- Paperback: 592 pages
- Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher Inc; Reprint edition (26 April 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1567921337
- ISBN-13: 978-1567921335
- Product Dimensions: 21 x 13.8 x 4 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 822,521 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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"* "It is an astonishing tribute to Orwell's gifts as a natural, unaffected writer that, although the historical events he is unfolding are all too bitterly familiar, the reader turns the page as though he did not know what was going to happen. Here, then, is a social, literary, and political history... which, while being intensely personal never forgets its allegiance to objective truth." -THE ECONOMIST"
Synopsis
This is the first of four volumes reprinted in paperbound editions from the 1968 Harcourt, Brace, and World publications. Sonia Orwell provides a brief introduction in which she describes how the author of 1984 was a writer who "...wrote nine books and published two short collections of essays before he died: but in terms of actual words...produced
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6 reviews
30 of 34 people found the following review helpful
Inside the Mind of the 20th Century
30 May 2002
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I'm not going to review all four volumes of this collection separately; what I say below applies to them all.
There are lots of reasons to read Orwell's letter, essays and journalism:
1. He's a great writer. It's a pleasure to read him, just for entertainment value. There's a little piece of doggerel from Orwell's school days that he quotes several times that is now stuck in my head:
The rain it raineth every day
Upon the just and the unjust fella
But more upon the just because
The unjust has the just's umbrella
I don't know why that sticks with me, but it's a great illustration of Orwell's use of solid, colloquial and even humorous English.
Moreover, in addition to providing wonderful model prose he occasionally writes essays about writing and language (the use of "Basic English", oratorical versus conversational English, what drives a writer, the totalitarian perversion of word meanings, etc.), which are insightful and interesting.
2. If you're interested in the Second World War (or for that matter, the Spanish Civil War), Orwell's writings amount to a sort of diary, a primary document. Even his book reviews almost inevitably contain some reference to the political and historical scene.
3. Orwell loved socialism (yes, the man who write _1984_ was a democratic socialist), but he loved freedom more. His simultaneous battle for socialism and against totalitarianism (i.e., the Soviet Union) is engaging, even -- or maybe particularly -- where he drops the ball.
...
I think Orwell's heart was in the right place -- he had seen close up (and written a good deal about) the suffering of the poor. Like many people who have their hearts in the right place, he jumped immediately to the idea that redistribution of private property and collective ownership of the means of production were the only way forward.
On the other hand, he was a writer and a man of ideas, a person who greatly prized personal freedom. His essays give an intriguing glimpse into the battle raging inside him between collectivism and individual liberty.
26 of 31 people found the following review helpful
The First of a Terrific 4-Volume Set
15 Jan 2001
Format:Paperback
I read this set many years ago, and it's great. There were better novelists, but Orwell was the best 20th Century essayist, at least in English, that I know of. Together with "Down and Out in Paris and London," "Homage to Catalonia," and "The Road to Wigan Pier," these four large volumes comprise the best of Orwell's nonfiction. As an essayist, Orwell was consistently clearminded, idealistic, honest and to the point. He is a pleasure to read, and he is one of my intellectual heroes.
I don't have a copy in front of me as I write this, but I'm pretty sure this first volume contains Orwell's unforgettable essays on the inner life of colonialism, "Shooting an Elephant" and "A Hanging". I highly recommend this set to anyone who is the least bit interested in Orwell.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Poverty in England, Fratricide in Spain
1 Feb 2008
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
In a way, Orwell's reports on English poverty in the 1930s are an update on F.Engels's solid and shocking study on the situation of England's working class nearly a hundred years before. (Engels was not only Marx's financier, he contributed major works himself. His place among communist icons is of a different quality from later politicians like Lenin, Stalin etc. His book on the working class was straightforward sociology and it wrote history.) However Orwell was not a scientist, his texts remain journalism and he devoted less time to it in total, though his personal commitment while it lasted was breathtaking. He lived it. He lived with them, his subjects. I am of split mind about that.
I am not sure that I think all that highly of Orwell as a reporter. There is something missing. He remains strangely aloof, there seems to be little passion, little empathy, little sympathy, but a certain condescension and impatience with the victims of circumstances.
His reports and analyses on the situation in Spain are of a different caliber. They are a passionate attempt to explain the conflicts inside the Republican, anti-Franco camp to whoever wanted to listen. As we know from history, it was useless.
The book is a guide through parts of European history, written by a contemporary observer. Letters help understand the personal situation of the writer. Reviews add to our understanding of the man more than of the reviewed books.
Some of his reviews would be smash hits here in Amazon, e.g. the one on Mumford's Melville bio. Less popular might be his aside that Conrad's genius is proven by the fact that women don't like his books. He had a hard time figuring out Henry Miller, who was something new, but if he was something good was not so easy to decide. (He does shed some more light on himself here by mentioning that birth and copulation are disgusting subjects. Odd, isn't it? But maybe the usual for the time.)
And there is an excellent long essay on Dickens, the greatness and the shortcomings of the great novelist. This text motivates me to go on with the volumes 3 and 4 of the set. The man had a lot to say, even if I don't like all of what he says.
I am not sure that I think all that highly of Orwell as a reporter. There is something missing. He remains strangely aloof, there seems to be little passion, little empathy, little sympathy, but a certain condescension and impatience with the victims of circumstances.
His reports and analyses on the situation in Spain are of a different caliber. They are a passionate attempt to explain the conflicts inside the Republican, anti-Franco camp to whoever wanted to listen. As we know from history, it was useless.
The book is a guide through parts of European history, written by a contemporary observer. Letters help understand the personal situation of the writer. Reviews add to our understanding of the man more than of the reviewed books.
Some of his reviews would be smash hits here in Amazon, e.g. the one on Mumford's Melville bio. Less popular might be his aside that Conrad's genius is proven by the fact that women don't like his books. He had a hard time figuring out Henry Miller, who was something new, but if he was something good was not so easy to decide. (He does shed some more light on himself here by mentioning that birth and copulation are disgusting subjects. Odd, isn't it? But maybe the usual for the time.)
And there is an excellent long essay on Dickens, the greatness and the shortcomings of the great novelist. This text motivates me to go on with the volumes 3 and 4 of the set. The man had a lot to say, even if I don't like all of what he says.
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