Orwell: The War Broadcasts Hardcover – Import, 1985

It is my ambition to read every single word George Orwell ever wrote, and I am well on my way. I've read all of his books, all of his essays, all of his reportage, and even his not-meant-for-publication diary -- an enormous sum of words that has taken years to get through, but which not only kept me enormously entertained but, frankly, taught me how to think in a way masses of formal schooling never did. Orwell was something almost unique in modern political affairs; a non-partisan partisan, who let decency and common sense win out every time over party loyalty, prejudice and private passion, and in so doing produced some of the very best literature ever penned in the English language, though his skills as a novelist have never really been appreciated outside of ANIMAL FARM and his masterpiece, 1984. I bought THE WAR BROADCASTS very eagerly, because I am at a point when there isn't that much left of Orwell's I haven't read, but I have to say that like his "private" diaries, which contained a great deal of prosaic detail about farming and so on, this book was a bit of a disappointment to me.

THE WAR BROADCASTS is a compendium of the scripts Orwell wrote or performed during his wartime service at the BBC (which was so Byzantine, so oppressive, so Kafka-esque that he ended up using it as the inspiration for the Ministry of Truth in "1984"); and, more fully, of the various memoranda he wrote while the producer of various programs on same, most notably the "Indian Talks" broadcasts. (Orwell, having been born in India and having served as an Imperial Policeman in Burma for five years, was far better educated and in-the-know on the subcontinent and its various religious, ethnic, and political situations than most of his fellow Englishmen.) Now, some of this is admittedly interesting, especially in that it displays the rather confused and controversial policy Britain had toward India and Asia generally during WW2, which was unpopular both abroad and, to some extent, at home; it also features fine examples of the justifications used by British officials vis-a-vis the British Empire, a vast, centuries-old scheme for robbing, exploiting, and if necessary, slaughtering people of color to enrich a tiny handful of wealthy Britons. And it also contains an absolutely marvelous piece of literary history; to wit, a short story written in five parts by five different authors, of which Orwell is the first (and, I think, the best). The story is set during the Blitz of 1940 - 1941, and is about a veteran of the Spanish Civil War who is steeling himself (or trying to) to commit a cold-blooded act of murder on a hated enemy from his past. So far as I know, Orwell published no short stories in his adult life, and while he was only 1/5 of the author of this one, it showed his fine powers of fiction writing at a time when he hadn't published any fiction in something like five or six years. In my opinion the book is worth its price just for this "story in five parts" alone, but even that little jewel can't overcome the central problem, to wit: a lot of what's included here is simply BBC office paperwork which has the historical value of being signed by George Orwell. Were I to become famous tomorrow, I shudder to think at generations of admirers and students having to plod through all the boring memoranda I've generated at my various jobs over the years, just because Miles Watson stamped the damned things. What's more, some of the references, conflicts, arguments, and certainly many of the "famous people" who are addressed in these memos are long forgotten and will be familiar only to historians, and then only to historians specializing in the BBC during WW2, Indian political movements of the day, etc., etc.

Having said all that, I can say that die-hard, stomp-down Orwell loyalists will probably not rest easy unless they possess this book, if only to see how working at the Beeb effected Orwell's future masterwork, 1984; and also for his contribution to the "story in five parts," which in my opinion ought be categorized as part of his writings on the Spanish Civil War.