Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6804 in Books
• Published on: 2000-06-29
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

Synopsis
These essays, reviews and articles illuminate the life and work of one of the most individual writers of this century - a man who created a unique literary manner from the process of thinking aloud and who elevated political writing to an art.

Customer Reviews

Political writing as art; all art is propaganda
In these by times highly emotional essays written in the 1930s and 1940s George Orwell gives us with in depth analyses his personal viewpoint on the literary, political and socio-economic scene.

In literature, he sees the novel as `a Protestant form of art, a product of the free mind, of the autonomous individual.' Orwell's aim was to `push the world in a certain direction: a battle against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism.'
In his criticism he searches for the essential (hidden) message of the author.
Dickens's rather naïve creed is: `If man would behave decently, the world would be decent.' His ideal is `a hundred thousand pounds, a quaint old house, a sweetly womanly wife, a horde of children and no work.'
Henry Miller's books are `a passive acceptance of decay and evil.'
H.G. Wells dreams of a utopian World State.
R. Kipling is a jingo imperialist, but he didn't understand that `an empire is primarily a money-making concern'.
W.B. Yeats is in essence a defender of feudalism, `a great hater of democracy and of human equality, of the modern world, science, technology and the concept of progress.'
A. Koestler's main theme is `the decadence of revolutions owing to corrupting effects of power.'
P.G. Wodehouse's real sin is to present the English upper classes as much nicer than they are.
In `Gulliver's Travels', J. Swift delivers a frontal attack on totalitarianism and shows that he is a disbeliever in the possibility of happiness.

Orwell's view on world matters is rightly `no Law, only Power'.
Nationalism is inseparable from the desire for power.
The concentration of the media in the hands of a few rich men puts the freedom of the press and intellectual liberty under attack. The `very concept of objective truth' is lost.
The Spanish war showed him the essential horror of army life.
He is extremely severe for the British establishment: `The British ruling class thought that Fascism was on their side.' For them, `it is better to inherit, than to work.' `In an England ruled by stupidity, to be `clever' was to be suspect.'

But his solution is also naïve: `common ownership of the means of production. The State, representing the whole nation, owns everything, and everyone is a State employee.' In other words, he pleads for a massive bureaucracy.
But he contradicts himself when he complains that `everything in our age conspires to turn the writer into a minor official!'

These essays contain also vivid memories of his public school life (`irrational terror') and of his Indian life ('Shooting an elephant'). He comments on sports (`war without shooting), detective stories (J.H. Chase), poetry (`the most hated art form'), mildly pornographic comic postcards (`a harmless rebellion against virtue') and ends with a superb portrait of Ghandi.

These remarkable essays, written by a fearless superb free mind, a fighter for justice and a true `révolté' (A. Camus), are a must read.

An honest journalist
Orwell - *the* iconoclast, defender of truth, and anti-authoritarian. His essays are very objective; he does not write dishonestly because of any ideological positions (indeed, he was as critical of those on the left as those on the right), and thus these essays provide a compelling contribution to our understanding of the particularly chaotic part of the century they were written in.

Wonderful
A wonderful collection of essays, ranging on topics from English cooking to democracy, from the common toad to the plight of the homeless. The essays notable both for their writing and their thoughts. And whilst not everything in the essays are correct, or in tune with my view point Orwell does at least present a different view point that in some cases challenged my own. At some point I realised I was no longer a pacifist. Highly recommended. It's worth noting that this edition does not contain a comprehensive collection of all his essays and many will have to be found in other volumes.