This book, it seems to me, is definitely not for a casual reader. This year, the 100th anniversary of Orwell’s birth, a new battle has erupted over his memory and legacy. 87 customer ratings. Throughout his career Orwell kept free of the ideological blindness that justifies so many sins by that one condemns in some but justifies in others in the name of serving a 'higher truth'. The solution is to go back to the source and read some of Orwell’s own essays and books. Vanity Fair and Nation contributor Hitchens passionately defends a great writer from attacks by both right and left, though he also refutes those fans who proclaim his sainthood. At English boys schools, he adopted a misogynistic and homophobic outlook as well as a distrust of what today would be called cultural liberalism. Many of his personal opinions were politically incorrect. This book reminds us all of the necessity to keep an open eye and mind regardless of what our views are, or who we see as our natural allies. In The Road to Wigan Pier, he wrote: Socialism means the overthrow of tyranny at home as well as abroad. Ron Charles. His analysis constantly pulls in allusions to numerous other literary figures, and their particular rationals and perspectives, to such a degree that I often became lost as to the supposed intent of the book. Hitchens has elevated mockery to a high art, picking apart the arguments of Orwell’s critics with wit and an eye for logical contradictions. If only there was a commentator half as good as him around today. Christopher Hitchens in elegant form describes to us the life of Orwell and why Orwell still matters in contemporary form. Orwell would have been at home in the 2020's. Forecast:Hitchens has made a splash with recent books (Letters to a Young Contrarian and The Trial of Henry Kissinger). Auden and other homosexual writers. (Oct.). Why Orwell matters. Get this from a library! Disgusted by his police work, he became a lifelong enemy of imperialism. Orwell and Us: The battle over George Orwell's legacy. George Orwell was conservative about many things, but not about politics. He preferred these everyday ideas to the subtle intellectual arguments advanced by many of his contemporaries, which he felt tended towards fascism or communism. He concludes: The body snatching of Orwell, however, is a much more specialized task and probably should not be attempted by any known faction. Only by directly dealing with Orwell’s work can one comprehend his profound wisdom and his continued relevance in troubled and uncertain times. He emphasizes Orwell’s radicalism and shows how Orwell’s opposition to the Soviet Union had very little to do with that of William Buckley. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 June 2015. Hitchens’s book is a chatty polemic, like so much of Orwell’s nonfiction. Prime members enjoy FREE Delivery and exclusive access to music, movies, TV shows, original audio series, and Kindle books. Hitchens’s attack elsewhere on Mother Theresa is reminiscent of Orwell’s debunking of Gandhi, and his support for the war in Afghanistan in defiance of the mainstream left invites comparison to Orwell’s support for the Second World War. Read more. A book review by David Ramsay Steele. In this book Hitchens demonstrates to us the continuing relevance of a person who always kept an open mind and stayed true to principles. The date and place are important, because they meant that Orwell came of age during the Great War and experienced the British Empire at the height of its power. Anxious to get in touch with the common man, he became a tramp, a dishwasher, and a bookstore clerk. Hitchens’s support of Orwell is less successful in other areas. [Christopher Hitchens] -- "In this trenchant critical essay, Christopher Hitchens assesses the life, the achievements, and the myth of the great political writer and participant George Orwell. In this immense corpus, Orwell becomes his own biographer, and his ideas develop on their own. Hitchens, though, has proved his basic point: The modern world needs more of the clear thinking, good writing and simple ideals that Orwell stood for. He devotes one-third of his book to refuting Orwell’s leftwing critics, who see conservative tendencies in his work, both in his stand on cultural issues and in his reverence for tradition. All of his works are worth reading. Here is a typical passage: The above citations are only a sample, but by no means and unrepresentative one, of what might be offered, by way of illustrating the sheer ill will and bad faith and intellectual confusion that appear to ignite spontaneously when Orwell’s name is mentioned in some quarters. He devotes another chapter to refuting the attempts of political conservatives to claim Orwell for their own. Hitchens was an intellectual giant with few rivals. To the left, he betrayed socialism and democracy because his dystopian novels “Animal Farm” and “1984” were such potent attacks on Soviet-style Communism that they served to propel the Cold War and McCarthyism. My Orwell Right or Wrong. George Orwell (1903–1950), a socialist who abhorred all forms of totalitarianism, was, as Hitchens points out, prescient about the "three great subjects of the twentieth century:" imperialism, fascism, and Stalinism. Truly a beautiful exposé that highlights to the reader the lasting influence and importance of George Orwell. After attending a hellish prep school (memorialized in his brilliantly ironic essay “Such, Such were the Joys”) Blair went to Eton, then started a career in the Burmese Imperial Police. Hitchens brilliantly marshals his deep knowledge of Orwell's work. He didn’t appreciate the power of American materialism, and the immense economic might that would help America to dominate the globe.
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