75 of 76 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Stuff, Mostly, May 21, 2004
This review is from: A Collection of Essays (Paperback)
Note that all the essays in this collection are available online, most of them at multiple sites.
This sample of Orwell's essays is representative but perhaps a little too small. At least two other essays, "A Hanging" and "Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool" should have been included.
"Such, Such Were the Joys" is a moving reminiscence of boarding school, where Orwell had a miserable time as a frail student on "reduced fees".
"Charles Dickens" is a long piece of literary-social criticism. It is insightful on Dickens the man and his politics, and how they relate to his work. Orwell notes the class limitations on Dickens's outlook, but feels that in spite of them, Dickens is a "free intelligence".
"Rudyard Kipling" is an essay in the same style. Orwell admits Kipling's faults but feels that despite them, he produced better poetry than most of his contemporaries. This is put down to his writing about/for a class with a sense of responsibility.
"The Art of Donald McGill", "Raffles and Miss Blandish" and "Boys' Weeklies" are essays that analyse public sentiment through a survey of popular literature and art. These essays are the best in the genre, and definitely among Orwell's best essays.
"Inside the Whale" is an essay about contemporary (1920-1940) serious literature. Parts I and III praise Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer; part II reviews literature between the wars. The image of a transparent whale (inside which Henry Miller sits) is arresting, but this essay is not otherwise a very good one. Orwell says several obvious or false things about 1920s writers, misrepresents the Auden group, and is somewhat hyperbolic about Henry Miller.
"England your England" is an essay about the English national spirit, and is very revealing about Orwell's own patriotism.
"Looking Back on the Spanish War" -- Orwell fought with a Trotskyist militia in Spain; his experiences are recounted in Homage to Catalonia. This is a brief reminiscence. Hopefully it will inspire you to read the book.
"Politics and the English Language" has been very influential; its thesis is that the use of cliches and euphemisms leads to muddy thinking which makes totalitarianism bearable. It includes his six rules of good writing. Orwell also makes this point in the brilliant appendix to 1984.
"Marrakech" and "Shooting an Elephant" are essays about colonialism. The latter describes it from much closer range; it describes an experience Orwell had as a colonial administrator in Burma and is one of his most famous essays.
"Reflections on Gandhi" discusses Gandhi's personal ethics and political philosophy. Orwell's critique of Gandhi is memorable:
"The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one's love upon other human individuals. No doubt alcohol, tobacco, and so forth, are things that a saint must avoid, but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid."
"Why I Write" is an account of Orwell's development as a writer. Orwell claims that the political purpose was foremost in all his writing, and ends this essay with the famous aphorism that "good prose is like a windowpane."
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Political, but not in conventional ways., June 19, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: A Collection of Essays (Paperback)
Orwell was anti-fascist as the last reviewer wrote, but he was also anti-communist,having seen it first hand in Spain. His life as an author was quite dymnamic. You can see a change in his politics from book to book. His early death leads you to wonder what Orwell would have written about the space age. This book is so well written that you will find enjoyment in subjects that you care nothing about. His Essays on Dickens and Kipling were more insightful than the semester in college I spent on 19th century English Literature.
His reflections on Ghandi expose the flaws that most Ghandi fans ignore or hide. He then goes on to celebrate the man for his virtues.
His look at Henry Miller was amazing. Orwell saw through the shock value of Miller's 1930s autobiography and recognized great writing when his contemporaries dismised the work as pornography.
Orwell's easy language coupled with genius-level insight make this a book to read again and again.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Value for money, June 2, 2000
This review is from: A Collection of Essays (Paperback)
If you want to find out about Europe in the first half of the 20th century, this is the book you should book. These 300 pages offer excellent value for money; Orwell writes about the most diverse aspects of life: elitist literature and pulp magazines, the horrors of boarding schools or what it felt like to be a colonial officer in Burma. What he writes is full of insight and first-hand experience. You will find yourself telling others about what you have learned from this collection.
Orwell's style is not just transparent "like a window pane"; it is just beautiful in its rhythms and deadpan humour. - My personal recommendation is the essay on "Boys' Weeklies". These magazines did not only inspire Rowlings' Harry Potter, but seem to have been an early form of the theatre of the absurd as well...
The only setback of this edition is that it does not say where the essays where first published.
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