In Front of Your Nose, 1945-1950 (Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters George Orwell) [Paperback]

George Orwell (Author), Ian Angus; Sonia Orwell (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters George Orwell | Publication Date: October 1, 2000

Considering that much of his life was spent in poverty and ill health, it is something of a miracle that in only forty-six years George Orwell managed to publish ten books and two collections of essays. Here, in four fat volumes, is the best selection of his non-fiction available, a trove of letters, essays, reviews, and journalism that is breathtaking in its scope and eclectic passions. Orwell had something to say about just about everyone and everything. His letters to such luminaries as Julian Symons, Anthony Powell, Arthur Koestler, and Cyril Connolly are poignant and personal. His essays, covering everything from "English Cooking" to "Literature and Totalitarianism," are memorable, and his books reviews (Hitler's Mein Kampf, Mumford's Herman Melville, Miller's Black Spring, Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield to name just a few) are among the most lucid and intelligent ever written. From 1943 to l945, he wrote a regular column for the Tribune, a left wing weekly, entitled "As I Please." His observations about life in Britain during the war embraced everything from anti-American sentiment to the history of domestic appliances.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Though his life was brief (1903-1950), Orwell was extremely prolific. In addition to penning two of the last century's greatest novels, he wrote reams of essays, journalistic pieces, and letters. Covering a 30-year period, this extensive four-volume set, originally published in 1968, collects the best of his nonfiction. Each volume is divided by year and intermixes his correspondence with news stories and discourses on numerous subjects. There is far more to Orwell than Animal Farm and 1984, and this beautiful collection reveals what a true intellect he was. Though probably more for academics, the books are priced reasonably enough for public library consideration.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"* "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"

Product Details

• Paperback: 555 pages
• Publisher: David R Godine (October 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1567921361
• ISBN-13: 978-1567921366
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.9 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #543,301 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Orwell As a Knowledgeable Man and a Master of Good Prose and Clear Thinking, September 9, 2007

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James E. Egolf "James E. Egolf, MA" (Florida) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: In Front of Your Nose, 1945-1950 (Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters George Orwell) (Paperback)

The late James J. Martin stated that one could learn great prose from reading George Orwell. Orwell's anthology titled IN FRONT OF YOUR NOSE is a good book to learn political insight and excellent writing. Orwell was not only knowledgeable, but he expressed some of the political tragedies and problems of the 20 th. century in this book. Readers should note this book is the fourth volume of essays of Orwell's essays literary criticism, political protest, etc.

Orwell was one of the very few who realized what a disaster W.W. II was for both Europeans and Asians. His essays on the forced repatriation of millions to the Soviet Union to miserable die in concentration camps were among the first to publicize this tragedy. Orwell's essays were blunt in stating that the only real winner from W.W. II was Big Communism especially in lieu of the rapid disintegration of the British Empire.

Orwell gave a good description of the inconsistent thinking of the British people. The British wanted total victory at any cost, and found themselves in bad economic shape. Many British complained about the immigration of Polish refugees to mine coal in Great Britain. Yet, the British public also complained (whined) about coal shortages. Orwell indicated the inconsistency of these remarks and commented that the British failed to see the logic between acts and consequences. Orwell Presented a clear picture of what was to occur with the British Empire which disintegrated rapidly after "victory" during W.W. II.

Orwell's essay on Gandhi is an interesting case study of Orwell's honest assessment of political leaders. Orwell is clear that he could not live like Gandhi, and Orwell admitted that he probably could be friends with the Hindu leader. Yet,Orwell highly praised Gandhi's courage, policy of nonviolent resistence to the British rules, and Gandhi's honesty. Orwell gave Gandhi praise for being honest and a decent man among political rogues, hypocrites, and cowards. Whether one agrees with Gandhi, he was indeed a brave, honest man. Among poltical figures these are rare traits indeed.

This reviewer disagrees with part of Orwell's criticism of James Burnham. Orwell correctly shows Burnham's errors in predicting the outcome of W.W.II. However, Orwell should have recognized Burnham's book THE MANAGERIAL REVOLUTION was a solid account that political and economic affairs were to be controlled by managers and "experts" rather than a market economy and by traditional political processes.

Orwell's anthology has interesting essays of literary criticism and correspondence. Orwell was suprisingly well versed with continental European poltical leaders and literary figures. There is an interesting letter that Orwell wrote to Arther Koestler, author of DARKNESS AT NOON,in which Orwell favorably compares this book with Orwell's own 1984.

Orwell also has some disturbing remarks regarding "allied" abuse and torture of defeated German prisoners of war. Orwell reflected that he remembered British and U.S. propaganda against the Germans before and during W.W. II. Yet, right in front of his nose, the "allies" were acting in the same beastial manner against those caught on the wrong side of the war. This was quite disturbing to Orwell, or any thoughtful person.

This reviewer has always been very impressed with Orwell's work. Any thoughtful individual who is not afraid of clear writing, honesty, and truth would enjoy Orwell. Unfortunately, the number of such people is small. As Orwell wrote one time, propaganda and lying do not decieve people. Propaganda and lying only help people who want to be deceived.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome, May 19, 2011

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A.D. "x7x1x2x" (Los Angeles CA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: In Front of Your Nose, 1945-1950 (Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters George Orwell) (Paperback)

A towering monument of greatness. Each of the essays and letters in this book is a beautiful gem, that can touch, inspire and awaken you. In a way, the fact that George Orwell's name is... Orwell, is very misleading. His name should be Magic Razmatazz Kosmic Super Kat or something. This is like Voltaire on steroids with a better education and sharper eyesight.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Owell Part 4. The Shadowy Future 1945-1950., September 9, 2009

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This review is from: In Front of Your Nose, 1945-1950 (Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters George Orwell) (Paperback)

Do you know what a time capsule is?

I saw one pictured in an old Life magazine back issue about the 1983 World's Fair in New York. 1938, the brink of war's abyss. The time capsule was featured at the Fair, filled with Depression era technology and pop culture. An ominous looking black scuba tank... a dark looking torpedo thing... metallic, shiny and heavily lowered by chain into a cement crypt to sleep for decades...observed by people who would never live to see it opened. The metallic time traveller contained hopeful letters to the future from a world on the brink of war and beset by economic decline.

The old world of sentiment was dying... to be replaced by a new streamlined world that promised utopia to some and endless darkness to others.

The last book in this great series...perhaps the saddest and most ominous. The begining of the atomic age (1945)is mentioned in this last part of the series... a bright atomic flash succeded by a long proceeding dark shadow...pointing towards 1984? Devolution, decay and death not evolution, utopian progress or hope shadows this last book.

The Penguin Books edition is simply a reprint of the earlier edition by Sonia Orwell made two years earlier in 1968. It is better bound as the earlier editions tend to crack because of their great age. This book is unique for two reasons: it is loaded with letters and tends to reveal more about the inner thought life of Orwell. This collection of writings shows the Orwell of the Cold War, far removed from the Edwardian England of his youth as was his character George Bowling from his childhood; Bowling looking at the crumbling churchyard of his youth from a street leading to the streamlined future Orwell and Bowling seemed to fear more than embrace.

The technology of mass death has also the power to end dictatorships while paradoxically threatening life on earth. The threat of total war would make slave states stable enough to survive without any credible threat. In other words, Eastasia, Eurasia, and Oceania would be forever locked into the static war of "1984" much like 1948 was locked into the seemingly permanent Cold War.

The problem of England's birth dearth reappears in yet another essay as an unavoidable fate...a fact "In Front of Your Nose."

The "Red Duchess" wrote back to Orwell after he had long written about her. The Duchess of Atholl had long been a subject of interest to Orwell who commented often on the "Blimps" who seemed to plague english society with various hues of functionlessness. Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists seemed to echo the Duchess' radicalism on the right wing.

The letters in many of the Orwell collections never seem to have answers. It is interesting to ponder why so few answers were ever published or if they ever existed. Was this an issue of deliberate omission?

Another curious unanswered fact: was why Orwell never seemed to write detailed letters about his personal life. There are no details about the adoption of Richard, the death of his first wife, or his second marriage...critical time points. When Orwell writes about hospital visits near his death bed, there is nothing about Sonia's involvement. Personal illness letters would have revealed much integrity and compassion, yet they are conspicuously abscent. Did Sonia want to leave out embarassing details such as why Orwell was so often alone with his TB or why she insisted on using his pen name as her married name? The last selection in the book is a poignant diary and note book, Orwell's last writings laced with gloomy thoughts about children dying, an outline for a long short story and notes about Evelyn Waugh.

It is ironic that Waugh wrote the "Loved One" about the funeral industry in America and Waugh was the last writer Orwell wrote about. Was Orwell thinking about death, but felt a need to intellectualize it rather than confront it honestly? There is no introspection involving Christ or eternity (despite Orwell's traditional values and previous essays on religion)...only a pointed remark about how appropriate a symbol (seen in a picture) was a crucifix hiding a stiletto "for the Christian religion."Interestingly,Orwell pointed out the contradiction in Matthew about the geneology of Jesus without citing the commonly known answer to it. Orwell also quoted a wrong verse for the whale in the book of Jonah when talking about Henry Miller's book "Inside the Whale." It is strange that a mind as sharp as Orwell's would find death a non-issue as he lay dying and would apply little intellectual accuracy towards the Bible even though he lamented the collective lost of the belief in immortality in several writings, claimed, in one letter, to have seen a ghost, and was upset that hell was often lampooned by comic strips. Orwell and death... quite an enigma.

Orwell was one of those men cursed with integrity and conscience who have no beliefs to sustain their integrity. Men like Winston in "1984" are forced to eventually pay homage to the idols they fight..."I love you Big Brother"... then die obedient under the System; like the show trials of Communists under Stalin with its numerous self-confessions followed by executions or banishments.

The man who died in 1950, midway in the twentieth century, was embraced with its begining and cursed with its future. Orwell longed for the Edwardian society of his childhood, yet had to live with the dawn of nuclear armed super states.

Orwell was the policeman shooting an elephant in Burma, and later performing a hanging for an empire he detested, yet had the integrity to serve. Orwell was Dorthy Hare dutifully accepting the role of a church spinster and a life of forgotten service. Orwell was George Bowling looking with longing recollection at the church of his youth and seeking the inner freedom of the long lost fish pond.

Orwell was frequently at odds with left culture: abortion, homosexuality, trendiness (vegetarianism), yet he was part of the Left. The man who died in 1950 had an Edwardian soul, yet was damned to live in a totalitarian-threatened world created by the failure of Capitalism in 1929.

Orwell's intergrity of vision may have kept that totalitarism from ever being justified. This book is Orwell's time capsule to the future.