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Why Orwell Matters Hardcover – September 17, 2002

by Christopher Hitchens (Author)

84 customer reviews

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

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Vanity Fair and Nation contributor Hitchens passionately defends a great writer from attacks by both right and left, though he also refutes those fans who proclaim his sainthood. George Orwell (1903-1950), a socialist who abhorred all forms of totalitarianism, was, as Hitchens points out, prescient about the "three great subjects of the twentieth century:" imperialism, fascism, and Stalinism. In all things, Orwell's feelings were every bit as visceral as intellectual, and Hitchens devotes some of his best writing to describing Orwell's first-hand experiences with empire in Burma. It was there that he learned to hate racism, bullying and exploitation of the lower classes. "Orwell can be read," notes Hitchens, "as one of the founders of... post-colonialism." Orwell's insights about fascism and Stalinism crystallized in Spain, while he was fighting in the Civil War. Hitchens offers an excellent analysis of the writer's women, both real (his wives) and fictional, to show that the feminist critique of Orwell (that he didn't like strong, brainy women) may be unfair, though Hitchens also points out what feminists have ignored: Orwell's "revulsion for birth control and abortion." Hitchens brilliantly marshals his deep knowledge of Orwell's work. Fans of Orwell will enjoy Hitchens's learned and convincing defense, while those unfamiliar with Orwell may perhaps be induced to return to the source. (Oct.) Forecast: Hitchens has made a splash with recent books (Letters to a Young Contrarian and The Trial of Henry Kissinger). Basic is banking on similar success with a 30,000 first printing.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Far from being an ordinary biography, this small volume is an in-depth investigation of the essential George Orwell-"the heart on fire and the brain on ice." Hitchens recognizes that Orwell was more than the author of 1984 and Animal Farm. He was a keen critic of Nazism and Stalinism and didn't soften his pictures of them to sell books. His analysis of the grave inequities of those two forms of government is sufficiently acute to apply to the early 21st century's political spectrum. While claiming that Orwell "requires extricating from a pile of saccharine tablets and moist hankies [as] an object of sickly veneration and sentimental over-praise," Hitchens, a columnist for Vanity Fair and the Nation, asserts that in contrast to his many contemporaries who wrote about the era's political issues (e.g., Louis MacNeice, Stephen Spender, and Cecil Day Lewis), "it [is] possible to reprint every single letter, book review and essay composed by Orwell without exposing him to any embarrassment"-a remarkable feat, indeed. The only problem with this study is that it assumes that the reader already knows that Orwell conscientiously overcame his early anti-intellectualism, his dislike of the "dark" people of the English Empire, and his squeamishness about homosexuality-all to become a great humanist. Thus, it is written for readers who have already done their homework. Recommended for large libraries with extensive political science holdings.
Charles C. Nash, Cottey Coll., Nevada, MO
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product details

Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: Basic Books; 1st edition (September 18, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0465030491
ISBN-13: 978-0465030491
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1 x 8.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 84 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #945,638 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4217 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Essays & Correspondence > Essays
- #5894 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Authors
- #32078 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Memoirs

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The Orwell We Didn't Know

April 16, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Christopher Hitchens gives us a comprehensive survey of Orwell's literary and journalistic output. This is especially interesting in view of Orwell's orthodox socialism. Socialists disliked him for his anti-Stalinist views even though he risked his life and freedom fighting for the Spanish Republic against the Fascists. He came in for criticism and slander when he tried to show how the Russian backed POUM subverted the Republican cause by undermining and then arresting their noncommunist allies.

It helps to read Hitchens book in tandem with Homage to Catalonia, Orwell's account of the Spanish Civil War. It is a stark description of the conditions at the front, and the "riots" in Barcelona. This is followed by the treachery of the Stalinists.
The European Left turned a blind eye to the horrors of Stalinist Russia, until Orwell produced 1984, and Animal Farm. After that he was persona non grata among the orthodox Leninists and Stalinists, and misunderstood by the right wing "anti-communists". Not a great novelist, but an important one. An honest man in a maelstrom of lies.

11 people found this helpful

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Both a Defense and a Compassionate Critique of George Orwell

May 1, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

One of our great “public intellectuals” of recent decades turns his critical and fearless eye on both the detractors and exploiters of George Orwell. The detractors come from the left, the exploiters from the right. To the right, Orwell was a prophet of their beloved Cold War, conveniently forgetting that he was also a champion of democratic socialism. To the left, he betrayed socialism and democracy because his dystopian novels “Animal Farm” and “1984” were such potent attacks on Soviet-style Communism that they served to propel the Cold War and McCarthyism.

In fact, Orwell even invented the phrase ‘Cold War”. But Hitchens points out that Orwell used it as a prophetic warning of geopolitical peril to come. On another occasion, Orwell prophesied the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union due to totalitarian excess. And this is precisely the picture that Hitchens paints of Orwell: A person of extraordinary intellectual and moral honesty who also had keen insight and curiosity into human affairs.

Orwell first developed a life-long aversion to colonialism and imperialism after a youthful posting to India in the early 1920s as a police lieutenant. Then he deliberately chose to live with the destitute in the slums of London to understand their predicament, despite the discomfort it brought to his upper class upbringing (he was a graduate of Eton, the most elite of English private schools.)

Orwell was very determined to become a good writer – to penetrate the veil of propaganda and euphemism that blinded people to injustice. He quickly became a great essayist but had trouble writing a good novel. Yet he knew that fiction could reach a far greater audience, if he could only find the right model, the right formula, to display his perception and outrage. He kept trying and eventually succeeded, despite social awkwardness and repeated periods of self-doubt.

So how did Orwell come to understand Stalinism long before most others? Once again he exposed himself to danger and deprivation. He volunteered to fight Franco and the fascists in Spain in the late 1930s. He barely escaped death – twice, yet Hitchens downplays his heroism. Once Orwell took a bullet in the neck. Then he fled Spain just before being seized to be “purged” in a Stalinist-type show trail. Thus he experienced totalitarian terror first hand, culminating in his masterwork “1984” just before his death form tuberculosis in 1950.

However I would recommend a good overview of Orwell’s life, such as the Wikipedia article, before this book. Hitchens’ book is not a biography and sometimes glosses over crucial elements. At other times he digs quite deeply into the politics and culture of the time in order to counter certain attacks and misrepresentations, using a high-brow literary British vocabulary, contrary to the transparency advocated by Orwell himself. Nevertheless, Hitchens is absolutely right that “Orwell Matters”, especially today, given the Orwellian proclivities of Donald Trump.

10 people found this helpful

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November 26, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

A series of essays on Orwell,covering Orwell and the Left, Orwell and The Right, Orwell and America and several other topics.

Hitchens is a huge fan and takes on all comers who criticize his man, and there are plenty that do, but in normal Hitchens style he bats them off with his arguments, and like or loath him Hitchens can argue.

Very entertaining, much more so than Orwell's novels which I find a bit depressing. Hitchens makes his arguments for Orwell on his essays not on the novels. Hitchens does not think Orwell a saint, more a candidate for beatification,which incidentally neither of them believed in anyway.

The best thing for me was reading this on a Kindle with the dictionary function. When you have a vocabulary that is rather bare when compared with the author it is a very handy tool.

5 people found this helpful

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