Why Orwell MattersHitchens on Orwell:This is not a biography, but I sometimes feel as if George Orwell requires extricating from a pile of saccharine tablets and moist hankies; an object of sickly veneration and sentimental overpraise, employed to stultify schoolchildren with his insufferable rightness and purity. This kind of tribute is often of the Rochefoucauldian type; suggestive of the payoff made by vice to virtue, and also of the tricks played by an uneasy conscience.What [Orwell] illustrates, by his commitment to language as the partner of truth, is that "views" do not really count; that it matters not what you think, but how you think, and that politics are relatively unimportant, while principles have a way of enduring, as do the few irreducible individuals who maintain allegiance to them.Others on Hitchens:"I have been asked whether I wish to nominate a successor, an inheritor, a dauphin or delphino. I have decided to name Christopher Hitchens."-Gore Vidal"Christopher Hitchens's writing has sweep and flair. He is accurate where others are merely dutiful, unpredictable where the tendency is to go for the cliché. In short, brilliant."-Edward W. Said"May his targets cower." -Susan Sontag |
Contents
The Figure | 1 |
Orwell and Empire | 15 |
Orwell and the Left | 35 |
Copyright | |
5 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Adorno American Andrés Nin Animal Farm Aspidistra Flying Auden Barcelona Beasts of England Britain British broadcast Burma Burmese Days Burnham Cold Cold War colonial Communist critics culture democracy Empire England English essay Europe exile fact fascism feel fiction Flory French George Orwell Gissing Gordon Homage to Catalonia human idea imperialism Indian Inside the Whale intellectuals Isaac Deutscher James Burnham Keep the Aspidistra Labour language Larkin later Left Lenin Lenin Barracks literary literature live magazine means ment mind moral Moscow Nineteen Eighty-Four notice novel novelist Office Orwell never Orwell took Orwell wrote Orwell's Party phrase poem Poland police political propaganda published Raymond Williams readers revolution Russian seems sense sion social Socialist sort Soviet Spain Stalin Stalinist thing thought tion Tory totalitarianism Trotskyist truth Ukrainian well's Wigan Pier Winston Smith woman women word writing written