I say, that Mr Orwell can write quite well

[dreamer_easy]

One of the hundred or so books I'm currently reading is the Penguin George Orwell Essays. They're models of good writing - crisp, humane, witty, packing great meaning into a short space. I'm partway through his analysis of Dickens, which makes devastating use of the term "etc etc".

Comments

Inside the Whale

[(Anonymous)]

A site I recently found on Eric:

A Nice Cup of Tea (http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/index.cgi/work/essays/cupoftea.html):

When I look through my own recipe for the perfect cup of tea, I find no fewer than eleven outstanding points. On perhaps two of them there would be pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely controversial.

Why I Write (http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/index.cgi/work/essays/write.html):

From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer. Between the ages of about seventeen and twenty-four I tried to abandon this idea, but I did so with the consciousness that I was outraging my true nature and that sooner or later I should have to settle down and write books.

There are many other examples of his essays there, including the infamous Shooting an Elephant (http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/index.cgi/work/essays/elephant.html) and A Hanging (http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/index.cgi/work/essays/hanging.html).

Mags (http://www.moosiferjonesgrouch.blogspot.com)

Re: Inside the Whale

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Every writer reading this should follow the link to Why I Write.

Re: Inside the Whale

[jblum.livejournal.com]

I did. Weird thought: the "journalism" aspect of writing he talks about is literally there in Unnatural History: my engagement with the fannish issues of the moment, literally conveyed in part through Eldin the journalist. It's coexisting with the more novelistic aspects, but it's inextricable; as with Catalonia, I wouldn't have been fired up to explore the emotional/psychological stuff otherwise. And the journalism is what some people read the books for: the plots are the news dispatches about the state of the Whoniverse, the thematic stuff that relates to fannish issues are the editorial pages, and all the rest is sort of filler, like advertising inserts or something. Some people only skim the headlines -- "Doctor Still Has Amnesia; Sun Expected To Rise In The East" -- and figure they know what's going on.

Lots of other neat stuff to think about, in terms of the overlapping impulses. Stop me before I metaphor again...

Re: Inside the Whale

[(Anonymous)]

One of the intersting things he says about Homage to Catalonia is:

I did try very hard in it to tell the whole truth without violating my literary instincts.

Except, as most biographers make clear, he did not tell the whole truth. Other members of his squad recall him leading the charge against a hill fort town, or going out into the no mans' land to pull up potatoes to supplement their pitiful rations. It's possible that he does it as his literary instincts reneged against writing of his own heroism (he's not Hemmingway) but also revealing that he was fighting alters the perception of life on the line as lots of standing about being nibbled on by rats.

[dark-pheonix.livejournal.com]

After reading some biographical things about him, he does sound a spiffy writer.

Isn't it interesting that, quite often, the writers that really connect with people have a big emotional leaning (usually negatively so) during their youth?

Well, that's my theory anyway.