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George Orwell Diaries
This groundbreaking volume, never before published in the United States, at last introduces the interior life of George Orwell, the writer who defined twentieth-century political thought. Written as individual books throughout his career, the eleven surviving diaries collected here record Orwell’s youthful travels among miners and itinerant laborers, the fearsome rise of totalitarianism, the horrific drama of World War II, and the feverish composition of his great masterpieces Animal Farm and 1984 (which have now sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author). Personal entries cover the tragic death of his first wife and Orwell’s own decline as he battled tuberculosis. Exhibiting great brilliance of prose and composition, these treasured dispatches, edited by the world’s leading Orwell scholar, exhibit “the seeds of famous passages to come” (New Statesman) and amount to a volume as penetrating as the autobiography he would never write.
598 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
158 people are currently reading
2852 people want to read
About the author
George Orwell
1,281 books50.6k followersEric Arthur Blair was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to all totalitarianism (both fascism and stalinism), and support of democratic socialism.
Orwell is best known for his allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), although his works also encompass literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics, literature, language and culture.
Orwell's work remains influential in popular culture and in political culture, and the adjective "Orwellian"—describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices—is part of the English language, like many of his neologisms, such as "Big Brother", "Thought Police", "Room 101", "Newspeak", "memory hole", "doublethink", and "thoughtcrime". In 2008, The Times named Orwell the second-greatest British writer since 1945.
Orwell is best known for his allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), although his works also encompass literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics, literature, language and culture.
Orwell's work remains influential in popular culture and in political culture, and the adjective "Orwellian"—describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices—is part of the English language, like many of his neologisms, such as "Big Brother", "Thought Police", "Room 101", "Newspeak", "memory hole", "doublethink", and "thoughtcrime". In 2008, The Times named Orwell the second-greatest British writer since 1945.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 79 reviews
March 20, 2021
This huge volume covered a lot of events of Orwell’s life which unfolded in the background of great political changes and WWII.
I didn’t know much about George Orwell’s private matters before starting this book, as a result, I was really surprised by his simple style of living and love for nature. Everyone knows that Orwell was a writer, a journalist and a socialist, but who knew he was an avid gardener and a farmer? Even when living in Marocco he had a garden and a goat. There was a significant number of pages dedicated to vegetable beds, fruit trees, fishing and the quantity of eggs laid by his hens. It felt that those intimate tiny day-to-day details weren’t meant for a publication, which made them even more interesting. These glimpses of Orwell’s life - the notes, the observations and the to-do lists - gave the reader a great opportunity to get a more wholesome and complete image of the author and his environment.
His household journals alternated with the war ones, which comprised a great chunk of this book.
By reading them you can vividly imagine the life in those disturbing times. I was especially interested in parts talking about the role of Russia and Stalin in WWII and Orwell’s views on Russian post-revolutionary politics in general.
But honestly... I was there for the gardening part. Having read some reviews, I see that many people have found it boring and unimportant, but I can’t agree. I was greatly entertained by Orwell’s domestic notes. If you’re in doubt, give it a try. Even when war breaks out and the world changes dramatically, life doesn’t stop: rains fall, hens lay eggs and vegetables grow. These journals are a great example of that.
I didn’t know much about George Orwell’s private matters before starting this book, as a result, I was really surprised by his simple style of living and love for nature. Everyone knows that Orwell was a writer, a journalist and a socialist, but who knew he was an avid gardener and a farmer? Even when living in Marocco he had a garden and a goat. There was a significant number of pages dedicated to vegetable beds, fruit trees, fishing and the quantity of eggs laid by his hens. It felt that those intimate tiny day-to-day details weren’t meant for a publication, which made them even more interesting. These glimpses of Orwell’s life - the notes, the observations and the to-do lists - gave the reader a great opportunity to get a more wholesome and complete image of the author and his environment.
His household journals alternated with the war ones, which comprised a great chunk of this book.
By reading them you can vividly imagine the life in those disturbing times. I was especially interested in parts talking about the role of Russia and Stalin in WWII and Orwell’s views on Russian post-revolutionary politics in general.
But honestly... I was there for the gardening part. Having read some reviews, I see that many people have found it boring and unimportant, but I can’t agree. I was greatly entertained by Orwell’s domestic notes. If you’re in doubt, give it a try. Even when war breaks out and the world changes dramatically, life doesn’t stop: rains fall, hens lay eggs and vegetables grow. These journals are a great example of that.
March 11, 2013
I'm a bit biased, Orwell is my favorite author..and I have a secret crush on him (well now it's not so secret :])
September 6, 2024
Certainly interesting and worthwhile overall, though the editors were apparently drunk and/or confused re: which of Orwell's diaries should be included in a published volume.
Over half the text in this book consists of Orwell's notes to himself in "domestic notebooks" about farming, weather, etc., in clipped shorthand, obviously not intended for publication, and shedding zero light on anything of note. It would be like publishing Hegel's grocery lists as an insight into his philosophy.
Still, the ~250 pages of Orwell's actual diaries, particularly the 1940-42 notebooks, are fascinating and filled with great writing.
Over half the text in this book consists of Orwell's notes to himself in "domestic notebooks" about farming, weather, etc., in clipped shorthand, obviously not intended for publication, and shedding zero light on anything of note. It would be like publishing Hegel's grocery lists as an insight into his philosophy.
Still, the ~250 pages of Orwell's actual diaries, particularly the 1940-42 notebooks, are fascinating and filled with great writing.
[6.14.40] Always, as I walk through the Underground stations, sickened by the advertisements, the silly staring faces and strident colours, the general frantic struggle to induce people to waste labour and material by consuming useless luxuries or harmful drugs. How much rubbish this war will sweep away, if only we can hang on through the summer. War is simply a reversal of civilised life, and so much of the good of modern life is actually evil that it is questionable whether on balance war does harm.
[8.9.40] Towards the government I feel no scruples and would dodge paying the tax if I could. Yet I would give my life for England readily enough, if I thought it necessary. No one is patriotic about taxes.
[9.21.40] Nondescript people wandering about, having been evacuated from their houses because of delayed-action bombs. Yesterday two girls stopping me in the street, very elegant in appearance except that their faces were filthily dirty: "Please, sir, can you tell us where we are?" Withal, huge areas of London almost normal, and everyone quite happy in the daytime, never seeming to think about the coming night, like animals which are unable to foresee the future so long as they have a bit of food and a place in the sun.
[5.17.41] Evidently all chance of winning the war in any decent way is lost. The plan of Churchill and Co. is apparently to give everything away and then win it all back with American aeroplanes and rivers of blood.
[5.26.41] Astonishing sights in the Tube stations when one goes through late at night. What is most striking is the cleanly, normal, domesticated air that everything now has. Especially the young married couples, the sort of homely cautious types that would probably be buying their houses from a building society, tucked up together under pink counterpanes. And the large families one sees here and there, father, mother, and several children all laid out in a row like rabbits on the slab. They all seem so peacefully asleep in the bright lamplight. The children lying on their backs, with their little pink cheeks like wax dolls, and all fast asleep.
February 4, 2021
Um. If you actually do like knowing how Orwell's potatoes were doing, this is the volume for you. Otherwise this is a waste of money. The Penguin Classics paperback costs the same as two bottles of Blossom Hill, which would be money better spent. The few interesting parts are the dry-runs for Down and Out and Wigan Pier, despite the number of times Orwell drones on (and on) about how minging Stafford is.
June 15, 2021
The standouts for me are the two War-time Diaries, the Diary of Events Leading Up to the War, the Hop-Picking Diary, which is all the more interesting for having read A Clergyman's Daughter, and ditto with The Road to Wigan Pier Diary.
Each diary Introduction and the numbered sub-note context details are invaluable and I found equally interesting and informative.
Many margin pencil marks throughout after reading.
One thing about great writers, the everyday human details they capture. The comparison here with Orwell and Steinbeck's Once There Was A War, when a war correspondent in England, Italy and North Africa.
Orwell - War -Time Diary: 10.06.1942:
"The only time when one hears people singing in the BBC is in the early morning, between 6 and 8. That is the time when the charwomen are at work. A huge army of them arrive all at the same time, they sit in the reception hall waiting for their brooms to be issued to them and making as much noise as a parrot house, and then they have wonderful choruses, all singing together as they sweep the passages. The place has a quite different atmosphere at this time from what is has later in the day."
Very much of the standard of H.V. Morton.
Having recently read Keep the Aspidistra Flying, with Orwell's thoughts and obvious dislike of advertising, so too here in the Diaries he waxes about advertising, which is intensified by being in a World War with restrictions.
"Always, as I walk through the Underground stations, sickened by the advertisements, the silly staring faces and strident colours, the general frantic struggle to induce people to waste labour and material by consuming useless luxuries or harmful drugs."
There is even an inference of a benign advertisement placement as espionage tip-off of invasion plans.
I see a parallel in this and the Covid pandemic with government and business reluctance to lockdown. The economy, the economy.
To expand on this subject of advertisement placement as tip-off of invasion plans:-
A big Commando invasion on Dieppe in August 1942 as a try-out as a first step was a disastrous failure. Went unreported, then misrepresented in the press, and then misrepresented in reports to the PM.
'Something over 5,000 men were engaged, of whom at least 2,000 were killed or prisoners.' The defences were formidable. 'More tank-landing craft were sunk than got ashore. About 20 or 30 tanks were landed but none got off again. The newspaper photos which showed tanks apparently being brought back to England were intentionally misleading. The general impression was that the Germans knew of the raid beforehand. *1.'
*1. Notes: It was alleged that the Germans had cracked British codes and so had advanced notice of the raid, but it seems that the first warning was given by German trawlers just as the Allied flotilla approached the coast. The failure of the raid was publicly put down to 'careless talk' or even to an advertisement for soap flakes which showed a woman pruning a tree dressed in what was headlined as 'BEACH COAT from DIEPPE.' A newspaper cutting of this advertisement , which appeared in the Daily Telegraph 15.8.42, was annotated by Orwell, 'Advert, popularly believed to have given the Germans advanced warning of the Dieppe raid.'
Orwell worked at the BBC during WWII. One can see in his observation of suppression and misrepresentation of information in the press which he later used in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
There is a lot more to cover with The Diaries. More to come.
Each diary Introduction and the numbered sub-note context details are invaluable and I found equally interesting and informative.
Many margin pencil marks throughout after reading.
One thing about great writers, the everyday human details they capture. The comparison here with Orwell and Steinbeck's Once There Was A War, when a war correspondent in England, Italy and North Africa.
Orwell - War -Time Diary: 10.06.1942:
"The only time when one hears people singing in the BBC is in the early morning, between 6 and 8. That is the time when the charwomen are at work. A huge army of them arrive all at the same time, they sit in the reception hall waiting for their brooms to be issued to them and making as much noise as a parrot house, and then they have wonderful choruses, all singing together as they sweep the passages. The place has a quite different atmosphere at this time from what is has later in the day."
Very much of the standard of H.V. Morton.
Having recently read Keep the Aspidistra Flying, with Orwell's thoughts and obvious dislike of advertising, so too here in the Diaries he waxes about advertising, which is intensified by being in a World War with restrictions.
"Always, as I walk through the Underground stations, sickened by the advertisements, the silly staring faces and strident colours, the general frantic struggle to induce people to waste labour and material by consuming useless luxuries or harmful drugs."
There is even an inference of a benign advertisement placement as espionage tip-off of invasion plans.
I see a parallel in this and the Covid pandemic with government and business reluctance to lockdown. The economy, the economy.
To expand on this subject of advertisement placement as tip-off of invasion plans:-
A big Commando invasion on Dieppe in August 1942 as a try-out as a first step was a disastrous failure. Went unreported, then misrepresented in the press, and then misrepresented in reports to the PM.
'Something over 5,000 men were engaged, of whom at least 2,000 were killed or prisoners.' The defences were formidable. 'More tank-landing craft were sunk than got ashore. About 20 or 30 tanks were landed but none got off again. The newspaper photos which showed tanks apparently being brought back to England were intentionally misleading. The general impression was that the Germans knew of the raid beforehand. *1.'
*1. Notes: It was alleged that the Germans had cracked British codes and so had advanced notice of the raid, but it seems that the first warning was given by German trawlers just as the Allied flotilla approached the coast. The failure of the raid was publicly put down to 'careless talk' or even to an advertisement for soap flakes which showed a woman pruning a tree dressed in what was headlined as 'BEACH COAT from DIEPPE.' A newspaper cutting of this advertisement , which appeared in the Daily Telegraph 15.8.42, was annotated by Orwell, 'Advert, popularly believed to have given the Germans advanced warning of the Dieppe raid.'
Orwell worked at the BBC during WWII. One can see in his observation of suppression and misrepresentation of information in the press which he later used in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
There is a lot more to cover with The Diaries. More to come.
January 16, 2022
O colecție a jurnalelor lui Orwell din anii '30 si din perioada WWII.
Începutul jurnalului îl regăsește pe marele gânditor trăind de pe o zi pe alta, dormind în cutii și abia găsind resursele necesare să supraviețuiască. Sunt notate cele mai mici detalii din felul în care își petrece ziua, de la vreme la banii cheltuiți.
Nu este o lectură interesantă în adevăratul sens al cuvântului, dar e o lectură fascinantă prin faptul că ni-l aduce în față pe Eric Arthur Blair (Orwell) într-o manieră vulnerabilă, departe de imaginea creată prin scrierile sale.
Cel mai mult mi-au plăcut relatările din timpul WWII, pe când lucra la BBC.
Făcând analogie cu prezentul, unul dintre cele mai actuale pasaje din jurnal este următorul:
"19.10.40 - Depresie de nepovestit dată de faptul că în fiecare dimineață aprind focul cu ziare de acum 1 an și zăresc titlurile optimiste în timp ce se topesc, devenind scrum."
Cui nu îi este dor de titluri optimiste?
Începutul jurnalului îl regăsește pe marele gânditor trăind de pe o zi pe alta, dormind în cutii și abia găsind resursele necesare să supraviețuiască. Sunt notate cele mai mici detalii din felul în care își petrece ziua, de la vreme la banii cheltuiți.
Nu este o lectură interesantă în adevăratul sens al cuvântului, dar e o lectură fascinantă prin faptul că ni-l aduce în față pe Eric Arthur Blair (Orwell) într-o manieră vulnerabilă, departe de imaginea creată prin scrierile sale.
Cel mai mult mi-au plăcut relatările din timpul WWII, pe când lucra la BBC.
Făcând analogie cu prezentul, unul dintre cele mai actuale pasaje din jurnal este următorul:
"19.10.40 - Depresie de nepovestit dată de faptul că în fiecare dimineață aprind focul cu ziare de acum 1 an și zăresc titlurile optimiste în timp ce se topesc, devenind scrum."
Cui nu îi este dor de titluri optimiste?
June 15, 2014
Eric Arthur Blair, aka George Orwell, kept close account of his life, both the political and the domestic. These diaries are selected spans of time representing his life and the history surrounding it.
This volume includes:
Hop-Picking Diary - August 25, 1931-March 25, 1936
The Road to Wigan Pier Diary - August 9, 1938, March 28, 1939
Domestic Diary Volume I (August 9, 1938- March 28, 1939) intercalated with
Morocco Diary - September 7, 1938 - March 28, 1939
Domestic Diary Volume II (May 27, 1939 - August 31, 1939) intercalated with
Diary of Events Leading Up to the War - July 2, 1939 - September 3, 1939
War-time Diary - May 28, 1940 - August 28, 1941
Second War-Time Diary - March 14, 1942 - November 15, 1942
The Jura Diaries - May 7, 1946 - May 10, 1948
Domestic Diary V - July 31, 1948 - December 24, 1948
Last Literary Notebook - March 21, 1949 - September 1949
From the dates in question, it should be no surprise that World War II would be central to the narrative. But Orwell also kept careful notes on his farming and egg gathering, filed away newspaper clippings with recipes and homemaking, and recorded conversations and controversies. Despite his domestic journals, emotions are not recorded. Deaths are not recognized, although he might mention he had traveled. The annotations added by the editor explain who the people are, why Orwell has traveled or missed a span of time, and that helped enormously.
I was most entertained by Orwell's experiences in the diaries before the war. He worked as a tramp, picking hops and doing other odd jobs, while doing research for some of his earlier writings, and his observational skills are clear. (There are also connections to his published works later that had seeds in the diaries.)
"No one is patriotic about taxes."
"We are all drowning in filth. .. Everyone is dishonest, and everyone is utterly heartless towards people who are outside the immediate range of his own interests... Is there no one who has both firm opinions and a balanced outlook? Actually there are plenty, but they are powerless. All power is in the hands of paranoiacs."
"I am doing nothing that is not futility and have less and less to show for the waste. It seems to be the same with everyone - the most fearful feeling of frustration, of just footling round doing imbecile things, not imbecile because they are a part of the war and war is inherently foolish, but things which in fact don't help or in any way affect the war effort, but are considered necessary by the huge bureaucratic machine in which we are all caught up."
Because I am always looking for books on cold weather islands, I was thrilled to learn that Orwell relocated to the Hebrides, to the isle of Jura, around the time his wife dies. During the war he often longs for "my island in the Hebrides."
His last domestic journal describes the weather of Hebridean life quite well, lots of rain and mist and wind. Too bad he was in such ill health during that time of his life, because he was often locked in and writing.
Discussed on Episode 7 of the Reading Envy podcast.
This volume includes:
Hop-Picking Diary - August 25, 1931-March 25, 1936
The Road to Wigan Pier Diary - August 9, 1938, March 28, 1939
Domestic Diary Volume I (August 9, 1938- March 28, 1939) intercalated with
Morocco Diary - September 7, 1938 - March 28, 1939
Domestic Diary Volume II (May 27, 1939 - August 31, 1939) intercalated with
Diary of Events Leading Up to the War - July 2, 1939 - September 3, 1939
War-time Diary - May 28, 1940 - August 28, 1941
Second War-Time Diary - March 14, 1942 - November 15, 1942
The Jura Diaries - May 7, 1946 - May 10, 1948
Domestic Diary V - July 31, 1948 - December 24, 1948
Last Literary Notebook - March 21, 1949 - September 1949
From the dates in question, it should be no surprise that World War II would be central to the narrative. But Orwell also kept careful notes on his farming and egg gathering, filed away newspaper clippings with recipes and homemaking, and recorded conversations and controversies. Despite his domestic journals, emotions are not recorded. Deaths are not recognized, although he might mention he had traveled. The annotations added by the editor explain who the people are, why Orwell has traveled or missed a span of time, and that helped enormously.
I was most entertained by Orwell's experiences in the diaries before the war. He worked as a tramp, picking hops and doing other odd jobs, while doing research for some of his earlier writings, and his observational skills are clear. (There are also connections to his published works later that had seeds in the diaries.)
"George was a dismal devil, and took a sort of worm-like pride in being underfed and overworked, and always tobying from job to job. His line was, 'It doesn't do for people like us to have fine ideas.'"Orwell really drew me in with his vivid descriptions of the bleakest landscapes.
Sometimes he writes down songs her hears. One really stood out to me because of it's connection to both 1984 and We, which we know Orwell read before writing 1984. From The Road to Wigan Pier Diary:
"One good song, however, by and old woman, I think a cockney, who draws the old age pension and makes a bit by singing at pubs, with the refrain:
'For you can't do that there 'ere,
No, you can't do that there 'ere;
Anywhere else you can do that there,
But you can't do that there 'ere.'"
"Thick snow everywhere on the hills as I came along. Stone boundaries between the fields running across the snow like black piping across a white dress."Orwell was known, even back in 1940, as having a bit of the "sight." On the third of June, 1940, he even alludes to the 99%!:
And of people:
"From his refined accent, quiet voice, and apparent omniscience, I took him for a librarian."
"Apparently nothing will ever teach these people that the other 99% of the population exist." (in response to a letter Lady Oxford wrote to the Daily Telegraph)Other little bits that are clearly the man who wrote Animal Farm and 1984:
But then this moment on the 8th of June, 1940:
Where I feel that people like us understand the situation better than so-called experts is not in any power to foretell specific events, but in the power to grasp what kind of world we are living in. At any rate I have known since about 1931 that the future must be catastrophic. I could not say exactly what wars and revolutions would happen, but they never surprised me when they came... I could feel it in my belly...."
He also spends considerable time railing against advertising, particularly in a time of war:
"How much rubbish this war will sweep away... so much of the good of modern life is actually evil that it is questionable whether on balance war does harm."
"No one is patriotic about taxes."
"We are all drowning in filth. .. Everyone is dishonest, and everyone is utterly heartless towards people who are outside the immediate range of his own interests... Is there no one who has both firm opinions and a balanced outlook? Actually there are plenty, but they are powerless. All power is in the hands of paranoiacs."
"I am doing nothing that is not futility and have less and less to show for the waste. It seems to be the same with everyone - the most fearful feeling of frustration, of just footling round doing imbecile things, not imbecile because they are a part of the war and war is inherently foolish, but things which in fact don't help or in any way affect the war effort, but are considered necessary by the huge bureaucratic machine in which we are all caught up."
Because I am always looking for books on cold weather islands, I was thrilled to learn that Orwell relocated to the Hebrides, to the isle of Jura, around the time his wife dies. During the war he often longs for "my island in the Hebrides."
His last domestic journal describes the weather of Hebridean life quite well, lots of rain and mist and wind. Too bad he was in such ill health during that time of his life, because he was often locked in and writing.
Discussed on Episode 7 of the Reading Envy podcast.
August 4, 2015
George Orwell's diaries, which he kept fairly regularly throughout his adult life, are frequently more domestic than they are political. Several months can go by with page after page devoted to the domestic minutiae of stock-keeping and gardening (e.g., eggs laid, pints of goat milk taken, vegetables planted) on the small farmholdings he maintained in the late 1930s and after the war until his death. But interspersed with these details are his keen observations on the plight of poor labourers in interwar Britain, public opinion surrounding the outbreak of World War II, and criticisms of his wartime work at the BBC. Fans of Orwell's writing may struggle a bit to get through the day-to-day accounts of broody hens and turnip fly, but the reward is a much richer understanding of his all-too-short life.
February 19, 2020
"These diaries ... provide a refreshing insight into Orwell's character" the blurb says. Wow, he's dull, prudish and judgemental in a totally neutral way. I tried reading straight through, then dipping into various bits - & finally thought "Why read this? You can watch paint dry."
November 5, 2021
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انسان بسيط. لطيف. لا يفكر كثيرا قبل أن يمسك القلم ليكتب.. فتنساب من تحت يداه هذه الصفحات وهذه اليوميات التي لا يوجد شئ مشترك بينها يذكر سوى انها جميعا دونت بقلم "جورج اورويل"
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كثير منا في الصغر او في مرحلة ما من حياتنا امتلكنا دفتر ندون فيه يومياتنا ومواقف من حياتنا اليومية.. او مجرد فضفضة مع الذات عندما لا نجد حولنا من يجيد الاستماع. مهما كانت الأسباب.. فمن المؤكد ان لأرويل اسبابه الخاصة وراء كتاباته لهذا الكتاب.. وربما يكون فعلا بغرض تأريخ فترة حرجة عاصرها وهي التي تدور في فلكها يوميات هذا الكتاب: 1938- 1942 .. في صميم الحرب العالمية الثانية.
ولأننا على دراية بولع جورج اورويل بالمزج بين السياسة والتاريخ كما رأينا في رواية مزرعة الحيوان وروايته الاشهر "1948".. ف هذه اليوميات لا تختلف عنهم كثيرا.. ف في نصفها الثاني.. ستجد تحول صارخ بين ما كانت عليه اليوميات في البداية وما تحول لكتابته فجأة.
في النصف الاول نراه يحكي عن حالة الطقس! تنقلاته من مدينة لأخرى. كم بيضة باضت الدجاجة وكم سنتا كسب من بيعه للبيض 😂 كله كلام ربما تستغرب انه صادر من شخصية مثل اورويل. ولكن ربما كان مجرد ستارا او تمويه لما يخفيه في الصفحات الاخيرة من كلام. ف في الحرب كل ما هو ليس في صالحك ربما يتحول لعدوك فجأة.. واذا عرف ما يدون او اشتبه فيه وفي تأريخه للأحداث ربما لن يسلم! ف أظن أنه أخفى بالجانب الاجتماعي الجانب السياسي في كتاباته ليبقيها في أمان من افتراس الحرب لها ونتمكن بعد مرور عقود من الزمن على قراءتها والاستمتاع بها ❤
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الكتاب جميل.. أنصح به تحديدا من يحب القراءة في هذه الحقبة التاريخية ومن منظور اجتماعي أيضا لشخص عاصر الأحداث ويحكيها يوميا بتفاصيل كثيرة. الكتاب ترجمته جيدة جدا جدا وفيه ملحق صور لجرائد ووثائق تثبت ما يحكيه.
تقييمي له ⭐⭐⭐/5
انسان بسيط. لطيف. لا يفكر كثيرا قبل أن يمسك القلم ليكتب.. فتنساب من تحت يداه هذه الصفحات وهذه اليوميات التي لا يوجد شئ مشترك بينها يذكر سوى انها جميعا دونت بقلم "جورج اورويل"
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كثير منا في الصغر او في مرحلة ما من حياتنا امتلكنا دفتر ندون فيه يومياتنا ومواقف من حياتنا اليومية.. او مجرد فضفضة مع الذات عندما لا نجد حولنا من يجيد الاستماع. مهما كانت الأسباب.. فمن المؤكد ان لأرويل اسبابه الخاصة وراء كتاباته لهذا الكتاب.. وربما يكون فعلا بغرض تأريخ فترة حرجة عاصرها وهي التي تدور في فلكها يوميات هذا الكتاب: 1938- 1942 .. في صميم الحرب العالمية الثانية.
ولأننا على دراية بولع جورج اورويل بالمزج بين السياسة والتاريخ كما رأينا في رواية مزرعة الحيوان وروايته الاشهر "1948".. ف هذه اليوميات لا تختلف عنهم كثيرا.. ف في نصفها الثاني.. ستجد تحول صارخ بين ما كانت عليه اليوميات في البداية وما تحول لكتابته فجأة.
في النصف الاول نراه يحكي عن حالة الطقس! تنقلاته من مدينة لأخرى. كم بيضة باضت الدجاجة وكم سنتا كسب من بيعه للبيض 😂 كله كلام ربما تستغرب انه صادر من شخصية مثل اورويل. ولكن ربما كان مجرد ستارا او تمويه لما يخفيه في الصفحات الاخيرة من كلام. ف في الحرب كل ما هو ليس في صالحك ربما يتحول لعدوك فجأة.. واذا عرف ما يدون او اشتبه فيه وفي تأريخه للأحداث ربما لن يسلم! ف أظن أنه أخفى بالجانب الاجتماعي الجانب السياسي في كتاباته ليبقيها في أمان من افتراس الحرب لها ونتمكن بعد مرور عقود من الزمن على قراءتها والاستمتاع بها ❤
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الكتاب جميل.. أنصح به تحديدا من يحب القراءة في هذه الحقبة التاريخية ومن منظور اجتماعي أيضا لشخص عاصر الأحداث ويحكيها يوميا بتفاصيل كثيرة. الكتاب ترجمته جيدة جدا جدا وفيه ملحق صور لجرائد ووثائق تثبت ما يحكيه.
تقييمي له ⭐⭐⭐/5
September 20, 2025
معرفش بصراحة المفروض أصنف الكتاب دا أنه مقروء ولا لا، بس أظن 160 صفحة كفاية للحكم على نمط الكتاب العام..
في الواقع حاولت أغصب على نفسي كتير جدا أني أكمله، بس مذاكرة الLinguistische Studien -الدراسات اللغوية، ألماني- طلعت ممتعة أكتر بكتير..
هحاول من اللي قرأته أقيم بإنصاف..
مبدأيا كدا تصميم الغلاف بشع بجد، الصورة كأن أورويل 'حاطك في دماغه، وبيراقبك وهيراقبك'! 😠 وكمان محطوط على ظهر الكتاب علشان هيفضل يراقبك حتى بعد ما تكفي الكتاب على وشه.😂 رجاء من دار النشر: غيروا الغلاف، مش بعرف أنام والكتاب جنبي..
الترجمة لطيفة خالص بس بردو مش هيشفع له عندي، جهد ضائع للأسف.
احم.. نيجي للمهم، بما أني مغفلة وجبت الكتاب وفضلت أقرأ فيه بالغصب علشان مستحرمة فلوسه تروح في الأرض، فيا عزيزي لا تكن مغفلا مثلي، متشتريش الكتاب ده لو آخر كتاب في الدنيا حقيقي. الكتاب ممل بشكل مش طبيعي، ويا ريته ملل فيه فايدة، لا، دا ملل بلا هدف، كل صفحة: 'باضت الدجاجة اليوم بيضة واحدة فقط'😔، 'أزهار الأقحوان هنا لا تشبه الموجودة في موزبيق'، 'باضت الدجاجة بيضتين، إجمالي البيض هذا الأسبوع: 17'، 'الطقس بارد اليوم، هناك ريح شديدة'، 'لم نحصل على أي بيض اليوم'، 'نحن على متن السفينة x، إنها مكونة من ثلاثة طوابق، تتحمل حوالي 300 راكب، لكن ما عليها من ركاب لا يتخطى ال80، ربما بسبب الطقس.. لقد تعرفت على 3 إنجليز وفرنسيَيْن، وخمسة من الألمان..'، 'باضت الدجاجة بيضتين'، 'صحيفة y الفرنسية هنا تباع بكذا، إنها معارضة للحكومة و..' وهكذا بقى على طول ما قرأت من الكتاب.. (دا تقليد للأسلوب مش اقتباس مباشر، ما عدا باضت الدجاجة)
فين بقى الفكرة؟ الفكرة يا عزيزي أنه كنت متوقعة أورويل العظمة مش هيكتب يومياته زينا وهتبقى مليانة تأملات بقى وجمدان، لكن الجانب دا كان قليل جدا قصاد بيض الدجاج. لكن حتى غير كده أسلوب أورويل هنا حجري روبوتي سمج، على عكس مثلا جودي في صاحب الظل الطويل، كانت بتحكي تفاصيل تافهة كتير، لكن الأسلوب والروح المرحة اللي الكاتبة وضعتها فيها جعلت قراءتها شيئا ممتعا على نقيض يوميات أورويل.. بطبيعة الحال بردو فيه اختلاف جوهري بين الكتابين، بس ذكرت صاحب الظل الطويل لتوضيح فرق الأسلوب مش أكتر.
الخلاصة: الكتاب غير مناسب لقارئ بسيط زيي، يريد أن ينعم بأدب أورويل، زي مزرعة الحيوان و1984، ولكن قد يكون نافعًا لشخص متخصص أو باحث عايز يتتبع الصحف أو النباتات أو الحيوانات أو وصف أورويل للمجتمعات اللي كان فيها، أو بعض أحداث الحرب والسياسة.. وإن كانت كل التفاصيل دي بردو قليلة جدا جنب التفاصيل اللي ملهاش لازمة.
في الواقع حاولت أغصب على نفسي كتير جدا أني أكمله، بس مذاكرة الLinguistische Studien -الدراسات اللغوية، ألماني- طلعت ممتعة أكتر بكتير..
هحاول من اللي قرأته أقيم بإنصاف..
مبدأيا كدا تصميم الغلاف بشع بجد، الصورة كأن أورويل 'حاطك في دماغه، وبيراقبك وهيراقبك'! 😠 وكمان محطوط على ظهر الكتاب علشان هيفضل يراقبك حتى بعد ما تكفي الكتاب على وشه.😂 رجاء من دار النشر: غيروا الغلاف، مش بعرف أنام والكتاب جنبي..
الترجمة لطيفة خالص بس بردو مش هيشفع له عندي، جهد ضائع للأسف.
احم.. نيجي للمهم، بما أني مغفلة وجبت الكتاب وفضلت أقرأ فيه بالغصب علشان مستحرمة فلوسه تروح في الأرض، فيا عزيزي لا تكن مغفلا مثلي، متشتريش الكتاب ده لو آخر كتاب في الدنيا حقيقي. الكتاب ممل بشكل مش طبيعي، ويا ريته ملل فيه فايدة، لا، دا ملل بلا هدف، كل صفحة: 'باضت الدجاجة اليوم بيضة واحدة فقط'😔، 'أزهار الأقحوان هنا لا تشبه الموجودة في موزبيق'، 'باضت الدجاجة بيضتين، إجمالي البيض هذا الأسبوع: 17'، 'الطقس بارد اليوم، هناك ريح شديدة'، 'لم نحصل على أي بيض اليوم'، 'نحن على متن السفينة x، إنها مكونة من ثلاثة طوابق، تتحمل حوالي 300 راكب، لكن ما عليها من ركاب لا يتخطى ال80، ربما بسبب الطقس.. لقد تعرفت على 3 إنجليز وفرنسيَيْن، وخمسة من الألمان..'، 'باضت الدجاجة بيضتين'، 'صحيفة y الفرنسية هنا تباع بكذا، إنها معارضة للحكومة و..' وهكذا بقى على طول ما قرأت من الكتاب.. (دا تقليد للأسلوب مش اقتباس مباشر، ما عدا باضت الدجاجة)
فين بقى الفكرة؟ الفكرة يا عزيزي أنه كنت متوقعة أورويل العظمة مش هيكتب يومياته زينا وهتبقى مليانة تأملات بقى وجمدان، لكن الجانب دا كان قليل جدا قصاد بيض الدجاج. لكن حتى غير كده أسلوب أورويل هنا حجري روبوتي سمج، على عكس مثلا جودي في صاحب الظل الطويل، كانت بتحكي تفاصيل تافهة كتير، لكن الأسلوب والروح المرحة اللي الكاتبة وضعتها فيها جعلت قراءتها شيئا ممتعا على نقيض يوميات أورويل.. بطبيعة الحال بردو فيه اختلاف جوهري بين الكتابين، بس ذكرت صاحب الظل الطويل لتوضيح فرق الأسلوب مش أكتر.
الخلاصة: الكتاب غير مناسب لقارئ بسيط زيي، يريد أن ينعم بأدب أورويل، زي مزرعة الحيوان و1984، ولكن قد يكون نافعًا لشخص متخصص أو باحث عايز يتتبع الصحف أو النباتات أو الحيوانات أو وصف أورويل للمجتمعات اللي كان فيها، أو بعض أحداث الحرب والسياسة.. وإن كانت كل التفاصيل دي بردو قليلة جدا جنب التفاصيل اللي ملهاش لازمة.
September 16, 2017
Four stars for the wartime diaries, the Moroccan diary, and the Wigan Pier and hop-picking diaries, but two for the domestic diaries. There are some interesting nature observations in there, but I can really only read entries about how many pints of milk the goat gave and how many eggs the chickens laid before my eyes start to cross.
July 20, 2019
هذا الكتاب عبارة عن يوميات وليس مذكرات للكاتب الكبير جورج اورويل اهم مافي هذه اليوميات مايتعلق باقامته لفترة في المغرب وملحوظاته ومشاهداته هناك والاهم يومياته عن الحرب العالمية الثانية حيث نقرأ في هذه اليوميات ارتفاع وانخفاض المعنويات في الحرب وتقييمه لاداء حكومته في الحرب ومشاهداته عن ردود الافعال من الناس حول القصف المتواصل من المانيا على مدينة لندن
April 9, 2022
مذكرات جورج اوريل الغير مخصصة للنشر أصلا
May 25, 2023
Well, this contains diary entries written during most if his literary career, and is indeed often the actual base material for his books, especially Wigan Peer, Clergyman’s Daughter, etc.
The books to these of his experiences are for sure more „fun“ to read most of the time, since they are more on point. But to get a better idea about where Orwells ideas came from, and how he thought over many other things, this book was very interesting.
I liked many parts of it, and his diaries especially around the second world war were just very interesting! Not just because of him, but also because he writes down so many of his observations. Hence I learned a lot about how people during these times lived, and how e.g. they thought and reacted in London to the air raids, propaganda, and all such things, which was neither an important part of my history lessons in school, nor is it often discussed in other media I see.
However, when I re-read this book in the future I will probably skip the parts were he describes his garden work and how many eggs his chickens produced and such, since these entries are maybe somewhat helpful to see how much he is actually into nature and gardening, but then again also rather less interesting once one knows this, all things considered.
The books to these of his experiences are for sure more „fun“ to read most of the time, since they are more on point. But to get a better idea about where Orwells ideas came from, and how he thought over many other things, this book was very interesting.
I liked many parts of it, and his diaries especially around the second world war were just very interesting! Not just because of him, but also because he writes down so many of his observations. Hence I learned a lot about how people during these times lived, and how e.g. they thought and reacted in London to the air raids, propaganda, and all such things, which was neither an important part of my history lessons in school, nor is it often discussed in other media I see.
However, when I re-read this book in the future I will probably skip the parts were he describes his garden work and how many eggs his chickens produced and such, since these entries are maybe somewhat helpful to see how much he is actually into nature and gardening, but then again also rather less interesting once one knows this, all things considered.
September 27, 2012
As an Orwell aficionado, I believe that there are 6 layers of Orwell's writing (from most well-known to least):
1. 1984 and Animal Farm (Standard reading in American public education)
2. Politics and the English Language, Why I Write, Shooting an Elephant (Famous essays)
3. Homage to Catalonia, Down and Out in Paris and London (Relatively famous personal books)
4. Such, Such Were the Joys, The Lion and the Unicorn (Less famous essays)
5. Coming Up for Air, Burmese Days (Early and less famous novels)
6. Diaries
The war diaries are incredible and some of his side observations, including perhaps the first usage of "The other 99 percent" are the sort of high-powered statements of truth that made Orwell the most influential political writer of the 20th century. However, his domestic diaries are so mundane and dull that it detracts from the overall power of this collection.
1. 1984 and Animal Farm (Standard reading in American public education)
2. Politics and the English Language, Why I Write, Shooting an Elephant (Famous essays)
3. Homage to Catalonia, Down and Out in Paris and London (Relatively famous personal books)
4. Such, Such Were the Joys, The Lion and the Unicorn (Less famous essays)
5. Coming Up for Air, Burmese Days (Early and less famous novels)
6. Diaries
The war diaries are incredible and some of his side observations, including perhaps the first usage of "The other 99 percent" are the sort of high-powered statements of truth that made Orwell the most influential political writer of the 20th century. However, his domestic diaries are so mundane and dull that it detracts from the overall power of this collection.
August 31, 2010
Clearly the diaries don't match the best of Orwell's essays and novels. But they do offer a fascinating insight into the man, who was far more practical than most intellectuals.
April 27, 2016
You should never meet your heroes and maybe you shouldn't read their diaries either. On one hand it’s fascinating to read the diaries behind The Road To Wigan Pier, Down And Out in Paris And London, and The Clergyman's Daughter (but not the background to Homage to Catalonia as that diary was confiscated by the communists and is now in Russia) – it's a bit like reading Christopher And His Kind after Goodbye to Berlin – but I can't help being shocked by Orwell's rude remarks about Jews, women, and the working class. Much is said about women's inability to understand politics*, which surprised me as Orwell was a key analyser, an excellent thinker, a man with a supreme ability to cut through cant, propaganda, and bullshit, so why not grasp that low expectations of women, poor education (In Coming Up For Air, he mentions how in a middle class family, the son would be sent to public school but his sister wouldn't), lack of role models, focus on motherhood and domestic life would make women less interested in world politics.
* “It is not much use to try and form a union as about half the pickers are women and gypsies and are too stupid to see the advantage of it.”
“A sheep like crowd – gaping girls and shapeless middle aged women dozing over their knitting”
“I was surprised by Mrs S's grasp of the economic situation and also abstract ideas.”
“Mrs M as usual does not understand much about politics, but has adopted her husband's views as a wife ought to”.
“What is bad about Jews is that they are not only conspicuous but go out of their way to make themselves so.”
“In practice, the majority of Indians are inferior to Europeans.”
He also complains that a trades union worker living in a corporation house with indoor bath has become bourgeois and was shocked that Orwell had slept in a common lodging house (hostel). Orwell doesn't grasp (at this point) that the working class has many strata. He hates the north and the Midlands: Wolverhampton is “frightful”, Wigan “monstrous” and Sheffield fares no better with “appalling”.
Yet later on he rails against the sexism that ensures a woman does all the housework even when she has a job and the man is unemployed, and when attending a Mosely meeting, Orwell writes: “[Moseley's] speech was the usual claptrap; down with the Jew and foreigner...the blame for everything was put upon mysterious international gang of Jews....It struck me as how easy it is to bamboozle and uneducated audience....Moseley replied “all my money is invested in England,” and I suppose comparatively few of the audience realised that this means nothing.”
This seemed strangely familiar. Swap Jew for Muslim and you've got Trump or his pale imitator, Farage. Moreover, when reporting on a miner blinded by coal dust and on benefits, Orwell writes that the coal board is trying to cut his benefits by half if he passes a fit to work test. Sounds familiar, hey.
There is a lot of plus ca change…. In July '39, Orwell mentions that a bill to deal with the IRA provides for power to prohibit entry of aliens, deportation of aliens, and compulsory registration of aliens and emergency power to superintendents of police to search without warrant. Change IRA to ISIS and it's much the same – and the IRA weren't dealt with for another 60 years. Also in this time, right up to mid-August 1939, with war not so much looming as circling, the Independent Labour Party and the main Labour party were still arguing about unconditional or conditional affiliation.
In amongst the backdrops to books are Orwell's domestic diaries. which are somewhat quotidian, featuring, as they do details about poultry and vegetables. Entries from November 1938:
13/11/38 One egg
19/11/38 Two eggs
21/11/38 Two eggs
22/11/38 One egg
Then again, it's interesting to read about a male writer's domestic sphere. Even in Wigan, Orwell was noting down recipes for fruit-loaf and Victoria sponge and he is obsessed with the wearing of clogs, who does, who doesn't. I didn’t realise that the northern cliché of clogs and shawl was because the clogs lasted forever and the women couldn’t afford hats. And unlike other middle class socialists of the time, Orwell was prepared to put his body where his mouth was: living in slum conditions, sleeping rough, and going to revolutionary Spain and being shot in the throat, which led to his early demise.
At times he reads like Adrian Mole (“I notice that the Manchester Guardian hasn’t printed my letter”) and even Pooterish (there are many seemingly trivial details – the length and breadth of a ship he takes, income spent on tobacco p.w. etc). He is always observing. He and his wife go to Morocco to recuperate after being in Spain, but instead of sight-seeing, he takes notes: which areas of Morocco use donkeys for transportation, which use camels, the tools used by Jewish and Muslim carpenters, the flora and fauna, servants’ wages, the various newspapers (pro- or anti-Franco; part of Morocco was “owned” by Spain at this point), the cost of a pint of milk (6d) etc etc.
At other times, Orwell sounds like a Cif Commentator: “Since 1934 I have known war between England and Germany was coming and since 1936 I have known it with complete certainty.” Saying this, he seems convinced that a) Germany will invade Britain and b) that after the war, everything he doesn't like (adverts for luxury goods) will be “swept away”. You can imagine that had he lived that long, Orwell would have been annoyed when rationing ended. To be fair to him, he had lived through a time when consumer goods and the advertising trade had increased exponentially, and because he wanted a simple life, counting his eggs and milking his goats, he expected everyone to do without “chocolate and silk stockings”. Then he sounds like Farage: “The refugees make use of England as a sanctuary but they can’t help feeling the profoundest contempt for it. You can see this in their eyes even when they don't say it outright.”
In more plus ca change news, he notes that Lady Asquith had written a letter to the Telegraph complaining that most people have had to part with their cooks and live in hotels. Orwell comments: “Apparently nothing will ever teach these people that the other 99% of the population exists.” but at the same time he's pretty disparaging about ordinary folks, saying that “they will grasp nothing until bombs start falling.” He also maintains that “the people in inner London could do with one real raid to teach them how to behave.” You expect him to write: Wake up sheeple! Earlier on he says “good if true” regarding a woman who left London for the Outer Hebrides only to be killed in an RAF bombing mistake.
His assertion that the average person on the street was not interested in the war is quite interesting: films and novels about that time portray people doing nothing but talking of the war. He says that the leftist intelligentsia are completely defeatist, only wanting a quick surrender to Hitler. But he may have rejected his bourgeois upbringing but he's still got that middle class confidence. As well as predicting war, he states that “People like us understand the situation better than so called experts” and a footnote asserts that he once said that if he “could become Nye Bevan's “eminence grise”, we'd soon have this country on its feet”.
Although he does predict that blitz will become a verb, he is wrong about many other things, for instance he claims that “[the war] is manifestly developing into a revolutionary war”. Hardly, Georgie. He misunderstands that when peace came, people wanted to get back to normal, not go through a revolution or a civil war. When he doesn't agree with their tactics or war manoeuvres, he wonders if people in the government are actually traitors – you can’t blame him for this after witnessing the communists betraying their socialist and anarchist allies in the Spanish civil war, leading Franco to win, but it seems overly paranoid to think Churchill et al were fighting for the Nazis.
He contradicts himself: a year before Germany invaded the USSR, he predict that Russia will ally with England (Britain), but a week before Russia declares war on the Nazis, he's still avowing that
“Stalin will not go to war with Germany if there is any way short of suicide of avoiding it”. He also insists that: “The plan of Churchill and co is to give everything away and then win it all back with American aeroplanes and rives of blood. Of course they can't succeed.” – except they did. It's easy to mock with hindsight (and a GCSE in history) but it's Orwell's absolute belief that he is right and his impatience with and derision for everyone else's military strategy and opinions that rankles.
Later on, he writes: “Scruples about attacking neutrals are merely the sign of a subconscious desire to fail. People don't have scruples when they are fighting for a cause they believe in.” – but doesn't not having scruples make you as bad as the people you're fighting against?
We see his hypocrisy, not something you associate with Orwell, when he claims that everyone has an axe to grind, giving the examples of Indians only caring about independence, not fighting fascism, or the English pacifist being upset about the British internment camps on the Isle of Man but not about the Nazi concentration camps. But a few pages later, he says that it would be a disaster if the allies won the war at this point (1942) “because there would have been no real upheaval and the American millionaires would still be in situ”. Then he goes onto report the Nazis razing to the ground a village that harboured a group of assassins. He also states that England (sic) needs to invade neutral Spain – he has his hobbyhorse, the same as anyone else.
But he does have a point when he complains that the previously anti-communist Beaverbrook papers are now pro-Russian and the pinko pacifists are now gung-ho. The left had to get behind Churchill and forget his previous crimes against miners, suffragettes, anarchists etc to fight the Nazis, and the right behind the British alliance with communist Russia. British communists themselves had to swallow the Russo-German pact. This changing of face must have influenced 1984 – we have always been at war with Eastasia.
He is also funny, especially when he’s being mean about other people, to wit: “He said that in Cornwall in case of invasion, the home guard have orders to shoot all artists, I said that in Cornwall that would be for the best.”
“Atlee reminds me of nothing so much as a dead fish, before it has had time to stiffen.”
The footnotes are excellent, explaining semi-forgotten people from history (Ernst Thaelman,
Buenaventura Durutti, Ellen Wilkinson, Subhas Chandra Bose, Battling Siki, the improbably named Admiral Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurley Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax) and translating money into today's prices – the aforementioned family on benefits, along with a 15 year old miner, plus lodger and mother were living on £150 a week in today's money.
His diary doesn't mention the incoming Labour government or the setting up of the NHS or the post-war social contract, but at any rate, he eschews the free hospital for a private sanatorium for his dying days, noting in his diary the routines and the costs. Which pretty much sums him up.
* “It is not much use to try and form a union as about half the pickers are women and gypsies and are too stupid to see the advantage of it.”
“A sheep like crowd – gaping girls and shapeless middle aged women dozing over their knitting”
“I was surprised by Mrs S's grasp of the economic situation and also abstract ideas.”
“Mrs M as usual does not understand much about politics, but has adopted her husband's views as a wife ought to”.
“What is bad about Jews is that they are not only conspicuous but go out of their way to make themselves so.”
“In practice, the majority of Indians are inferior to Europeans.”
He also complains that a trades union worker living in a corporation house with indoor bath has become bourgeois and was shocked that Orwell had slept in a common lodging house (hostel). Orwell doesn't grasp (at this point) that the working class has many strata. He hates the north and the Midlands: Wolverhampton is “frightful”, Wigan “monstrous” and Sheffield fares no better with “appalling”.
Yet later on he rails against the sexism that ensures a woman does all the housework even when she has a job and the man is unemployed, and when attending a Mosely meeting, Orwell writes: “[Moseley's] speech was the usual claptrap; down with the Jew and foreigner...the blame for everything was put upon mysterious international gang of Jews....It struck me as how easy it is to bamboozle and uneducated audience....Moseley replied “all my money is invested in England,” and I suppose comparatively few of the audience realised that this means nothing.”
This seemed strangely familiar. Swap Jew for Muslim and you've got Trump or his pale imitator, Farage. Moreover, when reporting on a miner blinded by coal dust and on benefits, Orwell writes that the coal board is trying to cut his benefits by half if he passes a fit to work test. Sounds familiar, hey.
There is a lot of plus ca change…. In July '39, Orwell mentions that a bill to deal with the IRA provides for power to prohibit entry of aliens, deportation of aliens, and compulsory registration of aliens and emergency power to superintendents of police to search without warrant. Change IRA to ISIS and it's much the same – and the IRA weren't dealt with for another 60 years. Also in this time, right up to mid-August 1939, with war not so much looming as circling, the Independent Labour Party and the main Labour party were still arguing about unconditional or conditional affiliation.
In amongst the backdrops to books are Orwell's domestic diaries. which are somewhat quotidian, featuring, as they do details about poultry and vegetables. Entries from November 1938:
13/11/38 One egg
19/11/38 Two eggs
21/11/38 Two eggs
22/11/38 One egg
Then again, it's interesting to read about a male writer's domestic sphere. Even in Wigan, Orwell was noting down recipes for fruit-loaf and Victoria sponge and he is obsessed with the wearing of clogs, who does, who doesn't. I didn’t realise that the northern cliché of clogs and shawl was because the clogs lasted forever and the women couldn’t afford hats. And unlike other middle class socialists of the time, Orwell was prepared to put his body where his mouth was: living in slum conditions, sleeping rough, and going to revolutionary Spain and being shot in the throat, which led to his early demise.
At times he reads like Adrian Mole (“I notice that the Manchester Guardian hasn’t printed my letter”) and even Pooterish (there are many seemingly trivial details – the length and breadth of a ship he takes, income spent on tobacco p.w. etc). He is always observing. He and his wife go to Morocco to recuperate after being in Spain, but instead of sight-seeing, he takes notes: which areas of Morocco use donkeys for transportation, which use camels, the tools used by Jewish and Muslim carpenters, the flora and fauna, servants’ wages, the various newspapers (pro- or anti-Franco; part of Morocco was “owned” by Spain at this point), the cost of a pint of milk (6d) etc etc.
At other times, Orwell sounds like a Cif Commentator: “Since 1934 I have known war between England and Germany was coming and since 1936 I have known it with complete certainty.” Saying this, he seems convinced that a) Germany will invade Britain and b) that after the war, everything he doesn't like (adverts for luxury goods) will be “swept away”. You can imagine that had he lived that long, Orwell would have been annoyed when rationing ended. To be fair to him, he had lived through a time when consumer goods and the advertising trade had increased exponentially, and because he wanted a simple life, counting his eggs and milking his goats, he expected everyone to do without “chocolate and silk stockings”. Then he sounds like Farage: “The refugees make use of England as a sanctuary but they can’t help feeling the profoundest contempt for it. You can see this in their eyes even when they don't say it outright.”
In more plus ca change news, he notes that Lady Asquith had written a letter to the Telegraph complaining that most people have had to part with their cooks and live in hotels. Orwell comments: “Apparently nothing will ever teach these people that the other 99% of the population exists.” but at the same time he's pretty disparaging about ordinary folks, saying that “they will grasp nothing until bombs start falling.” He also maintains that “the people in inner London could do with one real raid to teach them how to behave.” You expect him to write: Wake up sheeple! Earlier on he says “good if true” regarding a woman who left London for the Outer Hebrides only to be killed in an RAF bombing mistake.
His assertion that the average person on the street was not interested in the war is quite interesting: films and novels about that time portray people doing nothing but talking of the war. He says that the leftist intelligentsia are completely defeatist, only wanting a quick surrender to Hitler. But he may have rejected his bourgeois upbringing but he's still got that middle class confidence. As well as predicting war, he states that “People like us understand the situation better than so called experts” and a footnote asserts that he once said that if he “could become Nye Bevan's “eminence grise”, we'd soon have this country on its feet”.
Although he does predict that blitz will become a verb, he is wrong about many other things, for instance he claims that “[the war] is manifestly developing into a revolutionary war”. Hardly, Georgie. He misunderstands that when peace came, people wanted to get back to normal, not go through a revolution or a civil war. When he doesn't agree with their tactics or war manoeuvres, he wonders if people in the government are actually traitors – you can’t blame him for this after witnessing the communists betraying their socialist and anarchist allies in the Spanish civil war, leading Franco to win, but it seems overly paranoid to think Churchill et al were fighting for the Nazis.
He contradicts himself: a year before Germany invaded the USSR, he predict that Russia will ally with England (Britain), but a week before Russia declares war on the Nazis, he's still avowing that
“Stalin will not go to war with Germany if there is any way short of suicide of avoiding it”. He also insists that: “The plan of Churchill and co is to give everything away and then win it all back with American aeroplanes and rives of blood. Of course they can't succeed.” – except they did. It's easy to mock with hindsight (and a GCSE in history) but it's Orwell's absolute belief that he is right and his impatience with and derision for everyone else's military strategy and opinions that rankles.
Later on, he writes: “Scruples about attacking neutrals are merely the sign of a subconscious desire to fail. People don't have scruples when they are fighting for a cause they believe in.” – but doesn't not having scruples make you as bad as the people you're fighting against?
We see his hypocrisy, not something you associate with Orwell, when he claims that everyone has an axe to grind, giving the examples of Indians only caring about independence, not fighting fascism, or the English pacifist being upset about the British internment camps on the Isle of Man but not about the Nazi concentration camps. But a few pages later, he says that it would be a disaster if the allies won the war at this point (1942) “because there would have been no real upheaval and the American millionaires would still be in situ”. Then he goes onto report the Nazis razing to the ground a village that harboured a group of assassins. He also states that England (sic) needs to invade neutral Spain – he has his hobbyhorse, the same as anyone else.
But he does have a point when he complains that the previously anti-communist Beaverbrook papers are now pro-Russian and the pinko pacifists are now gung-ho. The left had to get behind Churchill and forget his previous crimes against miners, suffragettes, anarchists etc to fight the Nazis, and the right behind the British alliance with communist Russia. British communists themselves had to swallow the Russo-German pact. This changing of face must have influenced 1984 – we have always been at war with Eastasia.
He is also funny, especially when he’s being mean about other people, to wit: “He said that in Cornwall in case of invasion, the home guard have orders to shoot all artists, I said that in Cornwall that would be for the best.”
“Atlee reminds me of nothing so much as a dead fish, before it has had time to stiffen.”
The footnotes are excellent, explaining semi-forgotten people from history (Ernst Thaelman,
Buenaventura Durutti, Ellen Wilkinson, Subhas Chandra Bose, Battling Siki, the improbably named Admiral Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurley Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax) and translating money into today's prices – the aforementioned family on benefits, along with a 15 year old miner, plus lodger and mother were living on £150 a week in today's money.
His diary doesn't mention the incoming Labour government or the setting up of the NHS or the post-war social contract, but at any rate, he eschews the free hospital for a private sanatorium for his dying days, noting in his diary the routines and the costs. Which pretty much sums him up.
Want to read
August 24, 2012MINE MINE MINE PREEECIOUS. ahem! Um, I mean, these arrived today.
September 29, 2023
I am immediately biased in writing this review, because I think Orwell is amazing, and nothing of what you could say is going to change that.
Legit in the third or fourth entry, Orwell and his friends are stealing random stuff from the market. Safe to say this guy had an interesting life. He has some amazing takes on WWII and even his grocery lists are kinda interesting.
I loved getting to read his thought process behind some of the greatest dystopian novels to ever be read. He’s just so full of ideas that never even made it to paper, which is really inspiring and exciting to read about.
I now know how to make an array of different meals, which is also good in case I get stuck in an apartment in the 1940s.
Legit in the third or fourth entry, Orwell and his friends are stealing random stuff from the market. Safe to say this guy had an interesting life. He has some amazing takes on WWII and even his grocery lists are kinda interesting.
I loved getting to read his thought process behind some of the greatest dystopian novels to ever be read. He’s just so full of ideas that never even made it to paper, which is really inspiring and exciting to read about.
I now know how to make an array of different meals, which is also good in case I get stuck in an apartment in the 1940s.
abandoned-dnf
May 13, 2021DNF.
I think it's time to call this a DNF so it will stop mocking me from my "currently reading list." If I haven't gotten any farther than this in nearly five months and keep setting it aside in favor of other books, it's obvious it's not working for me. Maybe it's just a case of "wrong book, wrong year."
I think it's time to call this a DNF so it will stop mocking me from my "currently reading list." If I haven't gotten any farther than this in nearly five months and keep setting it aside in favor of other books, it's obvious it's not working for me. Maybe it's just a case of "wrong book, wrong year."
Read
January 22, 2023As with everything that does not give us joy, we must put it down. I didn’t want to become pretentious and read most of his works but this just doesn’t cut it for me. As with one review here, I’d rather watch paint dry. Maybe in another time? Or in another life? Tetelstai
November 17, 2013
Orwell is one of those authors as we all know who creates strong reactions in many of his readers, either for or against.
Unfortunately many of those who write about him, including some of the more superficial biographers, respond to him from a political point of view as if that summed up the whole man; he tends to be lauded or attacked as a person & a writer from the very narrow perspective of a superficial perception of what his political views are supposed to have been. It’s the equivelant to me of giving an overall portrait of someone on the basis of once catching a quick view of them through a partially opened door. Thus he is attacked from the right for being communist, or from the orthodox left for failing to uphold their perceived party line.
His works tend to be claimed by one side or another as attacks on their perceived opponents. Hence 1984 has been claimed by the right as an attack on communist regimes, and by the left as an attack on facism. He has therefore not been valued sufficiently for the clarity of his much more generalized analysis of misuse of power and political systems.
These diaries provided an excellent corrective insight into Orwell as a man, giving a much more holistic view of him. I’m not even going to attempt to look in detail at the man revealed through these diaries, but only highlight as bullet points some aspects of him which stood out:
- Orwell was a man with little poetry in his soul, which largely backs up the impression given by his novels & other published work. His accounts of his doings are marked by their factual utility style.
- There is an inclination towards scientific style of observation of what is going on around him, whether it be in terms of his observations about his garden, his horticultural efforts, or political and wartime situations.
- There is a love of natural history & environment that is not entirely absent, but is far less apparent in his published writings. This interest is expressed however, very much in terms of list-making of what plants & birds he observes, or what the weather was like day-to-day. His knowledge of wild birds and plants was fairly rudimentary.
- The intensely practical nature of the man, in terms of the amount of space he devotes to his solutions to practical issues e.g. construction of fencing or hen houses, which crops to grow and when to plant, how long drums of petrol or gas cylinders will last.
- The sheer physical hard work he put in on a daily basis in his garden/small holdings – even when he was dogged by ill-health on Jura due to his TB. This is made all the more remarkable when set alongside the fact that he was also writing as well, most notably “1984”.
- Orwell is often accused of a swiftian distaste for the human race & with intense pessimism. Certainly in the diaries there are strong dismissals of whole groups of people including entire nationalities or political groups. However, this is balanced by a much more generous response to people as individuals – even those with whom he disagreed. His pessimism is related to general trends and the big political & social processes, rather than towards individuals & the small scale. Not surprising that he tended towards anarchism rather than communism.
- There is in Orwell a distate, in fact more than a distaste, rather a revulsion related to some of the messier aspects of human life, and to bodily functions in the wider sense.
All-in-all I came out with a more rounded and sympathetic view of the man, than many reviews, essays & biographies would suggest.
One of the huge strengths of this volume was the editing by Peter Davison. From his wonderful work on the complete works, he has been able to carry intense knowledge of his subject into this book. The notes were always helpful & relevant, never superfluous. Their inclusion beside the text to which they referred made for great ease in using them. I loath books that place the “footnotes” at the back. His brief introductions to each section of the diaries were excellent & linked the very varied volumes of diaries into a coherent whole.
Unfortunately many of those who write about him, including some of the more superficial biographers, respond to him from a political point of view as if that summed up the whole man; he tends to be lauded or attacked as a person & a writer from the very narrow perspective of a superficial perception of what his political views are supposed to have been. It’s the equivelant to me of giving an overall portrait of someone on the basis of once catching a quick view of them through a partially opened door. Thus he is attacked from the right for being communist, or from the orthodox left for failing to uphold their perceived party line.
His works tend to be claimed by one side or another as attacks on their perceived opponents. Hence 1984 has been claimed by the right as an attack on communist regimes, and by the left as an attack on facism. He has therefore not been valued sufficiently for the clarity of his much more generalized analysis of misuse of power and political systems.
These diaries provided an excellent corrective insight into Orwell as a man, giving a much more holistic view of him. I’m not even going to attempt to look in detail at the man revealed through these diaries, but only highlight as bullet points some aspects of him which stood out:
- Orwell was a man with little poetry in his soul, which largely backs up the impression given by his novels & other published work. His accounts of his doings are marked by their factual utility style.
- There is an inclination towards scientific style of observation of what is going on around him, whether it be in terms of his observations about his garden, his horticultural efforts, or political and wartime situations.
- There is a love of natural history & environment that is not entirely absent, but is far less apparent in his published writings. This interest is expressed however, very much in terms of list-making of what plants & birds he observes, or what the weather was like day-to-day. His knowledge of wild birds and plants was fairly rudimentary.
- The intensely practical nature of the man, in terms of the amount of space he devotes to his solutions to practical issues e.g. construction of fencing or hen houses, which crops to grow and when to plant, how long drums of petrol or gas cylinders will last.
- The sheer physical hard work he put in on a daily basis in his garden/small holdings – even when he was dogged by ill-health on Jura due to his TB. This is made all the more remarkable when set alongside the fact that he was also writing as well, most notably “1984”.
- Orwell is often accused of a swiftian distaste for the human race & with intense pessimism. Certainly in the diaries there are strong dismissals of whole groups of people including entire nationalities or political groups. However, this is balanced by a much more generous response to people as individuals – even those with whom he disagreed. His pessimism is related to general trends and the big political & social processes, rather than towards individuals & the small scale. Not surprising that he tended towards anarchism rather than communism.
- There is in Orwell a distate, in fact more than a distaste, rather a revulsion related to some of the messier aspects of human life, and to bodily functions in the wider sense.
All-in-all I came out with a more rounded and sympathetic view of the man, than many reviews, essays & biographies would suggest.
One of the huge strengths of this volume was the editing by Peter Davison. From his wonderful work on the complete works, he has been able to carry intense knowledge of his subject into this book. The notes were always helpful & relevant, never superfluous. Their inclusion beside the text to which they referred made for great ease in using them. I loath books that place the “footnotes” at the back. His brief introductions to each section of the diaries were excellent & linked the very varied volumes of diaries into a coherent whole.
April 7, 2021
جزء كبير جدا فيها يومياته المنزلية اللي بيتكلم فيها عن زراعته للنباتات والصيد وأخبار الطقس وحيواناته لكن الجزء الاهم بالنسبة لي كان يوميات الحرب .
كان ممل جدا تتبع اليوميات المنزلية
كان ممل جدا تتبع اليوميات المنزلية
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 13, 2017
This was a book that started out very interesting, then became stupendously boring, and then became amazingly interesting, and then become stupendously boring yet again. I am a big fan of Orwell, and I bought this book to learn more about his thoughts during WW2, when in London during the Blitz. That is the best bit of the book, and is full of some extremely memorable, really brilliant - even poetic language. Such as:
p. 285
The unspeakable depression of lighting the fires every morning with papers of a year ago, and getting glimpses of optimistic headlines as they go up in smoke.
p. 287
Characteristic war-time sound, in winter: the musical tinkle of rain-drops on your tin hat.
And in observations of people's reactions to the blitz you can see the germs of Nineteen Eighty-Four taking shape. At times when reading this book I was given the very real impression that that novel is not just his final novel, but the summation of his entire life experiences. If anything this book gave me a richer appreciation for that great novel.
Other details in this book are merely interesting, such as when he copies entire pages from his diaries into his books, like a huge section on page 38 of the present volume which is the first page of 'Road to Wigan Pier'. Also, on page 35 we see a woman sticking a stick up a drain pipe to clear it that is (with minor differences) a scene from the same, 'Road to Wigan Pier'. The differences between the actual experience and the portrayal later are also interesting for looking at how Orwell mythologised his experiences in his 'journalism' books, that now I know to be at least partly fictional, or at the very least fictional in structure. I don't remember where Orwell says he saw this girl in Road to Wigan Pier, but the scene in that book has him on a train speeding away from people he met in reality a little earlier to go down the mine - where in reality he walked past this girl in Wigan itself, and got a much more sustained eye-contact look.
The Soviet Union confiscated his diaries from the Spanish Civil War, and it would be VERY interesting to see how his later narration equates with his actual, lived experience.
The other bit in this book that was very interesting (and also the most artificially poetically written, sounding at times almost like Steinbeck or something) was when Orwell was tramping around London with the down-and-outs. That bit was very striking, and it's interesting to see how his attitudes and politics emerged through his life with people unlike him. He was middle class, and everyone around him knew it.
Those are very good bits, and for those alone I would say this book is worth getting. However, that is half of this book. The other half can honestly be summed up with 'Rained today, stayed inside. 5 eggs'. Entries like this go on for, all together, about 200 pages.
I'm only being slightly unfair, Orwell had a great appreciation of the natural world and the country side, and there are a lot of nature-loving details that could please any want-to-be pastoral poet. But man, Orwell when he wasn't being political or commenting on society was just so boring!
p. 285
The unspeakable depression of lighting the fires every morning with papers of a year ago, and getting glimpses of optimistic headlines as they go up in smoke.
p. 287
Characteristic war-time sound, in winter: the musical tinkle of rain-drops on your tin hat.
And in observations of people's reactions to the blitz you can see the germs of Nineteen Eighty-Four taking shape. At times when reading this book I was given the very real impression that that novel is not just his final novel, but the summation of his entire life experiences. If anything this book gave me a richer appreciation for that great novel.
Other details in this book are merely interesting, such as when he copies entire pages from his diaries into his books, like a huge section on page 38 of the present volume which is the first page of 'Road to Wigan Pier'. Also, on page 35 we see a woman sticking a stick up a drain pipe to clear it that is (with minor differences) a scene from the same, 'Road to Wigan Pier'. The differences between the actual experience and the portrayal later are also interesting for looking at how Orwell mythologised his experiences in his 'journalism' books, that now I know to be at least partly fictional, or at the very least fictional in structure. I don't remember where Orwell says he saw this girl in Road to Wigan Pier, but the scene in that book has him on a train speeding away from people he met in reality a little earlier to go down the mine - where in reality he walked past this girl in Wigan itself, and got a much more sustained eye-contact look.
The Soviet Union confiscated his diaries from the Spanish Civil War, and it would be VERY interesting to see how his later narration equates with his actual, lived experience.
The other bit in this book that was very interesting (and also the most artificially poetically written, sounding at times almost like Steinbeck or something) was when Orwell was tramping around London with the down-and-outs. That bit was very striking, and it's interesting to see how his attitudes and politics emerged through his life with people unlike him. He was middle class, and everyone around him knew it.
Those are very good bits, and for those alone I would say this book is worth getting. However, that is half of this book. The other half can honestly be summed up with 'Rained today, stayed inside. 5 eggs'. Entries like this go on for, all together, about 200 pages.
I'm only being slightly unfair, Orwell had a great appreciation of the natural world and the country side, and there are a lot of nature-loving details that could please any want-to-be pastoral poet. But man, Orwell when he wasn't being political or commenting on society was just so boring!
July 28, 2011
This starts well with an account of Orwell slumming it with Kentish hop-pickers, albeit that much of the material was reproduced in A Clergyman's Daughter and elsewhere. Then follow various diaries which largely repeat world events (albeit epochal ones) with relatively little comment, and endless accounts of how many eggs the hens have laid. This definitely starts to pall after a while. I didn't get more than 40% through the book.
I love Orwell, he's a great treasure as a writer and was an almost wholly admirable man. I have therefore read every novel, short story, newspaper article, many letters, etc etc (plus the 2 main biographies of his life). All of which is always well-written, frequently interesting or entertaining, sometimes very moving... but the only bits of this stuff which are of any real merit were recycled/used in articles and stories by Orwell ages ago. I just can't see why they bothered publishing it in the first place and if any of Orwell's direct successors authorised this then I am very disappointed in them for doing so.
I love Orwell, he's a great treasure as a writer and was an almost wholly admirable man. I have therefore read every novel, short story, newspaper article, many letters, etc etc (plus the 2 main biographies of his life). All of which is always well-written, frequently interesting or entertaining, sometimes very moving... but the only bits of this stuff which are of any real merit were recycled/used in articles and stories by Orwell ages ago. I just can't see why they bothered publishing it in the first place and if any of Orwell's direct successors authorised this then I am very disappointed in them for doing so.
March 28, 2017
I wrote this mini-review for the paper:
The mind that delivered “1984” and other dark prophesies comes into unflinching focus in “George Orwell Diaries.” Page upon page reveals a man who brought the same scrutiny to all about him, from the events leading up to World War II to the number of eggs the hens were laying. He missed nothing. He wrote everything down. The diaries, from 1931 to 1946, describe an unrelenting reformer going back to the time he upset the locals by helping an English coal miner’s wife with the dishes.
The voice might remind you of the hero in “1984.” Orwell can be eerily dispassionate, assessing his physical decline more like a coroner than a patient. The domestic details logged day after day are likely to ward off fainthearted fans. But editor’s notes provide helpful context and fill the gaps. Sadly, this collection does not include some key turning points in his life — such as the Spanish Civil War. But what’s there offers deep insight for the devoted Orwell reader.
The mind that delivered “1984” and other dark prophesies comes into unflinching focus in “George Orwell Diaries.” Page upon page reveals a man who brought the same scrutiny to all about him, from the events leading up to World War II to the number of eggs the hens were laying. He missed nothing. He wrote everything down. The diaries, from 1931 to 1946, describe an unrelenting reformer going back to the time he upset the locals by helping an English coal miner’s wife with the dishes.
The voice might remind you of the hero in “1984.” Orwell can be eerily dispassionate, assessing his physical decline more like a coroner than a patient. The domestic details logged day after day are likely to ward off fainthearted fans. But editor’s notes provide helpful context and fill the gaps. Sadly, this collection does not include some key turning points in his life — such as the Spanish Civil War. But what’s there offers deep insight for the devoted Orwell reader.
June 29, 2018
I was looking forward to my reading of Orwell's Diaries. While they reveal a different side of this tremendously talented writer, the Diaries provide only few insights into his creative laboratory. His Domestic diaries contain dreary and repetitive notes about life on the farm, minutest detail about his chickens, goats, vegetable garden, and so on. A typical entry states how many eggs his hens laid on a certain day; how many were sold, and what was his goats' milk yield. Because such entries were made before World War II the reader cannot but feel disappointed. His entries during the war simply summarize information from the papers. He also recorded some interesting conversations, but on the whole, the Diaries were written without a spark of inspiration. It strikes me how Orwell the writer was different from Orwell the man. But after all, I do not regret reading the Diaries. They allowed me to know what Orwell was like in everyday life.
November 20, 2012
I was excited to read this as George Orwell is one of my favorite authors and I wanted to learn more about his personal life through these "Diaries." The first couple chapters of the book were very informative and I enjoyed them a lot, then the book divided into chapters that were alternately interesting and not so interesting. (In between each interesting chapter of the book were what was called a "Domestic Diary" and each of these meandered into daily weather reports, animal/farming updates, and chicken egg production for the day -- all pretty mundane).
Each section of the book is prefaced with introductions by Peter Davison, the editor, all of which were very interesting and informative about the life and times of Orwell, about his writings, and about his travels.
All in all, I like Mr. Orwell's novels much better!
Each section of the book is prefaced with introductions by Peter Davison, the editor, all of which were very interesting and informative about the life and times of Orwell, about his writings, and about his travels.
All in all, I like Mr. Orwell's novels much better!
Want to read
August 16, 2012Interesting review in NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/boo...
Sounds like this one is for the die-hard fan, which includes me, but I'm sure I'll wait for pb version. (O's letters, though, in Collected Journalism, Essays and Letters, are quite good, a must-read for anyone with deep interest in his work.) Christopher Hitchens' intro, one of his final pieces, is an added attraction.
Sounds like this one is for the die-hard fan, which includes me, but I'm sure I'll wait for pb version. (O's letters, though, in Collected Journalism, Essays and Letters, are quite good, a must-read for anyone with deep interest in his work.) Christopher Hitchens' intro, one of his final pieces, is an added attraction.
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