George Orwell, the most widely read and influential serious writer of the twentieth century, has been my lifelong interest. My dissertation and first book, Fiction and the Colonial Experience (1973), considered cultural conflicts in the novels of Kipling, Conrad, Forster, Joyce Cary and Graham Greene that developed when European nations imposed their manners and customs, religious beliefs and moral values on an indigenous way of life. My extensive travels in India and Africa, and professional interest in this subject, led me to Burmese Days and to a passion for Orwell. I eventually wrote four books about him: A Reader's Guide to George Orwell (1975), George Orwell: The Critical Heritage (1975), George Orwell: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism (with Valerie Meyers, 1977) and—when dissatisfied with all the previous biographies—a full-scale life: Orwell: Wintry Conscience of a Generation (2000).
The twenty-one essays in this volume were published over a period of forty years, between 1968 and 2009. I return to some striking passages several times, but interpret them differently in various contexts. This book begins with an account of Orwell's autobiographical writings from the beginning of his career through the Spanish Civil War; continues with analyses of his major works, and general essays on his style, ideas about writing and quirky humor; and concludes by focusing on the six biographies of Orwell—including my own.
Orwell's literary qualities—vigorous style, engaging honesty, sly wit—immediately attract us. And his personal qualities—integrity, idealism and commitment—shine through his writing like pebbles in a clear stream. In his own lifetime Orwell's passionate desire to unite the disparate classes and create a just society in England commanded respect and gave him a special aura. Though he was intensely conscientious, he was hard on himself. His obstinate search for moral values animates his essays and novels, and his lucid prose represents a triumph over the chaos and self-doubt that lies beneath the surface. His legend was partly self-created, and his work has had—still has—extraordinary political and cultural influence. Orwell's books have not dated (though he was born more than a century ago), and we can now see the complexity of his struggle and the greatness of his achievement.
Very few writers’ lives can stand up to the intense scrutiny of modern biographers, but the more I studied Orwell, the more appealing he became. I found few flaws, and even those made him seem rather eccentric, even charming. There is an admirable consistency between the values he advocates in his work and those that guided his behavior, often under difficult and dangerous conditions, in his life. He was a seeker after justice and truth, with an instinctive insight into the heart of social and political problems. His vision is sharp, concrete and absolutely realistic. His political beliefs were determined by harsh experience rather than by ideological considerations. His most impressive personal and literary characteristics were a Conradian concern with human solidarity; generosity of spirit that extends to enemy prisoners, French collaborators and Fascist war criminals; intellectual honesty in admitting his own mistakes; balanced judgment; courage to speak out against any mean or cowardly attitude; and defense of provocative and unpopular views.
The recent Polish film Katyn is a striking example of the suppression of truth for political reasons by those in power. Both the Russian murderers and (for once) the innocent Germans accused each other of massacring thousands of captured Polish officers and members of the intelligentsia in the forest of Katyn, near Smolensk, in April 1940. The Russians did not admit the truth about this mass murder until 1989. Though he died sixty years ago, we need Orwell now more than ever.
Two passages from Anna Funder's brilliant memoir, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall (2003), suggest the lasting political influence of Orwell's final books. After noting that Orwell's works were banned in East Germany, Funder suggests that a widely viewed television program cunningly reflected the oppressive Communist state: “‘Big Brother’ was a wildly popular ‘reality tv’ program screened here recently, where people were locked in a house together and filmed day and night by security cameras. Named for the head of the surveillance regime in Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the program offered a cash prize for the person who could survive the longest living with others under such closed and scrutinised circumstances.”
Funder tells the story of a friend who experienced a dangerous moment when the East German police were “going through all our drawers, everything on the desks, the record collection. One of them was up a ladder searching the bookshelves when he found Orwell's Animal Farm, which, of course, was blacklisted. We held our breath as he pulled it off the shelf. I remember the cover clearly: it was the pigs, holding a red flag aloft. We watched as this young man looked at it, the pigs and the flag. Then he put it back. Afterwards we laughed! We could only think that he saw the pigs—that was bad—but that they were holding a red flag, and they seemed to be on a collective farm—he must have thought that meant it was all right!” The subversive nature of Animal Farm, with its radical criticism of the Russian Revolution, gave hope to East Germans who opposed the Communist regime. But the satire was so potent that merely owning a copy could send people straight to prison.
At a time when virtually all significant works in the modern period have been exhaustively analyzed and interpretive criticism has almost come to a dead end—apart from the rare brilliant article, most textual explications are either far-fetched or tediously familiar—the historical and biographical approaches, which bring new facts and new learning (often based on archival material) to illuminate literary works, seem to be the most innovative and useful way to discuss modern authors. I am particularly interested in the life in the work, in the relations between biography, culture, politics and literature. My critical position is similar to the one expressed in a letter of 1842 by the young cultural historian Jakob Burckhardt: “My own substitute [for abstract thought] is my effort to achieve with every day a more intense immediacy in the perception of essentials. By nature I cling to the tangible, to visible reality and to history. But I have a bent for incessantly looking for parallels in co-ordinating facts and have thus succeeded on my own in arriving at a few generalized principles.”
I'd like to thank John Rodden and John Knapp for their perceptive reports, which enabled me to improve this book, and Willis Regier for his enthusiastic support.