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George Orwell

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Was an English intellectual who died in 1950,

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and used literature

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for the only reason it utimately really exists:

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to try to change the world for the better.

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He was in the deepest sense

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a political writer;

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someone who wanted art

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to help us grow kind,

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fair, wise.

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In 1946, the year after the publication

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of his momentaneously popular fable,

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''Animal Farm'', he wrote an essay titled

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''Why I write'',

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which laid out his approach

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with a characteristic clarity.

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''What I wanted to do throughout

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the past ten years

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is to make political writing

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into an art.

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My starting point is always

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a feeling of partisanship,

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a sense of injustice.

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When I sit down to write a book,

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I don't say to myself

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´´ I'm going to produce

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a work of art´´

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I write it because there is some lie

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I want to expose,

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some fact to which I want

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to draw attention, and my

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initial concern is to get a hearing

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To understand why Orwell matters

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we therefore have to undestand

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what this most political of writers loved

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and what he hated,

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what he was in rebellion against

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and what he championed.

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This is what will give us the keys

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to undestanding his remarkable work,

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and painful, yet deeply

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fullfiled life.

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George Orwell always hated

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the social group which he was,

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despite everything, an exemplary member:

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Intellectuals.

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From an early age,

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he'd wanted to be a writer.

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But George Orwell exelled

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at never quite belonging

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He was born in 1903 in India,

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which was then part of the British empire,

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to economically fragile

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civil servant parents,

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who fought for him

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to have a classic, upper middle class

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English upbringign.

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And then hoped he might become

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a doctor or a lawyer.

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They sent him to what turned out to be

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a crippling, mean spirited

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English prep school, at the age of eight,

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from where he won a scholarship to Eton

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But he turned against the values

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and spirit of the English Public School System

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He never went to university

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and stint as an imperial policeman in Burma,

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he settled into the life of the odd throbbing

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literary intellectual.

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Working in a hampstered bookshop,

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reviewing other people's books,

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and eventually,

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writing some of his own.

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Nevertheless, Orwell's desdain of

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intellectuals was a constant.

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He accused them of a range of sins:

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a lack of patriotism,

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resentment of money,

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fisical vigor,

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concealed sexual frustration, pretension

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and dishonesty.

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He knew it all from the inside.

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But Orwell's greatness

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emerged from the right determnation

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with which he recognized and

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came to triumph against such tendencies

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in himself.

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´´The really important fact about

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the English intelligentsia´´,

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he once wrote,

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is that severance from the common culture

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of the country.

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In left wing circles

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it's always felt that there is something slightly

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disgraceful in being an English man.

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And there is a duty to snigger

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at every English institution,

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from horse racing to suet puddings.

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Orwell's generation of intellectuals,

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which has witnessed the first

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World War and the Great Depression

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was obsessed with aerie,

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abstract, large schemes to redeem

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human kind.

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Some were fanatical communists,

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others staunch offenders of

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radical capitalism, a few

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admired the new authoritarian regimes

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of Italy, Spain and Germany

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and wanted something similar

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to take hold in anglophones fear.

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Orwell listened, and was for a time a little

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seduced, but became gradually

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to champion something far

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more radical: the tastes, opinions,

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needs and outlook of someone

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he called the ordinary person.

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A knowledge of ordinary life came

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rather late to Orwell.

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As a typical product of an English Public

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School, he was a little exposed

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in anyone below his own social

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class.

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A tendency compounded by a naturally

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aloof, bookish and different manner.

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A friend described him in age 25 as,

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remarkably muff eaten for one of his age.

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But Orwell set out to make up

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for his lack of knowledge

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and gradually came to be the grat defender

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of what he repeatedly called

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ordinary life.

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Life of people, not especially blessed

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with material goods, but people who

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work on ordinary jobs,

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who don´t have much of an education,

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who won´t achieve greatness

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and yet nevertheless, love, care for

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others, work, have fun, raise children,

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and have large thoughts about the deepest

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questions, in ways that Orwell

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thought especially admirable.

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Orwell´s journey into ordinary life

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began in the spring of 1928,

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when he left the privileges of

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his class behind, and went

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to work in series of menial

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service jobs.

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In the French and English capitals

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experiencies he was to recount in

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his book: Down and Out in Paris and London

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published in 1933.

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The book is filled with

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affection and portraits of life

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behind stairs in hotels and restaurants

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and reveals camaraderie, humor and warmth.

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of an assortment of cleaners,

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shoe rubbers, waiters, chefs,

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and the occasional prostitute tramp.

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It was a side of life Orwell was further

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to investigate. In a book chronicling his

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around the industrial coal mining of

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Northern England.

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In a 1937 book titled ´´The Road to Wifan

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Pier´´again, without sentimentality or

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reverse snobbery, Orwell casts the

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generous complex eye over

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the people he met, and concluded that

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the average pub in a coal mining

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village contained more intelligence,

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wisdom, than the British cabinet, or the

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high table of an Oxbridge college.

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Orwell especially liked the lack of

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prudishness and hipocrisy among

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the ordinary people he met. One thing one

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notices when he writes, if he looks

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directly at the common people,

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especially in the big towns, is that they

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are not uritanical; they are veteran

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gamblers, drink as muh beer as their

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wages will permit and devoted to

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boardy jokes and use, probably, the

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foulest language in the world.

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Then, as now, there was plenty of

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information in the news about

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ordinary people. But Orwell understood

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that these news tended to turn people

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into abstractions, and he saw it as the

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role on his craft, literary journalism, to

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flesh out the human beings behind

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the statistics.

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And so, correct the prejudice and casual

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racism that circulated all around.

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In an essay written on a trip to Marrakech

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Orwell wrote sarcastically are

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the typically neo-colonial attitude of

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travelers towards the local inhabitants.

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´´The people here have brown faces´´

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´´´There are so many of them, are they

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really the same flesh as yourself?´´

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´´Do they even have names?´´

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´´Or are they merely a kind of

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undifferentiated brown stuff?´´

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´´As individual as bees or coral insects´´

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All people who work with their hands are

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partly invisible. And the more important

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the work that they do, the less visible

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they are.

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Orwell´s ove of the ordinary inspired his

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curiosity about a range of themes

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not often considered in literature. He

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thought about and wrote in praise of

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comics and country walks, dancing and

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flowers. He wrote bravely in defense

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of English cooking, kippers, Yorkshire,

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pudding, Devonshire cream, muffins and

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crumpets he wrote. And then asked,

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where else other than Englsh cooking

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do you see potatoes roasted under the

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joint? Which is, far in a way, the best

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way of cooking them. Orwell wrote tenderly

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in defense of Charles Dickens, at the time

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this great writer was considered low brow

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and too popular to win the esteemed

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of intellectuals. In a great essay of 1946

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Politics and the English Language,

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Orwell stood up against the pros typical

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of intellectuals, high blown and full

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of long fancy words and defended

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a simple, almost naive way of writing.

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He outlined the list of rules for how to

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write well, which included a complete ban

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on fancy words like ´´phenomenon´´,

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´´categorical´´, ´´utilize´´,

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´´inexorable´´ and ´´veritable´´.

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Orwell revealed a hatred of foreign words

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like status quo and deus ex machina, and

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concluded that there is really no need

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for any of the hundreds of foreign

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phrases now curent in English.

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George Orwell is today extremely

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famous for two books which played a very

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small part in his life, if measured simply

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in terms of years. He wrote Animal Farm

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in 1945 when he was 42 and he published

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Nineten Eighty-Four in 1949 when he

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was 45. But he was dead by January 1950

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at the age of only 46.

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In other words, he had just four short

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years being the Orwell we know today.

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Nevertheless, these two books are

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anchored in deep thinking that Orwell

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had done all his adult life about how

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literature should be written in an age

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of movies and mass communication.

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In short, he knew that the task of a

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writer was to ensure that the most serious

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ideas should achieve mass popularity, a

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double act, which requiered particular

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skill and intelligence. Animal farm is a

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political trapped about how revolutions

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fall prey to counter-revolutions,

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and turn their backs on their own original

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ideals.

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It fairly maps out the progress of French

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revolution. The European Revolutions

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of 1848 and the Russian Revolution of 1917

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But, described like this, no one outside

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of the few academics would ever bother

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to read it.

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Orwell´s genius was to hit upon of

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form the fable which would carry his story

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to a mass audience and could be undestood

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as he put it, by more or less, anyone.

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So Orwell did what Aesop, Walt Disney,

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La Fontaine and Beatrix Potter amog many

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others, have done. Which is to tell a

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story about humans via animals.

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In the process, Orwell revealed the sins

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of revolutionaries are not limited to

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people involved in actual revolutions.

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Indeed. that it´s a permanent human

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possibility to believe when he´s guided

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by high ideals and then go on to betray

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them all. Every time a revolution now goes

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wrong, people bring up Animal Farm, and

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declare it to be ahead of it´t time.

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So prescient.

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This is the genius of Orwell´s fable.

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By cutting out all contemporary human

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references, Orwell found a way to tell us

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about ourselves, for all time, even for

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the future.

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Having successfully reinvented the fable,

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Orwell, in an astonishing burst of

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creativity, reinvented the science fiction

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novel.

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As a boy, he loved the novels of H.G.Wells

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Especially, the Time Machine and The War

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of The Worlds.

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Like Wells, Orwell seized upon trends in

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his own time and try to imagine how they

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might develop over the long term.

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His sience fiction novel is set in

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Airstip One, a place once known as

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Great Britain, but now province of super

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state of Oceania, and lockd in perpetual

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ideological conflict with two other blocks

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Eurasia and East Asia,

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Like all great dystopian novels, Orwell´s

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book was an attempt to warn his own

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society about it´s own alarming trends.

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For example, he could see that what can

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terrorize a country is not so much

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outright turture or clumsy covert

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restrictions on free speech, but a lulling

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of the citizenry through sophisticated

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entertainment and empty-headed

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news reports, all wrapped up in a constant

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reference to freedom.

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So, in 1984, society is full of intriguing

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new machines, omnipresent screens, which

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both addicted and at the same time watch

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over their citizens.

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Julia, the leading female figure in the

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novel, works on the department of

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goverment known as ´´Mini True´´, which

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systematicaly distorts access to

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information in highly subtle ways

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To blind the citizenry to their

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enslavement. Julia operates a machine that

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turns out porn novels alongside films

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oozing with sex, rubbishing newsapers

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containing almost nothing but sport, crime

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and astrology. The people, however, don´t

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feel they are enslaved.

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As Orwell so well understood, the really

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clever and scary regimes of the modern

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world aren´the obviously dictatorial ones.

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They are the apparently democratic ones

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that give their citizens the distinctive

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feeling that they are free, when in fact

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blinding them with constant sexual

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titillation, and sentimental distractions.

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George Orwell had the wisdom to make

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himself remarkably future proof.

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He was weary of economic and political

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abstractions. He stayed close to the truth

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of ordinary ife. The realities of sex,

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food, money, love and pleasure and he

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wrote with total clarity about enduring

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eternal themes on human nature.

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He is perhaps, the most successfull

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serious English language writer of the 20th

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century and gives us the tools to continue

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to imagine what writing should be in our

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own time. Ultimately, Orwell´s message is

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the same as the plea that he discerned in

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all of Charles Dickens books. In the

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essay he wrote on him namely, that human

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beings should behave better. This, as he

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pointed out, is either a terrific cliche

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or just about the most important

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instruction in the whole life. It was

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Orwell´s genius to remind us that it is,

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of course,very much, the latter.