What About George Orwell

I think George Orwell devoted his talent to such morose and depressing subjects, yet I could never put down anything he wrote. He was so compelling. I just had to read on despite his pessimistic narrative. I suppose good writers have a special signature to their work and this is keeps a reader turning the pages.

Down and Out in Paris and London

Down and Out in London and Paris was a terrific description of social injustice. It was something base and vulgar. I thought the book was horrid but I would recommend anyone to read it. You feel as though you are actually inside George Orwell’s head looking out through his eyes, whilst feeling his revulsion and shame at what is going on around him. If you have never read this book then please do. It is a crass experience that you will be glad of – relieved you read the work, but never again. You’ll always remember things from it and shudder. Honestly, I could not recommend a disgusting account so highly.

The Road to Wigan Pier

The road to Wigan Pier is set during the depression of the 1930s and it is, again, full of dismal conditions concerning unemployment of the working class masses. George Orwell seemed to have this great belief and affection for the working class masses and at first he seemed to think there was a way of improving their circumstance. He did other works and essays that supported this, but I think he began to realise that such things could not be done because the weakness and strengths were in individuals, not a mass entity. There would always be leaders that would come to the surface and nothing can be equal. At least that’s what I think his thoughts were when he did his final works.

Homage to Catalonia

Because I always feel I’m inside George Orwell’s head, looking out through his personal thoughts, when I read his work; it seems that his outlook on people became less hopeful. In Homage to Catalonia he goes off to fight for the International Brigade against Franco’s forces during the Spanish civil war. He very quickly becomes disillusioned by the ideals of the anarchists he is fighting for and is shot in the throat and invalided out of the war.

Animal Farm

After this experience, I think he reassessed the way he thought of peoples collectively and became even more pessimistic, but much more decisive. His writing changed for the better. He wrote this tiny novella, which was an absolute peach of a story. Animal Farm is brilliant. Most people have read it but if you haven’t; please? You must.

1984

In 1948, he wrote his final work and turned the four and eight around for 1984. It seems the masses would always be, in some shape or another. But to think they could rise up and change things collectively and fairly was a futile and over optimistic hope. Things would always be the same. Like Winston Smith in 1984, he settled down and went with the flow, knowing the end was near - for Winston Smith, an assassins’ midnight call and for Mr George Orwell, tuberculosis. He died in 1950 aged 46.

I think his two final works made an icon of him in the literary world and because of this I believe his earlier work got read by a wider audience afterwards. By this, I mean if he never wrote Animal Farm or 1984, his other fine collective work might have faded into obscurity. The final two books make fabulous final touches to a terrific monument of his short life's work.