Why Orwell Matters

Why Orwell Matters
by Christopher Hitchens

Why Orwell Matters
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Book Summary Information

Author: Christopher Hitchens
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2003-09
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 211
Publisher: Basic Books

Book Reviews of Why Orwell Matters

Book Review: Forever taking his own temperature (on the scale from beastliness to decency)
Summary: 4 Stars

Has Hitchens answered his own question? I am not sure. Maybe he thought the answer is so obvious that one needs not waste time over it.
Let's compromise: knowing that Orwell was not a literary genius, but a highly relevant essayist with the ability to write clearly and often beautifully, that he wrote a few books which hit a nerve at their time, and which are likely to remain modern classics, one can safely assume that Orwell does matter to those who are interested in the history of the 20th century, mainly in the overlapping struggles against Imperialism, Fascism, and Stalinism.
Hitchens' book is an insider job: it is interesting to follow his discussion and usually defense of Orwell in different contexts: vis a vis his critics from the left, from the right, from feminists ...
While Orwell managed to remain by and large printable, ie he wrote very little that he would need to be ashamed of now, there are things that one can wonder about, like with any other non-saint. Such bleaker spots are his attitude towards women or gays; there were also instances of vague anti-semitism, or odd ambiguities in his attitude towards the victims of imperialism. His attitude towards fascism in the years leading up to WW2 are also not quite up to his later standard (i.e. he saw little difference between Hitler/Mussolini or England/France).
Orwell's main outstanding feature could be seen in his ferocious independance: he was a model for the modest self-employed and self-pubishing truth-teller. 'Orwellian' remains a name for state totalitarianism of a specific kind (quite different from what we understand as 'Kafka-esque'); 'Orwellian' is furthermore the spirit of resistance in the individual (again different from the victim in Kafka).
Hitchens' book is not recommendable as an introduction.
(My headline refers to Orwell's own unusually frequent use of the words beastly and decent.)

Summary of Why Orwell Matters

Hitchens on Orwell:This is not a biography, but I sometimes feel as if George Orwell requires extricating from a pile of saccharine tablets and moist hankies; an object of sickly veneration and sentimental overpraise, employed to stultify schoolchildren with his insufferable rightness and purity. This kind of tribute is often of the Rochefoucauldian type; suggestive of the payoff made by vice to virtue, and also of the tricks played by an uneasy conscience.What [Orwell] illustrates, by his commitment to language as the partner of truth, is that "views" do not really count; that it matters not what you think, but how you think, and that politics are relatively unimportant, while principles have a way of enduring, as do the few irreducible individuals who maintain allegiance to them.Others on Hitchens:"I have been asked whether I wish to nominate a successor, an inheritor, a dauphin or delphino. I have decided to name Christopher Hitchens."-Gore Vidal"Christopher Hitchens's writing has sweep and flair. He is accurate where others are merely dutiful, unpredictable where the tendency is to go for the clich?. In short, brilliant."-Edward W. Said"May his targets cower." -Susan Sontag
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