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June 24, 2003
Why Orwell Matters
Tomorrow marks 100 years since George Orwell's birth, making it a good time to re-think some of his ideas. A good book to read in this respect is Why Orwell Matters by Christopher Hitchens. It's a fast read and has lots of interesting info. Most people have read Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm, but there's a lot more about him to discover. Orwell's real name was Eric Blair and he was a leftist. His political views are interesting given that the right tends to invoke warnings of Orwellian-type government power more often than the left.
He did not die a leftist, as Hitchens (somewhat grumpily) admits, but a politically defeated pessimist. His last description of himself was as "Tory Anarchist," which is very pretty.
Ah, yes, and Hitchens also noted that the left, because they feel betrayed by him, does everything they can to distance themselves from him.
To the Hitch's credit as a leftist (although God knows what political beast Hitchens actually is these days), he does not attempt to discount Orwell's late pessimism, but sees it as part of Orwell's "wintry conscience." More: Hitchens seems to imply that when the British left lost its soul by not speaking out about Uncle Joe, Orwell alone stayed true to the principles of English Socialism.