The Penguin Essays of George Orwell (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) [Paperback]

When people think of Orwell, they remember him as an anti-Communist and a defender of liberal democracy. This is most certainly correct, but it should also be remembered that he was also a socialist, and a socialist of the old school. In The Lion & The Unicorn, originally published as a pamphlet in the style of Paine or Cobbett, he attacks both the class system of England and its capitalist economic system. He thought that the “inefficiency of private capitalism has been proved all over Europe” and that World War II has “turned Socialism from a text-book word into a realisable policy.” As a socialist, he thought that socialists had to make “our words take physical shape.” He advocated a 6 point plan that would transform England into a socialist country, which included “Nationalisation of land, mines, railways, banks and major industries” and the “Limitation of incomes, on such a scale that the highest tax-free income in Britain does not exceed the lowest by more than ten to one.” One gets the impression that Orwell and Castro would have found a broad area of agreement. For Orwell, freedom, democracy, and socialism, were not incompatible, but were tightly bound together. He went to fight in the Spanish Civil War for the democratic republic, but fought alongside Marxists, Trotskiests, and Anarchists. Calling himself a “democratic socialist” was no contradiction to Orwell.

However, it should be remembered that these essays cover the 1930s and 40s. The world was a different place then. The political landscape has changed. If Orwell were alive now, what would his political opinions be? Who knows? You might as well ask what would Thomas Paine’s political beliefs be if he were alive today. Anyone who hazards a guess, and there have been many, usually transposes their own political beliefs onto Orwell. Only one thing is certain: Orwell was a man of his time. These essays, as do his books, reflect this. This is why he will be remembered. To read Orwell is to capture a moment in history, articulated by a man who was deeply involved in the political life of his time, in much the same way as Paine, Hazlett, or Cobbett was. One comes to Orwell and breaths the political atmosphere of the age, and takes from him what is relevant to one’s own self. What that will be will vary from one person to another. For my own part, it is satisfying to read someone who believes as passionately in socialism as he does in democracy, and argues for both with the same conviction; who believes in physical courage in fighting against injustice, -“manliness”, if you will; who saw through the myth of British Imperialism; who saw through the horrible snobbishness of the English class system; and who believed in clarity in one’s own words in order to reveal the clarity in one’s own thoughts – and to demand that clarity from others

Be amazed, as Orwell opens your jaded eyes to the bizarre writing foibles of Charles Dickens - things about the esteemed author you thought you knew so well. Be stunned by Orwell's deeply moving personal experiences, in 'Shooting an Elephant' and 'A Hanging', accounts of human frailty that made me shudder with a deep sense of recognition. Have the myths of Public School life exploded for you in 'such, such were the joys' as Orwell escorts you through the darkly repressed world of his boyhood education.

There are so many treats and revelations in this book, that you are able to dive in at random and be suddenly immersed in that lost world of the pre and post war years. The politics may have changed, the fashions, the doctrines, may have all faded or become obselete, but what Orwell does - in breathtakingly frank and beautifully simple language - is to reveal to us how little humanity itself has altered. The vanity and hypocracy we find within, still have an all too fresh ring to them. But Orwell refuses to give up our species' and its eternal drive for understanding and self-improvement; positive attributes that Orwell instills into so much of his scathing honesty and subtle attack.

'Essays' can be enjoyed on so many levels: from a one-man history lesson, to a vivid collection of snapshot opinions that you can delight in, debate or decry. Or perhaps, like me, you will eventually give up on the socio-political analysis and the search for cryptic symbolism, and simply end up enjoying a quite wonderful book.