Orwell, George Books - Page 6

George Orwell

Gordon Bowker

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Seems to be a fine biography 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

The only other biography of Orwell that I have read is the two-volume Stansky-Abrahams one, which I read when it appeared over 25 years ago. Of course, one gets to know Orwell pretty well if one reads Orwell's own essays, etc. This seems to be a very good biography, though. I particularly want to commend Bowker for writing at this length, rather than writing something twice or thrice the size. Furthermore, there's a sense that the story has been well told, the people and events adequately identified, etc. One feels human interest not only in Orwell but in others, such as his two wives.

Bowker thanks his copy editor by name, and perhaps that person is not to be blamed for a few errors of grammar and spelling (e.g. the same person is both Frances and Francis) that appear.

Editorial Review:

Gordon Bowker's biography includes material which brings the writer's life into unfamiliar focus. Bowker writes revealingly about Orwell's family background, the lasting influence of Eton on his work and character, his superstitious streak and youthful flirtation with black magic, and his chaotic and reckless sex life, which included at least one homoerotic relationship. It highlights the strange circumstances of his first marriage and provides evidence of his experiences in Spain and their nightmarish consequences. It also offers a fresh look at his peculiar deathbed marriage to a woman 15 years his junior.

Animal Farm

George Orwell

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Editorial Review:

Recorded on three cassettes (3 hours and 15 minutes). Comes in clamshell case.

Animal Farm (Barron's Book Notes)

George Orwell

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 22 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

good, but probably could be better 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 5 people found this review helpful.

The author equates Old Major with Marx, Napoleon with Stalin, and Snowball with Trotsky. That's interesting, but isn't there more to say about Animal Farm?

A give away 2 out of 5 stars.
2 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Although this book helped me comprhend the symbolism of Animal Farm, i often found that it gave away future parts of the book. For example, i would read the comentary of chapter three, and it would give away a critical event that comes on much later in the book. In addition, i did not think that it interpereted all the symbolism that Orwell used. My advise if you are going to read Animal Farm, is to try a different source of notes.

Animal Farm 2 out of 5 stars.
1 of 11 people found this review helpful.

I read this as a school asignment and I did not enjoy it. I did not really understand the meaning of the book. I guess it aplied to the world a while ago but I can't aply it to life today. It was rather confusing for me.

Editorial Review:

Plot synopsis of this classic is made meaningful with analysis and quotes by noted literary critics, summaries of the work's main themes and characters, a sketch of the author's life and times, a bibliography, suggested test questions, and ideas for essays and term papers.

Shooting an Elephant: And Other Essays (Penguin Modern Classics)

George Orwell

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Orwell on politics and language 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Of course I read this collection many years ago as most self-respecting writers of my generation have. After all, Orwell was a mentor to all of us as well as one of our heroes, and this collection includes not only the title piece, which is as good a personal experience essay as has ever been written, but also "Politics and the English Language," an essay on how to write and how not to write that is without parallel.

But as I perused the "Contents" page a forgotten chapter title caught my eye,"Confessions of a Book Reviewer"! I immediately turned to page 171. Oh, what a delight I beheld! Orwell begins the essay with, "In a cold but stuffy bed-sitting room littered with cigarette ends and half-empty cups of tea, a man in a moth-eaten dressing gown sits at a rickety table, trying to find room for his typewriter among the piles of dusty papers that surround it." After some further dreary detail, Orwell continues, "Needless to say this person is a writer. He might be a poet, a novelist, or a writer of film scripts or radio features, for all literary people are very much alike, but let us say that he is a book reviewer."

Of course Orwell is writing (with some scant distance) about Orwell. How candid he is and how well he eschews any glamour or romance in the self-portrait! And yet, there is something heroic about Orwell's depiction of the literary "hack" that is agreeable. He goes on to say as "the menacing finger of the clock" moves toward the reviewer's deadline, "suddenly he will snap into it. All the stale old phrases--'a book that no one should miss,' 'something memorable on every page.' 'of special value are the chapters dealing with, etc., etc.' will jump into their places like iron fillings obeying the magnet, and the review will end up at exactly the right length and with just about three minutes to go."

Orwell practiced a style that never called attention to itself (because the content was paramount), yet upon closer examination is characterized not only by precise diction and a rare clarity of expression but with the sort of metaphorical language that brings content to life. Note those "iron fillings"!

"Shooting an Elephant" begins with these famous words, "In Moulmein, in Lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people--the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me." A few lines down he remarks, "I was young and ill-educated and I had had to think out my problems in the utter silence that is imposed on every Englishman in the East. I did not even know that the British Empire is dying, still less did I know that it is a great deal better than the younger empires that are going to supplant it...With one part of my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny...; with another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priest's guts. Feelings like these are the normal by-products of imperialism; ask any Anglo-Indian official." Change a few words and the sentiments he expresses might very well apply to someone from the United States in Iraq in the 21st century.

"Politics and the English Language" begins "Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language--so the argument runs--must inevitably share in the general collapse." Ah, the lament of prescriptive linguists everywhere! What is wonderful about this essay is how specific Orwell is in first giving examples of writing that is, as he terms it, "a little below average" (there are five selected paragraphs); and second in referring back to these paragraphs as he demonstrates just what is wrong with that way of writing. He condemns in turn, "Dying metaphors," e.g., "ride roughshod over," "no axe to grind, etc."; "Operators or verbal false limbs," "militate against," "make contact with..."; "Pretentious diction," "epoch-making," "unforgettable..."; "Meaningless words...," e.g., "democracy," about which he notes, "not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides."

In the examples from last category I was struck again by how topical Orwell is now sixty-some years after this essay was written. He notes that "In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning." Clearly he has been reading some of today's postmodern literature!

Some of the essays are no longer of much interest, I must admit--although I would say that the two mentioned prominently above are easily worth the purchase of the book. In particular the essay, "Books vs. Cigarettes" is largely irrelevant because of the price comparisons in the pounds and shillings of many years ago. However even here there is something worthwhile. Near the end of the essay Orwell notes that "the ordinary [English]man spends more on cigarettes than an Indian peasant has for his whole livelihood."

What is most striking about this book is again the clean, crisp, easy to read, but by no means in any way "dumbed down" prose. Orwell is the sort of writer that other writers greatly admire. His easy to read style is the result of hard work. Despite the decades that have gone by, these essays are for the most part still very much worth reading. If you have never read Orwell on language and politics, you are in for a special treat.

Editorial Review:

This outstanding collection brings together Orwell's longer, major essays and a fine selection of shorter pieces that includes "Shooting an Elephant", "My Country Right or Left", "Decline of an English Murder" and "A Hanging". With great originality and wit Orwell unfolds his views on subjects ranging from a revaluation of Charles Dickens to a spirited defense of English cooking. Displaying an almost unrivaled mastery of English plain prose style, Orwell's essays challenge, move and entertain.

Sesame Street Elmo's Christmas Jumbo Coloring and Activity Book

Sesame Street

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Editorial Review:

Sesame Street Jumbo Coloring and Activity book 2005 edition.

1984 And Related Readings (Literature Connections)

George Orwell

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Facing Unpleasant Facts: 1937-1939 (Complete Orwell)

George Orwell

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Editorial Review:

These years saw the publication of The Road to Wigan Pier, Homage to Catalonia, and Coming Up for Air. This collection features essays, documents, and letters, including correspondence with Yvonne Davet, who undertook the translation of Orwell's books into French; George Kopp, Orwell's commandent in Spain; and his wife Eileen. Orwell's Diary of Events Leading Up to the War, his Domestic Diary, his abstracts from Daily Worker and News Chronicle reports on the Spanish Civil War; and his Marrakech Notebook with illustrations are reproduced.

Nineteen Eighty-four (Penguin Modern Classics)

George Orwell

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Deviates corrected for their own good 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

In a society that has eliminated many imbalances, surplus goods, and even class struggle, there are bound to be deviates; Winston Smith is one of those. He starts out, due to his inability to doublethink, with thoughtcrime. This is in a society that believes a thought is as real as the deed. Eventually he graduates through a series of misdemeanors to illicit sex and even plans to overthrow the very government that took him in as an orphan.
If he gets caught, he will be sent to the "Ministry of Love" where they have a record of 100% cures for this sort of insanity. They will even forgive his past indiscretions.

Be sure to watch the three different movies made from this book:
1984 (1954) Peter Cushing is Winston Smith
1984 (1956) Edmond O'Brien is Winston Smith
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) John Hurt is Winston smith

Editorial Review:

Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the needs of the Party. Yet he inwardly rebels against the totalitarian world he lives in, which demands absolute obedience and controls him through the all-seeing telescreens and the watchful eye of Big Brother, symbolic head of the Party. In his longing for truth and liberty, Smith begins a secret love affair with a fellow-worker Julia, but soon discovers the true price of freedom is betrayal.

1984

George Orwell

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Down and Out in Paris and London

George Orwell

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Editorial Review:

The "I" of this novel sets down the experiences of a man who finds himself in Paris, in the early 1930s, without a penny. He manages to keep alive and to record, with sensitivity and graphic power, the strange incidents and characters with which his poverty brings him in contact.