common good.

Enclosure was to its time what privatization was to the neoliberal era, a dispossession of the many for the benefit of the few and an assault on the idea of both literal commons and the common good.

All art is propaganda, Orwell noted, and nature is political.

All art is propaganda, Orwell noted, and nature is political.

the yearning to be more rugged, more rustic, more rough, more scruffy, is often a white and a white-collar yearning, and that those who have only recently escaped agricultural work, maybe sharecropping or slavery or migrant labor, who have survived being treated as dirty or backward, are often glad to be polished and elegant. You have to feel securely high to want to go low, urban to yearn for the rural, smooth to desire roughness, anxious about artificiality to seek this version of authenticity. And if you see the countryside as a place of rest and respite you’re probably not a farmworker.

the yearning to be more rugged, more rustic, more rough, more scruffy, is often a white and a white-collar yearning, and that those who have only recently escaped agricultural work, maybe sharecropping or slavery or migrant labor, who have survived being treated as dirty or backward, are often glad to be polished and elegant. You have to feel securely high to want to go low, urban to yearn for the rural, smooth to desire roughness, anxious about artificiality to seek this version of authenticity. And if you see the countryside as a place of rest and respite you’re probably not a farmworker.

There might be virtuous ways to love nature, but the love of nature is no guarantor of virtue.

The word gentility means of gentle birth, of aristocratic origin, and it is related to the words genteel and gentle as in gentleman, words that describe both social class and an idea of refinement or rather conflate them as though they were always found together. The two words have a cousin in gentile, as in one who is not a Jew. Gentry, gentility, gentiles, gentlemen—and then eventually gentleness: the word also came to mean kindness and mildness in the sixteenth century. At the root of them all is gen-, from a proto–Indo-European word that means to give birth, to beget. Among the linguistic descendants of this root word are the English language’s generation, generative, genuine, genealogy, generous, genitals, genesis, degenerate, and later, genes, genetics, and genocide.

The word gentility means of gentle birth, of aristocratic origin, and it is related to the words genteel and gentle as in gentleman, words that describe both social class and an idea of refinement or rather conflate them as though they were always found together. The two words have a cousin in gentile, as in one who is not a Jew. Gentry, gentility, gentiles, gentlemen—and then eventually gentleness: the word also came to mean kindness and mildness in the sixteenth century. At the root of them all is gen-, from a proto–Indo-European word that means to give birth, to beget. Among the linguistic descendants of this root word are the English language’s generation, generative, genuine, genealogy, generous, genitals, genesis, degenerate, and later, genes, genetics, and genocide.

the elegance of the men and their temperate-zone landscape of leisure is underwritten by labor in a brutal industry in the tropics. The business became famous as the triangle trade, in which British goods were traded for human beings from Africa who were taken to the Americas where sugar and rum were taken in. Asian trade goods were also part of the system, which was more circular than triangular and ugly at every stage. Brutality begot a luxury that was itself concentrated sweetness. Like cotton and tea and the ceramic dishware still called china, sugar was one of the new substances that the colonial era brought to Britain, and it went from a rare luxury to a staple, and so that quintessentially English thing, a cup of tea, could be made with Indian tea and Caribbean sugar, served in Chinese porcelain.

the elegance of the men and their temperate-zone landscape of leisure is underwritten by labor in a brutal industry in the tropics. The business became famous as the triangle trade, in which British goods were traded for human beings from Africa who were taken to the Americas where sugar and rum were taken in. Asian trade goods were also part of the system, which was more circular than triangular and ugly at every stage. Brutality begot a luxury that was itself concentrated sweetness. Like cotton and tea and the ceramic dishware still called china, sugar was one of the new substances that the colonial era brought to Britain, and it went from a rare luxury to a staple, and so that quintessentially English thing, a cup of tea, could be made with Indian tea and Caribbean sugar, served in Chinese porcelain.

“Across Britain as a whole, the slave-compensation data suggest that in the 1830s 5 to 10 percent of all British country houses would be expected to have been occupied by slave owners and that in some localities and even some regions the figure would be much higher.” The profound confinement of slavery and the labor-intensive sugar plantations haunt places so superficially antithetical they serve almost as alibis: the landscapes of scenic beauty that seem to have nothing to do with manipulation, labor, production, and politics. In that sense, the apoliticalness of nature was itself a political production.

“Across Britain as a whole, the slave-compensation data suggest that in the 1830s 5 to 10 percent of all British country houses would be expected to have been occupied by slave owners and that in some localities and even some regions the figure would be much higher.” The profound confinement of slavery and the labor-intensive sugar plantations haunt places so superficially antithetical they serve almost as alibis: the landscapes of scenic beauty that seem to have nothing to do with manipulation, labor, production, and politics. In that sense, the apoliticalness of nature was itself a political production.

When Eric Blair chose the name George Orwell, he distanced himself from the Blairs but covered himself in Englishness twice over. Saint George was England’s patron saint, and King George V was on the throne at the time. As a schoolboy, Orwell had been stuffed with enough Greek and Latin to know the name’s origin in words for earth and for work, so that it meant farmer, earthworker. Thus Virgil’s Georgics, his epic poem of agriculture. Orwell was an old English word that has, of course, a well in it, which is sometimes thought to also mean spring, and one translation is “spring by a pointed hill.” Another source notes that oran or ora means a border, brink, edge or margin, and the meaning is “well beside the brink.” There are also Urwells and an old parish of Orwell in Scotland, whose name is said to be of Gaelic origin and meant “yew wood.” All the meanings make it a landscape feature. Orwell is said to have gotten it from the River Orwell in Suffolk, near his parents’ home. The name has the added ambivalent charm of sounding a bit like “or,” as in alternately, and “oh well,” as in resignation, a sigh, a shrug.

When Eric Blair chose the name George Orwell, he distanced himself from the Blairs but covered himself in Englishness twice over. Saint George was England’s patron saint, and King George V was on the throne at the time. As a schoolboy, Orwell had been stuffed with enough Greek and Latin to know the name’s origin in words for earth and for work, so that it meant farmer, earthworker. Thus Virgil’s Georgics, his epic poem of agriculture. Orwell was an old English word that has, of course, a well in it, which is sometimes thought to also mean spring, and one translation is “spring by a pointed hill.” Another source notes that oran or ora means a border, brink, edge or margin, and the meaning is “well beside the brink.” There are also Urwells and an old parish of Orwell in Scotland, whose name is said to be of Gaelic origin and meant “yew wood.” All the meanings make it a landscape feature. Orwell is said to have gotten it from the River Orwell in Suffolk, near his parents’ home. The name has the added ambivalent charm of sounding a bit like “or,” as in alternately, and “oh well,” as in resignation, a sigh, a shrug.

“England’s national flower is the red Tudor rose. But the prickly truth is that the English owe much of their wealth to another blood-red flower; the poppy,” a contemporary writer notes. The protagonist of Orwell’s Burmese Days, an English teak merchant in Burma, declares, “We Anglo-Indians could be almost bearable if we’d only admit that we’re thieves and go on thieving without any humbug.”

“England’s national flower is the red Tudor rose. But the prickly truth is that the English owe much of their wealth to another blood-red flower; the poppy,” a contemporary writer notes. The protagonist of Orwell’s Burmese Days, an English teak merchant in Burma, declares, “We Anglo-Indians could be almost bearable if we’d only admit that we’re thieves and go on thieving without any humbug.”

It is less that these things are authentically desirable than that our desires have been pruned and trained and cultivated so as to turn toward them the way a sunflower tilts to the sun, and the force of that desire is authentic even if its origin is manipulated.

It is less that these things are authentically desirable than that our desires have been pruned and trained and cultivated so as to turn toward them the way a sunflower tilts to the sun, and the force of that desire is authentic even if its origin is manipulated.

Even the models for all those English chintz roses were likely new breeds crossed with the roses that came from China, roses that had, as most European roses did not at the time, the capacity to bloom and bloom for months rather than in one burst. The seventeenth-century poet Robert Herrick’s famous lines “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may / Old time is still a-flying” are about the old varieties of roses that bloomed briefly in the spring. When roses came to bloom into the summer and autumn the sic transit gloria mundi/vanitas moral of European roses was undermined. Women were still urged to marry young, but roses bloomed on through the summer and beyond.

Even the models for all those English chintz roses were likely new breeds crossed with the roses that came from China, roses that had, as most European roses did not at the time, the capacity to bloom and bloom for months rather than in one burst. The seventeenth-century poet Robert Herrick’s famous lines “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may / Old time is still a-flying” are about the old varieties of roses that bloomed briefly in the spring. When roses came to bloom into the summer and autumn the sic transit gloria mundi/vanitas moral of European roses was undermined. Women were still urged to marry young, but roses bloomed on through the summer and beyond.

“The introduction of the China Rose to England towards the end of the eighteenth century caused a complete revolution in the garden Roses of Europe, America and the Near East. . . . The ancient Roses, for the most part, flowered only once a year, in the early summer, while the modern Roses bloom continuously from early summer to late autumn. In a favourable climate like the Riviera they may flower all the year round, since they are potentially perpetual. Recent research shows that this habit of continuous flowering is due to the action of a Mendelian recessive gene introduced into our modern Roses by the China and Tea Roses, already cultivated in China for a thousand years or more.”

“The introduction of the China Rose to England towards the end of the eighteenth century caused a complete revolution in the garden Roses of Europe, America and the Near East. . . . The ancient Roses, for the most part, flowered only once a year, in the early summer, while the modern Roses bloom continuously from early summer to late autumn. In a favourable climate like the Riviera they may flower all the year round, since they are potentially perpetual. Recent research shows that this habit of continuous flowering is due to the action of a Mendelian recessive gene introduced into our modern Roses by the China and Tea Roses, already cultivated in China for a thousand years or more.”

It could be said on the one hand that Sackler would be better represented by a poppy, and on the other that peddling opiates was at the heart of the British Empire (and was Orwell’s father’s life work).

It could be said on the one hand that Sackler would be better represented by a poppy, and on the other that peddling opiates was at the heart of the British Empire (and was Orwell’s father’s life work).

“Almost as if ashamed of the revulsion and hostility they have for foreign people, the English make up for it by loving and embracing foreign plants wholesale”

“Almost as if ashamed of the revulsion and hostility they have for foreign people, the English make up for it by loving and embracing foreign plants wholesale”

Colonialism meant knowing too much about the colonizers and their place, too little about one’s own people and their places. She wrote in that essay, titled “Flowers of Evil,”

Colonialism meant knowing too much about the colonizers and their place, too little about one’s own people and their places. She wrote in that essay, titled “Flowers of Evil,”

about Cortez’s invasion and the cocoxochitl plant that came back to Europe and was named after a Mr. Dahl of Sweden and hybridized into innumerable showy varieties of dahlia, its origins forgotten.

about Cortez’s invasion and the cocoxochitl plant that came back to Europe and was named after a Mr. Dahl of Sweden and hybridized into innumerable showy varieties of dahlia, its origins forgotten.

Indigenous people who were sometimes despised for not appreciating nature in the English rustic tradition often appreciated it as orderly patterns in time, not as static pictorial pleasure. That is, they might be more inclined to celebrate, for example, key moments in the temporal march of the sun through the year than an exceptionally pretty sunset.

Indigenous people who were sometimes despised for not appreciating nature in the English rustic tradition often appreciated it as orderly patterns in time, not as static pictorial pleasure. That is, they might be more inclined to celebrate, for example, key moments in the temporal march of the sun through the year than an exceptionally pretty sunset.

You go through all of the fighting not because you want to fight, but because you want to get somewhere as a people. You want to help create a world where you can sit around and think about clouds. That should be our right as human beings.” You could argue that if we go too long without sitting around and thinking about clouds we might forget how to do so or why, that we could so shrivel en route we’d be unable to reach that destination.

You go through all of the fighting not because you want to fight, but because you want to get somewhere as a people. You want to help create a world where you can sit around and think about clouds. That should be our right as human beings.” You could argue that if we go too long without sitting around and thinking about clouds we might forget how to do so or why, that we could so shrivel en route we’d be unable to reach that destination.

The idea of an immense airplane whose sole freight was roses burning its carbon and rushing high over the Caribbean to deliver its burden to people who would never know of all that lay behind the roses they picked up in the supermarket was maybe as perfect an emblem of alienation as you could find. Could roses be more uprooted? “It is only very rarely, when I make a definite mental effort, that I connect this coal with that far-off labour in the mines,” Orwell had written of the stuff he burned at home, and it was even more rarely that anyone connected the roses to the toil in these greenhouses. They were the invisible factories of visual pleasure.

The idea of an immense airplane whose sole freight was roses burning its carbon and rushing high over the Caribbean to deliver its burden to people who would never know of all that lay behind the roses they picked up in the supermarket was maybe as perfect an emblem of alienation as you could find. Could roses be more uprooted? “It is only very rarely, when I make a definite mental effort, that I connect this coal with that far-off labour in the mines,” Orwell had written of the stuff he burned at home, and it was even more rarely that anyone connected the roses to the toil in these greenhouses. They were the invisible factories of visual pleasure.

Once, the trees from which wood came, the fields from which grain came, the springs, river, well, or rain from which drinking water came would have been familiar; every object would appear out of somewhere, from someone or something known to the user, and producers and consumers would be the same people or people who knew one another. Industrialization, urbanization, and transnational markets created a world where water poured out of faucets, food and clothing appeared in stores, fuel (in our time if not in Orwell’s with the coal chutes and sooty air) was largely invisible, and the work that held all this together was often done by people who were themselves invisible. There were undeniable benefits—a more stimulating and various material and mental life—but they came at a cost.

Once, the trees from which wood came, the fields from which grain came, the springs, river, well, or rain from which drinking water came would have been familiar; every object would appear out of somewhere, from someone or something known to the user, and producers and consumers would be the same people or people who knew one another. Industrialization, urbanization, and transnational markets created a world where water poured out of faucets, food and clothing appeared in stores, fuel (in our time if not in Orwell’s with the coal chutes and sooty air) was largely invisible, and the work that held all this together was often done by people who were themselves invisible. There were undeniable benefits—a more stimulating and various material and mental life—but they came at a cost.

Hannah Arendt famously wrote, “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”

Hannah Arendt famously wrote, “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”

“In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence 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.”

“In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence 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.”

Each word is a set of relationships, direct and indirect, a species in an ecosystem. The death of a word thins out a language and the possibilities of thought. Eventually the system collapses into ruins as thinking becomes impossible, the way an ecosystem collapses when key species become extinct.

Each word is a set of relationships, direct and indirect, a species in an ecosystem. The death of a word thins out a language and the possibilities of thought. Eventually the system collapses into ruins as thinking becomes impossible, the way an ecosystem collapses when key species become extinct.

Rereading a significant book is like revisiting an old friend: you find out how you’ve changed when you encounter them again; you see differently because you’re different. Some books grow, some wither upon reacquaintance, or because you’re asking different questions you find different answers. What struck me this time around was how much lushness and beauty and pleasure are in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Rereading a significant book is like revisiting an old friend: you find out how you’ve changed when you encounter them again; you see differently because you’re different. Some books grow, some wither upon reacquaintance, or because you’re asking different questions you find different answers. What struck me this time around was how much lushness and beauty and pleasure are in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

what he has learned of flowers and fruit and the passage of time in the botanical world becomes equipment to understand humanity. Winston muses, “She had had her momentary flowering, a year, perhaps, of wild-rose beauty and then she had suddenly swollen like a fertilized fruit and grown hard and red and coarse, and then her life had been laundering, scrubbing, darning, cooking, sweeping, polishing, mending, scrubbing, laundering, first for children, then for grandchildren, over thirty unbroken years. At the end of it she was still singing.”

what he has learned of flowers and fruit and the passage of time in the botanical world becomes equipment to understand humanity. Winston muses, “She had had her momentary flowering, a year, perhaps, of wild-rose beauty and then she had suddenly swollen like a fertilized fruit and grown hard and red and coarse, and then her life had been laundering, scrubbing, darning, cooking, sweeping, polishing, mending, scrubbing, laundering, first for children, then for grandchildren, over thirty unbroken years. At the end of it she was still singing.”

As the novelist and speculator on utopias and dystopias Octavia Butler put it, “The very act of trying to look ahead to discern possibilities and offer warnings is in itself an act of hope.”

As the novelist and speculator on utopias and dystopias Octavia Butler put it, “The very act of trying to look ahead to discern possibilities and offer warnings is in itself an act of hope.”

“My novel Nineteen Eighty-four is not intended as an attack on socialism, or on the British Labour party, but as a show-up of the perversions to which a centralized economy is liable, and which have already been partly realized in Communism and fascism. I do not believe that the kind of society I describe necessarily will arrive, but I believe (allowing of course for the fact that the book is a satire) that something resembling it could arrive. I believe also that totalitarian ideas have taken root in the minds of intellectuals everywhere,” and he noted that the book was set in England to emphasize that totalitarianism could triumph anywhere.

“My novel Nineteen Eighty-four is not intended as an attack on socialism, or on the British Labour party, but as a show-up of the perversions to which a centralized economy is liable, and which have already been partly realized in Communism and fascism. I do not believe that the kind of society I describe necessarily will arrive, but I believe (allowing of course for the fact that the book is a satire) that something resembling it could arrive. I believe also that totalitarian ideas have taken root in the minds of intellectuals everywhere,” and he noted that the book was set in England to emphasize that totalitarianism could triumph anywhere.

Memory Hole, named after the desktop pit into which Winston Smith dumped newspaper articles once their account of history had been replaced by a more expedient version.

Memory Hole, named after the desktop pit into which Winston Smith dumped newspaper articles once their account of history had been replaced by a more expedient version.