51–60 of 73 posts
Just finished his "Down and out in Paris and London"[1] about life in extreme poverty as an unemployed man, as a low-wage worker and as a tramp in the 1930s. A good read and a short book. [1] https://annas-archive.org/md5/6486c7cb2f83f4a97cc02728ff77c2... (Public domain)
Just put it out there, If you love Orwell then Christopher Hitchens on Orwell is like the whole pudding, coffee and after-dinner mints. He's my fave Orwell scholar and throws a lot of light on the life, thoughts and implications of the writer.
Hitchens had an arrogant and chauvinistic side that spoils his writing for me.
Some of my favorite quotes of his: “[A] world in which it is wrong to murder an individual civilian and right to drop a thousand tons of high explosive on a residential area does sometimes make me wonder whether this earth of ours is not a loony bin made use of by some other planet.” George Orwell (31 December 1943) “Take away freedom of speech, and the creative faculties dry up.” “Every war when it comes, or before…
That's a neat quote. I wonder what Orwell thought of the manufactured famines in Ireland and India, or the British East India Company going to war with China so they make them purchase opium.
"That’s the thing about Orwell’s Imperialism: it’s perfectly ordinary stuff, distinguished only by the socialist persona he invented to speak it. As an example of literary dissembling, Orwell belongs with the great forgers. But as a man of ideas, he is truly beneath contempt. His ideas are simply the hatreds of his nursery, hidden by an elaborate self-glorifying backstory."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hitchens had an arrogant and chauvinistic side that spoils his writing for me.
Hitchens is pretty awful imo. Tried to paint himself as some type of lefty, as he got older agitated for war and just drank himself to death. That, and the weird new atheist sthick....he was a good writer when he was younger, but he was a careerist more than anything else.
https://exiledonline.com/big-brothers-george-orwell-and-chri... "That’s the thing about Orwell’s Imperialism: it’s perfectly ordinary stuff, distinguished only by the socialist persona he invented to speak it. As an example of literary dissembling, Orwell belongs with the great forgers. But as a man of ideas, he is truly beneath contempt. His ideas are simply the hatreds of his nursery, hidden by an elaborate self-gl…
Your article's main thesis is "how dare he do that!" (before rejecting imperialism).
https://exiledonline.com/big-brothers-george-orwell-and-chri... "That’s the thing about Orwell’s Imperialism: it’s perfectly ordinary stuff, distinguished only by the socialist persona he invented to speak it. As an example of literary dissembling, Orwell belongs with the great forgers. But as a man of ideas, he is truly beneath contempt. His ideas are simply the hatreds of his nursery, hidden by an elaborate self-gl…
Actually, it’s simple. Orwell went to Spain to fight for his most deeply held belief, yes. Unfortunately, that belief wasn’t socialism but the nastiest, most puerile of the tribal hatreds English babies learn in the cradle: anti-Catholicism."
I just couldn't keep reading after that. I like John Dolan's analyses in the War Nerd podcast but this essay seems unhinged. Did he write this at the time the Exiled staff were smashing each other in the face with horse semen pies? Seems like a lot of edginess and projection.
Literature's power lies in it's low cost and broad viewpoints. And whatever topic became popular because they reflect the times. We must be in trouble, given Orwell became so popular. Extra so if powers that be deemed worthwhile to character assassinate someone who writes "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others". It should have never gotten as popular as it did.
It's inspiring to imagine subversive writers bravely speaking truth to power, when the reality is they're just observing the mundanity of their own time, then later as world shifts into insanity their commonplace objections to ordinary injustice look like unspeakable challenges.
https://exiledonline.com/big-brothers-george-orwell-and-chri... "That’s the thing about Orwell’s Imperialism: it’s perfectly ordinary stuff, distinguished only by the socialist persona he invented to speak it. As an example of literary dissembling, Orwell belongs with the great forgers. But as a man of ideas, he is truly beneath contempt. His ideas are simply the hatreds of his nursery, hidden by an elaborate self-gl…
His writing is partly journalistic, partly literary.He's never really trying to assemble a coherent ideological or philosophical argument.
He's reporting what he sees and reflecting on the world he lives in and his place in it. He can see profound problems and injustices, but is deeply skeptical that any of the ideologies of his time provide solutions. But he is also acutely aware, I think, that he doesn't really have any better ideas. There's a profound anxiety and uncertainty than runs throughout Orwell's writing.
For me, this is what makes him a good writer. Judging him on not being "properly" socialist or anti-imperialist or whatever is completely missing the point.