Orwell stated in 1936: "I worshipped Kipling at 13, loathed him at 17, enjoyed him at 20, despised him at 25, and now again rather admire him."
Was Inspiration Of
Writing in the "Los Angeles Times Book Review" (03/07/1999), Susie Linfield notes the influence of Orwell on Wendy Lesser's work: "Lesser identifies herself as a fan of George Orwell and even considered calling her magazine 'Wigan Pier'...Yet it is the Orwell of 'Politics and the English Language'--with its insistence on lucid language as a moral imperative--that seems to have influenced her most."
Hitchens has expressed his admiration for Orwell above most others--"I think he was a very witty and brilliant stylist. [A]lways worth rereading."
Contributor Quotation
H. G. Wells
"'Ulysses' has every merit except those that a novel should have."
"[Galsworthy] was a bad writer, and some inner trouble, sharpening his sensitiveness, nearly made him into a good one; his discontent healed itself, and he reverted to type."
William Shakespeare
Biography
Son of an English administrator stationed in India (in the "Opium Department"), Orwell (born Eric Blair) returned to Henley-on-Thames in England with his mother when he was 2. He eventually attended Eton, becoming a somewhat rebellious boy who questioned his family's middle-class values. From 1921 to 1927, he served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, a job he loathed, and after he resigned he devoted himself to learning to write, first in England, then in Paris, where he began to publish more...
Son of an English administrator stationed in India (in the "Opium Department"), Orwell (born Eric Blair) returned to Henley-on-Thames in England with his mother when he was 2. He eventually attended Eton, becoming a somewhat rebellious boy who questioned his family's middle-class values. From 1921 to 1927, he served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, a job he loathed, and after he resigned he devoted himself to learning to write, first in England, then in Paris, where he began to publish articles on social issues under the pen name of George Orwell. All his life, Orwell was aware of and outraged by poverty and unemployment and the inequities of the oppressive English class system. Impoverished himself, he worked in the kitchen of a Paris hotel, out of which came his memoir, DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON. He wrote several novels during this period--the first to be published was A CLERGYMAN'S DAUGHTER in 1935--as well as his classic study of Yorkshire coal miners, THE ROAD TO WIGAN PIER (1937). (Later in life, Orwell commented, "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism...") Orwell fought with the antifascists in the Spanish Civil War, detailing his experiences in HOMAGE TO CATALONIA (1938), and during World War II he wrote for the BBC. He is credited with coining the expression "cold war." Orwell's scathing political satire, ANIMAL FARM, was published after the war, in 1945. His first wife also died that year, and he and his son moved to the island of Jura off the Scottish coast, where Orwell wrote his most famous and influential novel, 1984, which was published in 1949. He remarried shortly after, but in 1950 he died of the tuberculosis that had long plagued him.less...
The greatest political book ever written in a mere 32k+ words. Orwell, whose life is shaped by events of war, demonstrates that COMMON INTEREST is what forms allies and inspires plans/executions. Though once the objective has been attained, like atoms realigning themselves when their environment changes, allies unaware even to themselves begin their shift, ultimately leading to another COMMON INTEREST and another alliance. So, those who were once "friends" become "enemies". This leaves the individual often to slide up and down a scale of ideologies--very often becoming his/her worst enemy.
The impossibility of any one ideology standardizing a social context is what Orwell portrays through the use of a society still following the traditional European economy of agrarianism. Then slowly, he moves them into industrialism, all the while getting them from one supposed ideological extreme to another.
In between, he lays out the tenets of what one ideological system needs: an inspiration, a death leading to the immediate misinterpretation, yet mobilization of the inspiration, an icon, an individual to represent this lost/immortalized icon, seduction, misunderstood intent by the population, power from the population to push on, eventual regrouping, disappointment, and taste from something new. Ironically, all ideologies work off of these tenets.
Orwell leaves his story at the coda/onset of change because the cycle of COMMON INTEREST is unending. And, this is just one interpretation.
Hands down, Animal Farm is a fantastic book for its minimalism as much as its magnitude.
The greatest political book ever written in a mere 32k+ words. Orwell, whose life is shaped by events of war, demonstrates that COMMON INTEREST is what forms allies and inspires plans/executions. Though once the objective has been attained, like atoms realigning themselves when their environment changes, allies unaware even to themselves begin their shift, ultimately leading to another COMMON INTEREST and another alliance. So, those who were once "friends" become "enemies". This leaves the individual often to slide up and down a scale of ideologies--very often becoming his/her worst enemy.
The impossibility of any one ideology standardizing a social context is what Orwell portrays through the use of a society still following the traditional European economy of agrarianism. Then slowly, he moves them into industrialism, all the while getting them from one supposed ideological extreme to another.
In between, he lays out the tenets of what one ideological system needs: an inspiration, a death leading to the immediate misinterpretation, yet mobilization of the inspiration, an icon, an individual to represent this lost/immortalized icon, seduction, misunderstood intent by the population, power from the population to push on, eventual regrouping, disappointment, and taste from something new. Ironically, all ideologies work off of these tenets.
Orwell leaves his story at the coda/onset of change because the cycle of COMMON INTEREST is unending. And, this is just one interpretation.
Hands down, Animal Farm is a fantastic book for its minimalism as much as its magnitude.
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