Friend of Honor, Claudio H - Like That!

 

 

Orwell - The New Life - D.J. Taylor

I used to be a super reader. Then the internet shredded my attention. Looking back, though, I wasn’t especially focused even then. I read everything from international classical literature to whatever the literati were raving about that week in the Sunday Times, Observer or Telegraph. Two authors I actually pursued and read most of their work for the simple pleasure of their readability: Orwell and Thomas Hardy.

I’m always looking for an excuse to drop into Southampton’s excellent central library. On my last visit I grabbed this Orwell biography as the first random shelf pick and knew at once I’d enjoy it. Early on I realised it was the latest in a long line of excellent biographies, almost certainly finessing one or more of the earlier ones.

I learned that Blair/Orwell lived on the Hebridean island of Jura and appears to have been happiest there, even though he was close to death for many years. He still soldiered on with considerable bravery. I also learned that Eric was a bit of a shit. It doesn’t change his work, but he had sharp edges. His attempted fornication with an early girlfriend tipped into rape-like behaviour: her dress was torn and her skin scratched. I’m sure I’m a right bastard to some people, but getting rough with a woman sexually on the first attempt is a line for me. It's disappointing.

I’ve always been interested in the age of letter writing. Charles I opened the post to the public in 1635; it nose-dived with the internet and a billion WhatsApp users by 2016. What struck me from George’s letter dialogues is how little they had to distract them. Without the always-on information hose they talked about each other. Edna has a beastly cold. Penfold is being supercilious as usual and Warburg is too genteel for his own good. Cousins, acquaintances, mutual connections — all of it and them got discussed, and often George was writing more than one letter before he got one back, as if lonesome and needing to communicate.

Orwell suffered all his life. He also played the field with lovers and was definitely a brothel-goer as well as keeping a mia noi (minor wife) in Burma. There’s nothing wrong with that, or rather it’s none of my business, but it’s not especially English either, and he was militant about being as English as possible. I guess we’re all hypocrites, but we’re not all as gifted as Orwell at writing either. His life was parsimonious for so long; then his career reached escape velocity as he was dying. From scratching by to international best seller before his final curtain, yet growing sales after he died.

Everyone who met him remarked on the piercing blue eyes. Blue steel, isn’t it?

Adapter, Franco BA - Malfunktion