Announcing an Orwell Project?
Think Tank #95
I’ve read a lot of George Orwell’s writing. All of his books, most of his essays. I was thinking of writing a book about Orwell, articulating my ‘hypothesis’ (mind-blowing to me at the time) that Nineteen Eighty-Four was a work of political satire, not political prophecy. I had a killer title ready and everything.
It’s true, and really cool, actually. The book was a culmination of his life’s work, written on his deathbed, comprised entirely of themes that he had written about throughout his entire career. My conclusion was correct. The only problem was that it started to seem obvious.
What happens after you read this much of an author is that you start to build up a sort of inferiority complex. On one hand, you begin to feel like you know them. Their writing ‘voice’ becomes as familiar to you as your own. On the other hand, you begin to see that it is impossible, simply by reading a person’s writing, to really understand them as a human being at all.
I wasn’t expecting this. I thought that the hours and hours I spent reading George Orwell would open up some kind of deeper understanding of who he was. I was wrong. I still have no clue.
For example, yesterday, Demi Pietchell of
recommended this article by :
In the article, Cynthia talks about how Orwell worked for a time as part of the Imperial Police in Burma (somewhat common knowledge), and how afterwards, he still had ties to British Intelligence, which may or may not have been voluntary (markedly uncommon knowledge, unless I’ve been living under a rock). This would’ve been surprising, but a few weeks ago, Demi alerted me that Orwell’s seemingly prescient knowledge may have been because of some ‘inside connections’ that he had.
Turns out, publishing companies don’t print the deep, dark secrets of a person’s life in their essay collections, which means I still have a lot of research left to do, and I’m not really sure where to start.
However, while this kind of extensive reading doesn’t connect you with any hidden knowledge, it does connect you with the things that an author cared about.
So, were the hours upon hours that I spent on George Orwell worth it?
There are some really important themes in Nineteen Eighty-Four, and while I am certainly unqualified to be an Orwell biographer, I am probably qualified to talk about the things that he wrote about. Plus, I’m starting to get the nagging feeling that I should talk about it. Whether Orwell was himself an agent of ‘Big Brother’ or not, he talked about important things.
There’s just something that really intrigues me about the guy. Maybe it’s because his face is as ubiquitous as the face of Big Brother (I’m even seeing ads for the Nineteen Eighty-Four audiobook on the subway). Maybe it’s because he was actually genuine (I’d like to think so). Maybe it’s just because he was right.
Whatever the reason, this new mystery has lured me back in, so I might do my Orwell project, after all. Stay tuned.
George Orwell went to Eton College still the most prestigious establishment school in the world. It’s primary task is not academic education but to give its “chosen children” (£50,000 per annum fees) the three C’s. Confidence. Contacts. Character. You can take the man out of Eton but you can’t take Eton out of the man.
That said I still think George Orwell did far more honest writing than almost any other author of the 20th century. It is perfectly true that he was dying when he wrote 1984 and I think that he was desperate to get the truth that is in the book out to as wide a public as possible especially from his experience of trying to get Animal Farm published which was thwarted for a longtime by Winston Churchill and the government because it was unhelpful to Anglo-Soviet relations in the Second World War.
I've come upon the same experience recently in my own searching and writing. I held John Muir in high esteem. I posted an article about my love for the wilderness and shared my adventures and photography. I wrote passionately about the need for us to recognize the importance of a symbiotic relationship with nature. I quoted John Muir several times. After posting i received a comment that caused cognitive dissonance... And then resulted in my doing a deep dive investigation into who John Muir really was. I learned what REALLY happened when National parks like Yosemite became protected lands. What the government does in the name of GOOD usually comes at a great price. It turns out some of those people who made history for their famous writings and actions were part of a group of elites with an agenda... That the rest of us are not privy to and are usually the victims of. It will be interesting to hear what your final conclusions are.