Talk:George Orwell

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[edit] He wasn't anti communist

It says he is under. He was not an anti-communist, he was a communist himself. He was simply anti-stalinist, and opposed to the totalitarian communist governments. His message was against fascism and totalitarianism, but not pure communism itself, which he was an advocate of.

Could you prove it ? I'm sure you can't...--Loudon dodd 16:16, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

-What do you mean by that? Apparently you don't understand or haven't read Orwell if you deny the fact he was for socialism. You don't have to doubt me you know, it's not required you have to question me by being a jerk.

I am working on the french article about Orwell, and I repeat : you said that Orwell was an "advocate of pure communism" (this is why you have changed the category "english anti-communist" by "english communist", I suppose) : could you prove it by a clear reference to Orwell's writings ? --Loudon dodd 15:01, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
You cannot seriously refer to Orwell as anti-communist and put him in a list alongside with names like Churchill. Unfortunately, this is a common misconception about Orwell and absolutely ludicrous in my eyes. What you can call him is anti-stalinist or marxist. One cannot promote socialism as Orwell did and be against Communism (as in Marxist theory) - this would be a fundamental contradiction. Stating him under the category Anti-Communist is very misleading. There is no single evidence in the work of Orwell, which suggest that he was an anti-communist. Again, this is a very common misconception of Orwell. Unfortunately, this awkward interpretation is also taught at schools and falsely printed by large and influential publishing houses (guess why :D). I will delete the category. Before someone changes it back, I suggest he or she gives us comprehensible evidence that Orwell was an anti-communist (and please think twice before you claim that 1984 was anti-communist). --CheSudaka
Orwell was not marxist and it is enough to say that he wasn't communist. You can also read in the first volume of the collected Essays the recension of the book Russia under soviet rule (New english weekly, 12/01/1939) where he writes (I only have a french translation) : "Il est probablement heureux pour le renom de Lénine qu'il soit mort si tôt. Trotsky, en exil, dénonce la dictature russe, mais il en porte sans doute autant la responsabilité que tous les hommes actuellement au pouvoir en russie, et rien ne nous dit qu'il se serait mieux comporté que Staline s'il s'était trouvé à sa place."
Owell doesn't use the word "stalinism" in his essays : he uses the word "communist", although he knew the existence of the word "stalinist (see in Hommage to Catalonia, appendice I).
Do what you want with the "anti-communist" category, but arguing that Orwell was communist is pure propaganda.--Loudon dodd 14:19, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
  • One cannot promote socialism as Orwell did and be against Communism Nonsense. I'm a socialist and am absolutely opposed to communism, not just Stalinism and Maoism. One can be a democratic socialist without subscribing at all to creaky Marxism. Childe Roland of Gilead 17:05, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
  • There is the usual a problem with words here. 'Communist' in Orwell's time probably meant closer to what 'socialist' does now, without the authoritarian, Stalinist connotations. As far as I know, Orwell only ever identified himself as a democratic socialist (or occasionally a "hedonist", which has now come to mean something else entirely). I don't think he should be in either the communist or anti-communist categories, since he didn't identify himself as either (unless he did and I missed it, in which case he should be in whichever category he wants.) Robin Johnson (talk) 17:20, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Plagarism?

A lot of this page is exactly the same as this page: [1]

The answer is at the bottom of the page : "This Wikipedia article is reprinted here under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License." --Loudon dodd 20:36, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Short Life?

"He is best known for two novels written towards the end of his short life." I think calling his life "short" is inaccurate; he did reach his 40s.

There is a good flick "Orwell would roll in his grave" about how a few powerful people are attempting to control the public by media. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1925114769515892401

[edit] Essays

Wouldn't it be an idea to either list all the essays in this article and drop Essays of George Orwell, or don't list any essays in this article at all? Having two seperate lists seems kind of weird to me... --Neckelmann

I agree, they should be merged. Padraic 16:19, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

Oh, but how are they supposed to find about something as crucial to his personality as his esseys on something as natural as the page of himself? Do you propose we LINK to a single article, making all information harder to access simoltanously, just for something as microcosmos-like as a meta-article about one man's essays? I really do disagree with it. Let's keep it within one and same article. Simpler to access.--OleMurder 17:08, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of communists

Is there an online version of Orwell's list of crypto-communists? A google search just brings up reviews of it, not the actual list itself.

It would be very useful for this article to see his views on his peers. I have only been able to see a review of his list at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16550, not the list itself.

--Naelphin

Not the full list but some pages to help you re-construct it

[2] [3] http://groups.google.com/groups?q=list+dismissed+group:alt.books.george-orwell&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=alt.books.george-orwell&safe=off&selm=bdcf29%243huj%241%40netnews.upenn.edu&rnum=4

The only place I where I know it has been published is in the Guardian 21 July 2003. The value of including it here is questionable as it is full of people no one has heard of except for a few Chaplin etc. II perhaps should be said that this list was people Orwell thought could not be trusted to produce anti-communist propaganda. Also the fact that Peter Smollett was probably the civil servant that advised Jonathan Cape not to publish Animal Farm is interesting --MeltBanana

I posted the full list here ages ago [4]

[edit] Not a socialist

Re: the pertinent point made by Nicholas about Orwell not in fact being anti-socialist when many argue he was. This is plainly not true. Orwell was indeed a socialist the difference being he was a democratic socialist opposed to the totalitarianism/authoritarianism that was apparent in the Eastern European Socialist systems.

It is definitely untrue to say that Orwell wasn't a socialist though as he was a member of the Independent Labour Party, something I have included on the page about him.
--JDH

[edit] Changing history

It seems to me that this very site is reminiscient of one aspect of the book 1984. See, the content of this page in particular can always be changed so that I could write here; "We have always been at war with the Klingons", but at a later time someone could come back and change the word "Klingons" to "Romulans." Thus, the truth of who we always have been at war with can easily be erased and changed to suite the needs of the site. However, it is different in that anyone can make the change, not just the Ministry of Truth, and there are not consoles in our walls with cameras watching us... or are there...
--Shaun

How about the Recent Changes list?

That is a good point. Although things can be changed, we are able to look at what has been changed, when, and by whom. Still, I think that this site is a great experiment. --Shaun

ps: I learn how to edit web pages while having fun... isn't the internet great?

The Recent Changes list is not as good a way to track changes as you might think.

In wikipedia, history of the article's edition can be easily buried by renaming the article with a different case e.g. From 'Muslim Language' to 'Muslim language' or simply do a redirect, all the history just disappears. The history of the articles also periodically get truncated, so if one floods the history with enough editions, one's tracks of altering the 'truth' can be erased. Another trick is to justify the paragraphs differently from time to time so that the diff will show overwhelming differences that are actually not changes. Others will not be able to spot one word change amongst hundred of lines of fake changes.

I guess the only safeguard is that sooner or later an expert would review the article from scratch. However, not all the experts have the time to review the article over and over again.

Then again, Wikipedia does not have a monopoly on information. The Party of Nineteen Eighty-Four does; that's the point. --Sam

[edit] "You have nothing to lose but your aitches"

What is this 'aitches' thing ? --Taw

Guessing here. The england of George Orwell was, and no doubt is, a very class conscious place. Enunciation can be a dead giveaway to anyone who would like to obscure their less than than stellar (class-wise) orgins. It's the kind of thing that you'll want to change to get that upward mobility thing happening. Or so the general perception goes. 'aitches' is referring to the h given the right pronunciation, cockney for example. Preoccupation with this enunciation/class thing is referred to in many english comedy shows ie monty python or fawlty towers, so check em out.

It's called "dropping your aitches".

Lower class (And by extension, ill-educated) people in the UK are often characterized (with some justification) as dropping their aitches, i.e. leaving the letter 'h' off the beginning of words. So they would say 'urricane instead of hurricane, or 'appen instead of happen. This was further extended (with less justification) to cover these people trying to sound upper class by over compensating and adding more aitches, for example referring to 'a haccident' Verloren -

[edit] Books critical of socialism

Both of these books are often represented as being critical of Socialism per se, which is only credible whilst in ignorance of Orwell's own opinions.

Would anyone care to substantiate this statement? My own reading of Animal Farm and 1984 convinces me that "socialism" (the Marxist type) is inevitably and inherently corrupt and unworkable. Please add evidence to the contrary into the article, or give a citation for who says Orwell's alleged criticism of socialism is "only credible whilst in ignorance of Orwell's own opinions." Ed Poor

Notice the "he or she" below: a classic example of real-life Newspeak.

Well, once an author publishes a book he or shee looses control over it, and people are right to read it isa they wish. Personally, I don't read these two books the way Ed Poor did -- I think that they are both cynical, and especially cynical about the concentration of power in the hands of the State in general, and about the emerging "Welfare States" in England and the US after WWII and Stalinism. But I don't see them as knocking "socialism" in general, or all possible forms of socialism. Indeed, I think as an allegory 1984 is pretty harsh towards capitalism. Also, as I recall (it's been a while) I thought Snowball was the hero, and perhaps metaphorically Orwell was supporting Trotsky's version of communism against Stalin (Napoleon).
In any event, there are many ways to read a particular book. The danger lies in infering the intent of the author. And I think that is the point of this passage -- that it is a mistake to infer from the books that Orwell himself was against socialism. SR
It is hard to image why Orwell, who was a socialist, would write a book that was a polemic against socialism. "Animal Farm" was a critique of the totalitarian nature of the Russian Revolution, and how the revolution betrayed its socialist ideals. The fact that he considered those ideals to have been betrayed sort of presupposes that he held those ideals in the first place. I suppose it is possible that Orwell changed his views after the Spanish Civil War, but in his book "Homage to Catalonia" he makes clear both his socialist views and his opposition to the ideology of the Soviet Union.--Egern
How's this for substantiating the statement: Anyone reading any of Orwell's published essays (which make up the majority of words he published during his lifetime) can't help but notice Orwell stating such suggestive things as "I am a Socialist". His political views were very well and clearly articulated, and it requires denying or ignoring his own statements about what those views are to deny that he was a Socialist. That said, he never shied away from pointing out the problems within certain parts of the broad socialist movement, most especially including Stalinism. The two books he is best known for are either criticisms of Soviet Communism as a betrayal of socialist ideals and common decency, or a simple reductio ad adsurdam of totalitarian society of any form. Both of these can be interpreted as condemnations of certain political movements that non-socialists associate with socialism (i.e. Russian or Maoist Communism), but they are certainly not condemnations of socialism per se. There's plenty of evidence that 1984 was mostly inspired by Orwell's experience as a WW2 propagandist for the BBC, which certainly wasn't Socialist in any recognizable sense of the word at the time. Certainly his criticism of totalitarianism can be applied to non-socialist ideologies (such as fascism), as his preface suggests by mentioning that for American audiences, "Ingsoc" could be replaced by "100% Americanism" or some such phrase. -Ben Brumfield

Regarding Orwell's works being against Socialism:

"The Spanish war and other events in 1936-37 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it." [Excerpt taken from the essay "Why I Write" written by Orwell in 1936.]

I have added this citation to the article as there exists an endless polemic about Orwell being anti-socialist, when the man plainly speaks of his politics as being Socialist. You can read the essay I cited for yourselves at http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/897/ -Nicholas

[edit] Essays, location of

Should the essays be at George Orwell/essay name, essay name or essay name (essay)? -- Tzartzam

Simply essay name if there is nothing else with that name. If there is something else, then it would be essay name (essay), but I can't think of any examples where that would be required. --Camembert

[edit] Wife and son

Shouldent this article mention that Orwell had a wife who died young, and the fact that he had a son, it seems rather odd to leave these things out G-Man 22:12 25 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I'll do that now if it hasn't been included already--Acebrock 20:14, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Orwell and Burnham

Both this page at the James Burnham page contain the claim that Burnham's 1941 book The Managerial Revolution 'was a major influence on the development of' or 'which heavily influenced' Orwell's 1984. Certainly Orwell paid close attention to this book at the time of its release, and the book was mentioned several times subsequently in his later journalism, but I seriously doubt it was more than one influence among many; Darkness at Noon is surely a much more important influence. It is very much to the point that Orwell largely disagreed with Burnham's belief in the inevitability of totalitarianism.

I'd like to know what the basis for these claims are, and if there are none I propose we rewrite these sections.---- Charles Stewart 12:37, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You can read Orwell's review of the Managerial Revolution, which is an outstanding essay in its own right. It's a negative review: he claims that Burnham is "hypnotized" by the sight of Stalin's absolute dictatorship and that he takes perverse pleasure in predicting the final triumph of ruthless power over freedom (I think he also accuses Burnham of "reverse sentimentality" in this regard). It's therefore very interesting that, after attacking the book, Orwell wrote a novel which basically borrows that book's vision of the future: a world divided into three superpowers, constantly at war, each ruled despotically by a small group of technocrats (what Burnham had called the "managerial class"). A number of critics have also pointed out that in 1984, the passages quoted from Emmanuel Goldstein's Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism make it sound very similar to Managerial Revolution. ---- 12:18 Eb.hoop 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
It's therefore very interesting that, after attacking the book, Orwell wrote a novel which basically borrows that book's vision of the future
Are you aware of Yevgeny Zamyatin's 1922 novel 'We' (which Orwell acknowledged as an influence on 1984)? Burnham was very far from being the first person to imagine the triumph of totalitarianism. ---- Charles Stewart 20:07, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I haven't read We, though I have seen some mention of it in Orwell's letters. It does seem likely to me, however, that Burnham was a more important literary influence. Orwell strongly disagreed with Burnham, but he was fascinated and horrified by his dramatic vision of the triumph of totalitarianism. The three world superstates in 1984, their eternal and pointless war, and the language of Goldstein's book when it declares that the pursuit of power is an end in itself, are highly Burnhamesque.
This quote from Burnham appears in Orwell's 1947 long review of another of Burnham's book, The Struggle for the World: "The Moscow Show Trials revealed what has always been true of the Communist morality: that it is not merely the material possessions or the life of the individual which must be subordinated, but his reputation, his conscience, his honour, his dignity. He must lie and grovel, cheat and inform and betray, for Communism, as well as die. There is no restraint, no limit."
I can clearly see how this nightmarish vision of Burnham's fascinated and horrified Orwell, and how it informed his conception of 1984 (a novel in which, after all, totalitarianism does triumph) even though Orwell argues in his reviews, quite convincingly, that Burnham was not right in his assessments, and that he was prone to wild overstatement. -- Eb.hoop 9:36 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Orwell and the Occult

I removed the following section, labelled "interest in the Occult" because it seemed like a long digressive anecdote, interesting in a book-length bio but not appropriate to a concise encyclopedia entry, where it was nearly as long as the section on "Orwell's work":


"Orwell consistently declared that he was an atheist from adolescence. In his works he rarely mentions the occult, and when he does it is usually to mock the belief in it (see, for instance, the passage in the novel Coming Up for Air in which a professional medium accidentally drops a piece of cheesecloth concealed in his pants; also, Orwell's linking of occult belief with aristocracy and Fascism in the 1943 Horizon review of W. B. Yeats). However, there are indications that the young Eric Blair had a keen concern for the supernatural. Inside George Orwell, a biography written by Gordon Bowker and published in 2003 (ISBN 031223841X), cites a letter written on his deathbed by Sir Steven Runciman, a medieval historian who was Orwell's friend at Eton. The letter indicates that Orwell became interested in voodoo after reading the Ingoldsby Legends by R.H. Barham, which describe killing by black magic.


Runciman and Orwell used a wax image to harm an older boy whom they "disliked for being unkind to his juniors". Runciman says that Orwell "wanted to stick a pin into the heart of our image, but that frightened me, so we compromised by breaking off his right leg – and he did break his leg a few days later playing football and he died young." The book however claims that Orwell confided in a few friends that his adoption of a pen name was intended to prevent his enemies from using his real name to work magic against him. Bowker also claims that Orwell was troubled by visions of his death and that he experienced ghost sightings throughout his life, all of which conflict with the rationalism usually associated with Orwell."

(moved from 'Verify' section) There is also evidence in Eric & Us by Jacintha Buddicom, which Bowker uses with insight and clarity, that Eric's great teenage passion Jacintha had, through her Mother's hobby, greatly influenced Eric Blair's youthful interest in spiritualism. As he grew older he became, however, further impressed by the darker aspects, practiced by people like Aleister Crowley et al. J. Buddicom's book is much more enlightening, concerning influences in his youth, than any other publication and is the only root source of information about those early years. It is really surprising that she is not more often read. Gordon Bowker seems to be the only biographer of Orwell who has interpreted the deceptive simplicity of her book and read between the lines. Eric Blair's poems 'Our Minds are Married'.. and 'The Pagan' were written to Jacintha Buddicom.[User. D. Venables 12.September 2006]

[edit] Verify

The trivia section of George Orwell needs verification. --Nzo 23:23, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)

What's contested? The cold war attribution? ---- Charles Stewart 11:55, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Problem

This article should not be a redirect from "Eric Blair" because this man WAS Eric Blair who took on the pen name of George Orwell. However, for most of his life he was Eric Blair. At the BBC he was Eric Blair, only in books was he George Orwell. This mistake should be corrected so that the article is about Eric Blair who wrote under the name of George Orwell, not about George Orwell who was really Eric Blair! There should be an entry covering the works of George Orwell and an entry for the life (biography) of Eric Blair. MPLX/MH 04:56, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. Orwell went under both names -- throughout his life, his friends who knew him from before the mid-thirties called him Eric. Those who knew him through literature (including letters) knew him as Orwell. As I remember, he would sign his letters "Eric" or "George", depending on who they were addressed to, and how the recipient knew him conversationally. If there's already a standard for Dr. Seuss, Mark Twain, and George Elliot, we should follow it. But if we're naming the article ex nihilo, I think Orwell is more appropriate than Blair, since that name reflects the most common usage. Regardless, it's not the most pressing thing to be worrying about. -Ben 05:48, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Looks like Mary Ann Evans redirects to George Eliot, Samuel Clemens redirects to Mark Twain, and Theodor Geisel redirects to Dr. Seuss. -Ben 05:52, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I concur with Ben. The public figure is known as Orwell, and standard practice in wikipedia (as Ben's examples make clear) is to list people by the names which they are best known. This is also standard practice in most printed reference books. When there is a "dual" identity, as in the case of Orwell/Blair, it is easy enough to make that clear in the article. I don't think this is a problem at all. --BTfromLA 07:14, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Also, his widow went by the name "Sonia Orwell". Fumblebruschi 19:07, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Similarily his membership of the NUJ was under his pen name.

[edit] Regarding one of his works.

The article states "Orwell denies that Animal Farm is a reference to Stalinism".

Why, then, does the rest of the article repeatedly refer to Animal Farm as "his anti-Stalinist work"?

It's fine to state, as the article does in one place, that many consider it to be anti-Stalinist, but it's stupid to repeatedly state it as a fact, as though Orwell positively confirmed this theory. On the contrary, he denied it. What could he possibly have gained by lying about it?

172.215.26.98 02:15, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I have no idea how that sentence got into this article. Orwell in his writings clearly says that he wrote Animal Farm based on the Russian revolution, and it's hard to think that anyone who has read the story would not take it as being anti-Stalin, since it should be fairly obvious that the character Napoleon is based on Stalin. --DannyWilde 14:11, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
I certainly recall reading that Orwell somewhere denied that the fable os solely an allegory of the Russian revolution. That's very far from saying that it can't properly be read (non-exclusively) as being just that. The character Napoleon, as you say, was in a sense Stalin. But the character Napoleon (the pig) was also, as legitimately ... Napoleon (Bonaparte). --Christofurio 22:58, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
Is it a joke or are you serious? --DannyWilde 08:59, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "And yes he was gay?"

Is this really necessary this far up?

Probably not, but what if he was gay? Then it's an important piece of his persona.--OleMurder 17:08, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Influences

I have heard George Gissing cited as an influence on Orwell and I myself see some influence from Zola. Any comments?


On the subject of whether or not George Orwell was gay; when he was Eric Blair he went along the path that most children at boarding school travel. Your hormones are on the move and you don't at first know how to cope with them and so you get crushes on other pupils until you learn to understand yourself and your feelings better. Eric Blair was clearly no different to anyone else while he was at Eton. I have yet to unearth any clear evidence that he was gay, beyond him admitting to Cyril Connelly that he fancied a friend of his. It would not have been out of character if that is the road down which he chose to go because he went his own way from earliest childhood. However, if his inclination had been developing along those lines, I do not understand why he did not fall in love with his blond and charming friend Prosper Buddicom, his closest male friend during the school holidays from the age of eleven until he went to Burma at nineteen. Instead, from that early age he became completely attached to Prosper's diminutive but highly intelligent sister Jacintha, for whom he later wrote the two poems 'Our Minds are Married...' and 'The Pagan'. Jacintha and Eric were inseparable companions, two very young but brilliant minds growing and maturing together. It was a blow to Eric when he declared his feelings to Jacintha - and she gently rebuffed him, saying that she had no physical feelings for his person, but absolute unity with his mind. He went off to Burma and lost his virginity at the earliest opportunity to various small and delicate Burmese girls, whose bodies were very similar to Jacintha's. Later in life, he may well have had partners from both sexes but I cannot so far find the evidence for this. Maybe someone else is better informed? Dione 12 September 2006

In his collected essays, Orwell takes digs at the Catholic writers : Greene, Chesterton and Waugh included. It's not clear to me what his case is against this group (I think he calls it a "mafia" at one point) as it goes beyond the natural antagonism of a socialist to the Church. In particular, his reviews of Greene's novels are less than kind. It's funny they're listed here as influences. Does anyone have an insight on this?

[edit] Recording?

Where is the proof that a recording of Orwell speaking was found in 2002 (as mentioned in the Trivia section)? It is important, as this is the only place that I've managed to find it cited. And, if there is such a recording, I hope we can get a link to it on here. Snap Davies 13:12, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

D.J. Taylor in his biography of Orwell (2003) states: "there is no extant recording of Orwell's voice" (page 235). In the same section, Taylor analyses the (so far) non-existence of moving film of Orwell. Sjeraj 21:00, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image

User:Husky kindly provided the fairuse Image:Orwell cover.jpg to replace the deleted Image:George-orwell.jpg. I wonder, though, is this the best we can do? It's rather jarring to have a large promotional image as the main image for this page: surely there is something better we can find? --- Charles Stewart 00:54, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] his book animal farm is good

the book animal farm is the best and the preface was also informative.

[edit] pics of orwell

We really need an image of george orwell!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Adjam (talk • contribs) 16:08, 27 January 2006.

There's an image here on a page licensed under the Creative Commons ShareAlike 2.1 liscense. I doubt that the liscense includes the photograph, though. --TantalumTelluride 20:12, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
We've already tried many things, but it seems very difficult to get a proper picture of Orwell. Book covers are not allowed because the article is not about the book, and virtually all the pictures never went out as a 'press kit', thus making it impossible to use an image under fair use. Ideally, we would have a portrait of Orwell photographed by someone who died before 1936 (which would be in the public domain), but well, who could have such (rather detailed) information about Orwell portraits? Image:Huskyeye.jpg Husky (talk page) 00:28, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
I have added an image of Orwell found on a site that attributes it as 'copyleft', however if there is any subsequent doubt over its copyright status then I can always upload a smaller lower quality version under 'fair use' Ian Dunster 13:26, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] the name "George Orwell"

Don't know if other fans have read "Dr. Orwell and Mr. Blair" by David Caute. Caute writes about Blair as a fictional character as a way of exploring him biographically without having to have the estate authorize a biography. I've got the book packed away somewhere so I'm writing this from memory, but I seem to recall that Caute's fictional Blair says that he chose the nom de plume "George" because he preferred the regency of King George VI (or maybe George V?) to King Edward VIII. It's an interesting book, although I can't judge how tight Caute's scholarship is. Any thoughts? KWH 03:11, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I can't say for sure if this is true or not, but it would seem unlikely since Orwell - at least in his published writings - said almost nothing about the British royalty and instead focused his attention on parlaiment. Tyler 14:50, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Six greatest books

The article says, ... Gulliver's Travels, which he rated as one of the six greatest books ever written. What were the other five? How about a reference to the book/article where the list appeared, too. It's interesting to know what Orwell considered great literature, since he himself has been so influential. 207.174.201.18 03:31, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't specifically know his other 5, but in his short essay, "Bookshop Memories" (1936) he talks about his work in a second-hand bookshop, and mentions a number of authors when describing "great" literature, Priestley, Hemingway, Walpole and Wodehouse, among many. He doesn't specifically mention whether or not these were his favorites or if these were simply popular authors of the time, but it's a start, I suppose. [5]

No such list exists. Orwell said, in "Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's Travels (1946) that "If I had to make a list of six books which were to be preserved when all others were destroyed, I would certainly put Gulliver's Travels among them." But he never did actually make such a list. Fumblebruschi 18:57, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Please provide a reference

"In his last years, Orwell was, unlike several of his comrades around Tribune, a fierce opponent of the creation of the state of Israel. He was also an early proponent of a federal Europe."

Is there a reference for this?

I have inserted two requests for citations. In future, you can do this by using the code [citation needed], which generates the relevant superscript. I hope this is of assistance. BrainyBabe 14:00, 8 March 2006 (UTC)


I've given references for both and link for one.Paulanderson 17:09, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Missing section?

In the article it says: "Orwell died in London at the age of 46 from tuberculosis, which he had probably contracted during the period described in Down and Out in Paris and London." That section doesn't exist (but it did, maybe). Maybe the sentence could be rewritten. --Joanberenguer 14:20, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

That's not a section, it's one of Orwell's books. Robin Johnson 14:23, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Napoleon and Stalin

I think it wrong to describe Animal Farm as specifically anti-Stalinist in intent. It is an allegory, obviously based on events in Russia, which describes the steady corruption of an ideal, proceeding little by little virtually from the outset. Napoleon/Stalin merely accelerates the whole depressing process. I do not believe that Orwell would have accepted that things would have been any different if Snowball/Trotsky had been in control. Rcpaterson 03:13, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I disagree - and certainly "anti-Stalinist allegory" is better than "political allegory". Animal Farm is definitely anti-Stalinist whatever else it might be. And there's plenty of evidence in his other writings that Orwell didn't think the Russian revolution foredoomed. My best guess is that he saw the suppression of the Kronstadt revolt in 1921 as the point the rot set in, but he was not unsympathetic towards Trotskyism (and indeed was strongly influenced by it). Which is not to say that he thought Trotsky rather than Stalin running the Soviet Union would have been a panacea. But to claim Animal Farm is "anti-Leninist" or "anti-revolutionary" is to go too far. "Anti-Stalinist" is as good a short description as there can be. Paulanderson 08:52, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

It is anti-communist. As I have said elsewhere, turning it into an argument solely against Stalinism risks turning it into an argument in favour of Trotskyism. In truth, the one is as repellant as the other; and both are as repellant as the Leninist home from which they emerged. The policies which brought so much misery to the Russian people in the 1930s were the very policies Trotsky and his crew were arguing for in the 1920s. I have to say your knowledge of Orwell's writing is clearly deeper than my own. I thought I had read most of his political essays and journalism, but I have never come across any direct sympathy for Trotsky or Trotskyism. I do know that he used The Revolution Betrayed as the basis for Goldstein's The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, which I though was the full extent of Trotsky's 'influence'. Beyond that nothing more. I would be pleased to have your specific references. Rcpaterson 22:29, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

The danger here is of imposing our own ideas on Orwell and of thinking of Orwell's ideas as fixed when in fact they changed over time. I certainly wouldn't deny that Animal Farm is broadly speaking anti-communist, and there is no way that it's a ringing endorsement of Trotskyism. But Orwell had been very much involved in the 1930s in a political milieu - the Independent Labour Party in the UK and the POUM in Spain - in which Trotskyism was an important current, and Trotskyist ideas had a significant influence on his own thinking. The best source on this is John Newsinger's Orwell's Politics, published in 2000 by Macmillan. Newsinger also makes the point that the Goldstein book in Nineteen Eighty-Four owes rather more to the former Trotskyist James Burnham than it does to The Revolution Betrayed, incidentally.Paulanderson 21:19, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for that. I would most certainly never wish to, or intend to, impose my 'own ideas' on Orwell, and I am very well aware that his thinking changed over time. There was, neverthless, something remarkably consistent about his socialism, which made it free from the intellectual perversions of 'smelly little orthodoxies' like Leninism, Stalinism or Trotskyism, and as English as muffins and cream teas. I have not read the book you mention; but I would always seek to consult Orwell on his politics, and not what someone else thought of his politics. It is arrant nonsense to say that he was influenced in any way by Trotskyism. I am sorry to be so direct, but I would ask you to consider the following by way of example;

It is probably a good thing for Lenin's reputation that he died so early. Trotsky, in exile, denounces the Russian dictatorship, but he is probably as much responsible for it as any man now living, and there is no certainty that as a dictator he would be preferable to Stalin. New English Weekly, 12 January 1939

...this is an easier opinion to swallow than the usual Trotskyist claim that Stalin is a mere crook who has perverted the Revolution to his own ends, and that things would somehow have been different if Lenin had lived or Trotsky had remined in power. Actually there is no strong reason for thinking that the main lines of development would have been very different. James Burnham and the Managerial Revolution

The fact that Trotskyists are everywhere a persecuted minority, and that the accusation usually made against them, i.e. of collaborating with the Fascists, is absolutely false, creates an impression that Trotskyism is intellectually and morally superior to communism; but it is doubtful whether there is much diffference. Notes on Nationalism, Polemic, October 1945

I think, perhaps, you are not closely acquainted with the politics and history of the ILP? I am quite prepared to admit that it contained any number of Trotskyite varieties in its ranks in the 1930s; but they would have found themselves heavily outnumbered by the Christian Socialists, Fabians and other men of independent mind, like George Orwell. As for Orwell's involvement with the POUM, I would ask you to consider the following;

I was associated with the Trotskyists in Spain. It was chance that I was serving in the POUM militia and not another, and I largely disagreed with the POUM "line" and told its leaders so freely... Pacifism and the War, Partisan Review, Ssptember-October 1942

I do not doubt your sincerity, but I do think you have been misled about Orwell's whole approach to the great political questions of his day. Can I take it that you are the principal-or originating-author of this item on Orwell? It is generally a fair and balanced piece of writing; but I would ask you, once again, to reconsider your views on the alleged Trotskyist influence, and to see Animal Farm for what it truly is-a critique of political corruption and moral perversion; a critique, in other words, of communism in its entirety and not just Stalinism. I am sure we both share-like Orwell-a simple commitment to the truth Rcpaterson 00:01, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it is better to go to Orwell rather than his interpreters. But, briefly, because I'm tired, on one hand I don't think that acknowledging the influence of Trotskyism on Orwell is in any way to claim that he was a Trotskyist; and on the other I don't think that Orwell quite gave up on Lenin, even though his revolutionary socialist proclivities were much more libertarian. I'll give chapter and verse on this some time, but my hunch is that Orwell remained until his death a socialist who would have liked a revolution in which the working class seized power and the red militias occupied the Ritz but in the absence of any such possibility supported Attlee's Labour government.Paulanderson 00:03, 6 June 2006 (UTC)


For Orwell's socialist manifesto you could do no better than refer to The Lion and the Unicorn, his wartime essay, where, amongst other things, he tells us;

A Socialist movement which can swing the mass of the people behind it, drive the pro-Fascists out of positions of control, wipe out the grosser injustices and let the working class see that they have something to fight for, win over the middle classes instead of antagonising them, produce a workable imperial policy instead of a mixture of humbug and Utopianism, bring patriotism and intelligence into partnership-for the first time, a movement of such a kind becomes possible.

I think we know just exactly what Lenin and Trotsky would have made of that!

I'm puzzled-you do not seem to be grasping the essential point that I am trying to make: Orwell's socialism was from the outset based on a uniquely English set of ideas and assumptions, echoed very much in the above; ideas that would have been familiar to Godwin and Morris. Marxism, and the fifty-seven varieties of intellectual corruption that it spawned, is completely alien to this tradition, founded, as it is, on tolerance and good sense, and a distrust of abstract intellectual games. Consider this;

The various other Marxist parties, all of them claiming to be the true and uncorrupted successors of Lenin, are in an even more hopeless position. The average Englishman is unable to grasp their doctrines and uninterested in their grievances. And in England the lack of the conspiratorial mentality which has been developed in police-ridden European countries is a great handicap. English people in large numbers will not accept any creed whose dominant notes are hatred and illegality. The ruthless ideologies of the Continent-not merely Communism and Fascism, but Anarchism, Trotskyism, and even ultramontane Catholicism-are accepted in their pure form only by the intelligentsia, who constitute a sort of island bigotry amid the general vagueness. The English People

I'm clearly in danger of pushing you into a corner, if you are not already there. But please do not let your commitment to the silly nonsense that Orwell was 'influenced' by Trotskyism blind you to the simple truth of the matter. For me this suggestion entails the kind of corruption of ideas that Orwell spent so much time fighting against. But we are getting far away from my original point, which is that Animal Farm has a much wider resonance than the anti-Stalinist label you have given it. I have not attempted to reintroduce my more neutral rewording, and I absolutely refuse to resort to puerile editing wars I have seen elsewhere in these pages, but I think we need to reach an amicable compromise on this matter in the near future. For the sake of truth, and for that alone. Rcpaterson 02:02, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not budging! I simply don't accept that Orwell's socialism rested upon "uniquely English" ideas or that Marxism was "alien" to the socialist tradition to which he belonged. I don't think ideas have nationalities, and there has been a small Marxist current (or rather a number of small Marxist currents) in British socialism since the days of Marx. Of course Orwell was influenced by many English writers and by English people and customs. He certainly had little but contempt for the English left intelligentsia that had only hatred for anything English and who took their politics from Moscow and cooking from Paris. But there's a lot less evidence that he took Godwin or Morris seriously than there is of his critical engagement with Trotskyism and other varieties of dissident Marxism. And for all his enthusiasm for England and the English, he was also a great proponent of American and continental modernist writers, an anti-imperialist and for a while at least a European federalist.Paulanderson 09:27, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

That's fine, Mr Anderson. I thought I was dealing with an adult here, but sadly not. I've countered your arguments and misconceptions one by one with direct quotations from Orwell, and all you have been able to do is fall back on generalities and platitudes; and as a last defence you have encased yourself in stubborn dogmatism and blind preconceptions. You clearly know very little about George Orwell, his work or the cultural and political milieu in which he operated; and it is obvious that your opinions have been derived, in large measure, from second-hand sources. You have been unable to produce any evidence at all that Orwell was influenced by Trotskyism. Your insistence that it is the case will simply not do. It is regrettable you have allowed your vanity to prevent a proper understanding of what I have been trying to say to you over the past few days, and even to maintain an argument in the face of clear evidence to the contrary. It has become increasingly obvious to me in the brief period that I have been involved in Wikipedia, that its chief weakness is that there are too many editors of your calibre-autodidakts with only the loosest understanding of the subject in question, and for whom ignorance of a topic is no obstacle to authority. I am sorry if you think these comments harsh; but I have no patience with any argument that ends in a childish insistence that 'it is so' and nothing else. I leave all of my above comments for those with eyes to see and minds to understand. My own involvement with this page is at an end. Rcpaterson 23:15, 6 June 2006 (UTC)


Your decision is your own, but the reason I've not been quoting large passages of Orwell here is simply that I've been too busy - among other things editing a collection of Orwell's journalism in Tribune. Please quit the casual abuse.Paulanderson 01:06, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Dear, dear, dear, Mr Anderson; can't you even tell the difference between trenchant criticism and 'casual abuse'? Abuse is gratuitous. You opened yourself to everything I said above by your inability to counter the points I was puting to you in the gentlest way I could think of. I can assure you I am just as busy as you; but once I undertake an argument I make sure I master my brief. For you to try to hide behind your alleged work on Orwell seems to me to make the position considerably worse: one would have to assume a detailed insight, which in your case clearly is not there. Moreover, to be working for Tribune and yet believe, as you do, that Trotskyism was an 'important current' in the ILP quite frankly beggers belief. Again I apologise if you think this harsh; but I have always taken a direct approach in these matters: and I believe in intellectual honesty, regardless of the cost in wounded feelings. Rcpaterson 07:55, 8 June 2006 (UTC)


Sorry, but it really would take more time than I have at present to trawl through the Collected Works to give chapter and verse. I shall do so as soon as I have a spare day. In the meantime, there are two secondary works online that are of background relevance: Peter Sedgwick's essay in International Socialism in 1969 on Orwell's relationship to the ILP in the early to mid 1930s [6] and Martin Upham's unpublished thesis on Trotskyism in Britain before 1949 [7].

[edit] "Orwell" link and disamb

Should we not link "Orwell" direct to here and leave a disamb page?

[edit] Orwell/Blair

Would it not be better to refer to the man as Blair through the whole article, instead of changing between Blair and Orwell?

[edit] IRD list

I noticed that the list is mentioned in the article...but there is no mention made of one of the most controversial aspects, which is Orwell's annotations, which included (erroneous) speculations on Chaplin's Jewishness, and a note to the effect that Paul Robeson was "anti-white". Should some mention of this controversy be included? A discussion of it is included here: [8] 69.209.218.60 20:29, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


In fact the list Orwell gave to Celia Kirwan who was working for IRD did not speculate on whether Chaplin was Jewish and does not include Paul Robeson at all. The comments on Chaplin and Robeson appear in a notebook Orwell kept for his own use listing people he thought were soft on the Soviet Union or fellow-travellers. What his comments in the notebook mean can only be a matter for speculation and should not, I think, be gone into here: if you want, set up a separate page on 'Orwell's lists of supposed communist sympathisers'. The only comment on Chaplin in the IRD list, incidentally, is "Films?" Paulanderson 21:00, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Requesting article "Tribunite"

Does anyone feel able to create a stub on Tribunite (sub-set of the mid-20th century British Left)?
The only sources I have are

http://www.allwords.com/word-Tribunite.html

(and other pages with identical text)

and this from Guardian

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1530801,00.html

"According to his biographer, Professor Bernard Crick, Orwell saw himself as a Tribunite socialist whose experiences in the Spanish civil war had left him sharply disillusioned with Soviet communism."

--201.50.123.251 12:52, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Orwell and Connolly

I am a little mystified that Connolly is presented--unless I'm overlooking some possible alternate reading--as an example of a leading intellectual that Orwell became friends with at Eton. Their earlier friendship at St. Cyprian's, though intermittent, is possibly the most famous in 20th-century English literature. Can someone perhaps rewrite the Eton paragraph, substituting a more appropriate figure? --Cosh 3:45, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I never met George Orwell ...... but I knew Eric Blair very well indeed

These are the words of Jacintha Buddicom, a close friend to Eric Blair during his formative years and someone who probably had a greater influence on the man to be than any of us realise. Her memories are the only primary source of biographical material from when he was 11 until aged 19; arguably the most tractable years of his intellectual development. A source that has been largely overlooked by the academic community, for reasons unknown, many of whom seem to favour speculation over documented fact. Her story and Eric Blair's contained in the book “Eric & Us” is being re-released this year and deserve closer scrutiny. Below is a summary of that account for your consideration.

Jacintha May Buddicom was born in Plymouth (England) in May 1901, the eldest of three children. Jacintha’s parents, Robert and Laura Buddicom (nee Finlay) moved to Shiplake-on -Thames when she was still a baby and her brother Prosper (July 1904) and sister Guinever (1907) were born at Quarry House, Shiplake, their home for many years. Jacintha was at Oxford High School when, in 1914, the three Buddicom children met and became inseparable from the two younger children of Richard and Ida Blair whose garden bordered their own. In 1914 Eric Blair was eleven and attending St. Cyprian’s, Eastbourne, a boys’ preparatory school. Avril, his younger sister was then six, a few months younger than Guiny Buddicom and they quickly became friends. Eric found in Jacintha (13) and Prosper (11) two completely different personalities, both of whom were very much to his liking. Young Prosper was a charming and outgoing boy, very keen on sporting activities and wild life while Jacintha, tiny and fine-boned in stature and already an attractive child immediately appealed, both because of her doll-like size (he was unusually tall for his age even then) and, even more, for the unusual depth of her passion for books and learning. Eric Blair was a brilliant child, winning scholarships without much effort and his hunger for facts and all things weird and controversial began in early life. He discovered an identical outlook in Jacintha and their teenage years were spent in reading, debating, exploring the unknown together.

The Buddicoms spent some part of every school holidays with their paternal grandparents. A.E. Housman was a popular read at Ticklerton and the children eventually were able to recite most of A Shropshire Lad by heart. Eric, accompanying his friends on these visits, learned to do the same. Old Mr Buddicom enjoyed the benefit of a library of priceless books, collected by his father, which the children were encouraged to read and were a fount of endless pleasure to both Jacintha and Eric. The first time Eric stayed at Ticklerton he was offered a gun and invited to shoot with Prosper and Ted Hall who was in charge of the Ticklerton estate. Eric, by then 14 and already a member of his school cadets and therefore familiar with firearms, acquitted himself very well by shooting a rabbit with his second shot. Thereafter, he and Prosper shot regularly around the estate, a pastime he seemed very much to enjoy. At this same time (August 1917) Lilian Buddicom, the children’s aunt who lived with her widowed father and ran the Estate, noted in a letter to Laura that Eric had a bad cough and he had told her that it was chronic.

When Jacintha joined the boys at Ticklerton Eric was not so keen to shoot and Prosper would become annoyed that his sister was affecting Eric’s concentration. For there was no escaping the fact that Eric and Jacintha were wrapped up in each other. They never stopped talking unless they were reading, they would go for long walks in order to have the privacy to argue, throw conundrums at each other, create and recite poetry. What Jacintha did not truly appreciate was that her tall parfit gentil knight had, since he was eleven years old, been gradually falling in love with her. They were so comfortable together. They explored each others’ minds with such intimacy, they charmed each other with the excellence of their prose, their ideas, their agreements – but although she could see his devotion and felt safe and cherished within it, she was not ready for her own reactions when he began to tell her of his feelings. One perfect evening in September 1918 after they had been collecting mushrooms in the fields beside Harpsden woods, they sat down in the warm grass to watch the sunset and discuss the subject that was close to their hearts – going on to Oxford. By that time Jacintha (17) was at Oxford High School for Girls and Eric (15) was at Eton. They had also been discussing religions and Jacintha, very much her mother’s daughter, declared that she liked parts of many religions but did not approve of any single one. They were in complete agreement on this subject and went on to discuss the benefits or drawbacks of organised sports – with which Jacintha thoroughly disagreed. She never did try her hand at anything more energetic than walking! Later that day Eric gave her a sheet of pale blue notepaper on which was written in his tidiest hand a poem entitled ‘The Pagan’. It was his first love poem. It remained so precious to him that he still had the rough copy of it when he died. It is now in the Orwell Archive. Jacintha received this treasure with pleasure and discomfort, as it was the first love poem that she also had ever received. She covered her embarrassment by dropping him a little note to thank him and suggesting that a word or two be changed – which he did. That special moment out mushrooming in the warm September fields would stay with both of them always. Eric wrote another poem to Jacintha that winter, during the 1918 Christmas holidays which he and Avril were spending with the Buddicoms and again Jacintha says that it was one of those cameo moments that forever stay in the memory. I won’t describe it here because she describes it so much better herself in Eric & Us. But the poem was his second love poem, which he also kept all his life. It was ‘ Our Minds are Married......’ In Jacintha’s book, another of their Shiplake friends, the artist and writer Edward Ardizzone has drawn a frontispiece for the book and it is the scene of the two younger children and Prosper sitting and reading by the fire, and Jacintha and Eric, heads bent over their books – and writing paper, engrossed in their winter afternoon comfort. The title of the picture has borrowed the last two lines from that poem – “

We shall remember, when our hair is white, These clouded days revealed in radiant light’

Jacintha left school the following year and spent more time travelling between Bournemouth and Shropshire. Grandfather Buddicom at Ticklerton.was coming to the end of his days and her aunt Lilian, with her fine mind and wealth of botanical knowledge, was always the very best companion for a young girl who had at last been allowed to put her hair up (18) and was about to be launched on her first set of Hunt Balls. She was expected to enjoy her first Season as a young and attractive girl with good marriagable prospects! She had plenty of admirers and when Prosper went to University there were plenty more young men to entertain Prosper’s pretty little sister.

Eric also knew by this time that he too was to be denied the longed-for years of learning at university. His father was adamant that he should follow family tradition and make his career with the Imperial Police Force in Burma. In those days, one might argue against doing as your parents wished – but in the end you did as you were told. The Blairs had moved to Southwold and suddenly there was a wide gap opening up between Eric and Jacintha. She had told him that she cared deeply for his mind and companionship but that she had no personal passion for him. Life was busy and happy for her and then Eric was suddenly gone. He wrote to her several times from Burma but she was enjoying being a young adult at last. Childhood was over.. She wrote once and told him not to be so sorry for himself – and never wrote again.

It was 1927 before Eric returned to England, older, wiser, a much embittered adult. The allure of Burmese girls had attracted him and he had lost his virginity very quickly. One wonders whether he was thinking of his diminutive Jacintha as they lay in his arms?

He went to stay at Ticklerton where he enjoyed the company of Prosper and Guiny – but there was no Jacintha and everyone was evasive when her name came up. Jacintha was busy somewhere else and did not write to him. The flame had died?

On Tuesday the 8th February 1949 Lilian Buddicom wrote to Jacintha in London to tell her that she had discovered that Eric was, in fact George Orwell. It produced an enormous sense of shock in Jacintha. She was still unmarried. Somehow, the right man had not appeared in her life. She had already bought and read Animal Farm and had adored it and so she looked up the publisher’s name and phoned them at once to ask for Eric’s address. She was shocked to hear that George Orwell was extremely ill and was in a sanatorium. She wrote to Eric at once – and rushed out to buy as many of his books as she could find. A week later an envelope arrived from Eric containing two letters. The first was formal – ‘how nice to get your letter after all these years.......’ It continued in that vein over two typewritten pages, telling her about his life and at the end signed ‘yours Eric Blair’ The second letter was written the following day. It came from another world, the old world of their youth and courtship, filled with their secret signs and special phraseology. ‘Hail and Farewell, my Dear Jacintha’ it began and continued as though they were still those two engrossed young people, united in their own magical world. It ended ‘As we always ended so that there should be no ending, Farewell and Hail, Eric’. How poignant that was. Jacintha sat and wept over what had been said and what had not. She wanted to go to him right away but held back because she was afraid of how he would be. They were outwardly so different now. More letters followed in the passing months and he grew a little better and then much more ill. While she was still trying to muster the courage to go to Gloucestershire where he was, she heard in January 1950 that he had died.

Jacintha was left to read his books, approving some, hating others, unable to understand what had brought his thinking into the state of bitterness and self-loathing that darkened much of his work. It must have occurred to her that the Buddicoms were reflected very recognisably, here and there. She was also aware that her mother’s attraction to dabbling in spiritualism when the children were young, had rubbed off on all of them, including Eric. They had talked for hours and weeks about the Occult and the power of the mind. Eric had gleefully bought her Dracula one Christmas, adding a silver crucifix and a clove of garlic to ward off any spirits that might disturb her dreams after reading it. They read everything from Kipling and G.K.Chesterton to The Ingoldsby Legends, E.A. Poe and even the wicked Aleister Crowley. Many years later Jacintha would become an acolyte of that ageing Satanist, just to see what all the fuss was about! She became a poet of some merit, designed two delightful houses in Shropshire and even two motor caravans in which she and Guiny, as the years went on, travelled the British Isles with great enjoyment. After their mother died in 1949, the family moved to London and then down to the sea at Bognor Regis.

In 1970 Jacintha was approached by Weidenfeld and Nicholson, to contribute an essay on George Orwell’s childhood and youth for The World of George Orwell, which was published in 1971. Writing the essay encouraged her sit down and write much more fully of the childhood she had shared with her family and with young Eric and Avril Blair. Eric & Us was published by Leslie Frewin in 1974 and remains the most complete account of George Orwell’s childhood and early youth, showing where certain influences were propagated which, in later years, had a profound effect upon his thinking and writing.

In her later years Jacintha Buddicom was regularly visited by scholars from overseas, eager to talk to Orwell’s primary muse.. She never ceased to feel frustrated that not one of the many biographers who had written Orwell’s life after the publication of her book, had recognised the hidden truths of Eric & Us.. She had written it on two levels as she knew Eric would have approved – and no one had read her book slowly enough to realise that within the very simplicity of her story she had fashioned deeper truths concerning the metamorphosis of Eric Blair’s unique and brilliant mind. She would have been very glad indeed had she been alive in 2003 when Gordon Bowker published his book George Orwell, because he is the ONLY writer who has seen beneath the surface of Eric & Us and written his biography knowing just how deeply had been the influence upon Eric of the Buddicoms and of Jacintha in particular. Jacintha died in 1994 in the house on Bognor Regis seafront, which she had shared with her sister Guiny for nearly forty years.


D. Venables 13 September 2006



There was a new edition published on the 1st December 2006 of Eric & Us (the Postscript editon)

ISBN:9780955379816 in which the Postscript by Dione Venables reveals new material concerning George Orwell and Jacintha Buddicom which has been withheld by her family up to now.  Orwell biographer (Orwell 2003) Gordon Bowker says 'these new details make rivetting reading and will change a lot of thinking concerning Orwell."  Peter Davison (The Lost Orwell 2006) says "The Postscript is an important contribution to our understanding of Jacintha and Orwell.....No one has correctly interpreted certain aspects of Eric & Us."  This new book needs examining. Dominic L.

[edit] Merge 1st wife's bio in

There's not really a bio of a notable person at Eileen O'Shaughnessy, but just a few facts that might add to this article. Her name should redirect to his; she may deserve a section here.
--Jerzy•t 02:19, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

  • Oppose, I dont' think that it should be Merged the article itslef looks decent and the George Orwell article is already getting to big itself.--SeadogTalk 16:59, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

  • I oppose too. The Eileen entry could easily be improved, and she was a human being in her own right.Paulanderson 16:39, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

  • Oppose G-Man * 16:20, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose Daft idea..
  • Oppose AnAn 08:34, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose I don't see why the facts of her life would add to Orwell's bio. Mr.Rocks 08:38, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree with Jersy. There is nothing in this woman's biography that deserves an article, except the fact that she was Orwell's wife. Of course, she had her own life. My mother also has her own life. I have my own life. But there is no biography of me nor my mother on wikipedia. --Loudon dodd 10:20, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Removing tag from the front page. Over one month and not one supporting vote in favour. AnAn 08:45, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vastly over-rated

1984 and Animal Farm are the two most over-rated books in the English language. They are those rare books that actually made the world a worse place. Animal Farm is simply a lie. Animal Farm is an allegory about the Russian Revolution but it fails to have a Lenin figure. Lenin and Stalin are represented by the same pig Napoleon. There is no excuse for this as there is a Goebbels figure in the pig Squealer who represents nobody at all in Soviet Russia. Also the pigs represent the Bolshevik party but the 1917 central committee of the Bolshevik party were the first people Stalin killed. All of that committee were killed by Stalin with the exception of Lenin who was6 already dead. Yet there is not a single case of Napoleon killing any of the other pigs in Animal Farm. Also Soviet Russia was invaded by Hitler and they heroically fought back and beat him. Again not a whisper of this in Animal Farm. I repeat : the book is a lie. 1984 is even worse. In 1948 when it was written Britain had it's greatest government ever, The Atlee Labour government which created the Welfare State and the National Health. What is Orwell's - the one time socialist - response? This vicious, spiteful piece of rubbish. Also some of the tortures used in 1984 were later taken up by dictatorships. Nice work Orwell, creating fresh forms of torture. Now, with the collapse of the Soviet Union the prophetic side of 1984 is even more laughable than it was then. The Soviets were never going to take over Western Europe. Let us hope that these awful books will re-assessed by more perceptive readers and given the dustbin status they deserve. SmokeyTheFatCat 15:29, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

That's nice, do you have any comments about the article? Please note wikipedia is not a soapbox. Morwen - Talk 15:32, 3 Novemb

This is the talk page not the article. I am expressing a political opinion about a political writer. Is there a problem here?SmokeyTheFatCat 16:31, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

"Also some of the tortures used in 1984 were later taken up by dictatorships. Nice work Orwell, creating fresh forms of torture." This sentences are really stupid.
--Loudon dodd 17:30, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes. Talk pages are for talking about improvements to the article. They are not discussion forums. Robin Johnson (talk) 12:34, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:NOT#SOAP applies to articles and talk pages alike. Go and start your own blog on some other site. Viewfinder 17:40, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

In terms of the actual history of revolutionary Russia, there were lots of candidates for Squealer. Notably Nikolai Krylenko, who praised the "execution of the innocent" because it would impress the masses even more than the execution of the guilty. But that point aside, Animal Farm was not meant to refer only to the Russian events but to speak to the constants of revolutionary dynamics in general. That is why the pig Napoleon has the same name as a certain Corsican, after all. --Christofurio 20:12, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I would like to pick up the argument of whether Orwell's novels are overrated. Personally, I believe that his strengths as a writer lie in the essays, literary criticism and political pieces. The novels may not be at the same level but they are more accessible than "Homage to Catalonia", "The Lion and the Unicorn" or the "As I Please" columns since they do not demand familiarity with so many events and historical characters.

[edit] In spain with his wife

As it can be seen here :

http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/site/about/pictures.html?expand=11#image

[edit] Opium department

in "Early life" it says his father worked in an opium department? Is this true or is it a bit of vandalism that got missed? Totnesmartin 11:47, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

This is not vandalism : you can read it for example in Crick's biography (I'm sorry, this is the french translation, but it can be easely confirmed, I guess) : "Le commerce de l'opium avec la Chine avait été légalisé en 1860 sous la forme d'un monopole gouvernemental. Richard [Orwell's father] y était employé depuis l'âge de dix-huit ans." (Bernard Crick, George Orwell, une vie, climats, Paris, 2003, p. 48 - first chapter, in french : "et j'étais un petit garçon joufflu")--Loudon dodd 23:28, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
sacre plusungood! Totnesmartin 00:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Origins Of His Name

My English teacher once infrormed us at school that the origin of his name was to do with H.G. Wells. This seems entirely logical as the "G" in "H.G." stands for George (as found here). The statement in the article about the river still remains possible in conjunction with this theory. Is there any way of proving this? --SteelersFan UK06 06:55, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

His pen name has been chosen with his publisher (editor ? I'm not sure about the english word), Victor Gollanz. Orwell gave him a list of names : P.S. Burton, Kenneth Miles, George Orwell, H. Lewis Allways. This fact is mentionned by Bernard Crick in his Orwell's biography. It seems that Eric Blair didn't mentionned Wells. But he knew the Orwell river. I don't know more about that. --Loudon dodd 18:23, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

The following lines in "Influence on English Language" are POV: "Current examples include "affirmative action," designed to serve as a smokescreen for reverse discrimination; or euthanasia described as "comfort care," though neither comfort nor care are the result, but death. Similar examples could be multiplied ad nauseum." I'm removing them.

[edit] Reviews

"Back in the United Kingdom, Orwell supported himself by writing freelance reviews, mainly for the New English Weekly but mostly for Time and Tide and the New Statesman." This sentence is clearly nonsense - "mostly x but mainly y and z"? Which one was it? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lfh (talk • contribs) 12:35, 19 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] The term "Cold War"

By many accounts, Walter Lippman, the influential American journalist and public philosopher, may have coined the term in his 1947 book by the same name, a work which gathered his previous essays. See teel, Ronald (1980). Walter Lippmann and the American century. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-7658-0464-6 Billyvamp4 08:06, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Note: This comment was inserted in the text of the article. I brought it here because:
  1. It's signed.
  2. As it stands, it doesn't prove its point: a 1947 date isn't good enough. The term "cold war" is in a 1945 article by Orwell (cited in the text). If Lippmann used it before Orwell, we would need a reference to the actual earlier article by Lippmann and date.
Andrew Dalby 12:45, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jura

Most tuberculosis sufferers seek out hotter, drier climates to alleviate their condition. Why on earth did Orwell move from southern England to western Scotland? Drutt 20:55, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

A question I have answered in the article - some critics have implied that Orwell had a death wish, but Jura is actually quite mild. --Stephen Burnett 21:44, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
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