Homage to George Orwell

Big Frank with this post begins a series of posts in honor of and in reference to the great twentieth century writer, George Orwell. Most people are at least familiar with his two best known novels, Animal Farm and 1984. He wrote lots else: essays, literary criticism, poetry, and journalism. However, what most impresses Big Frank is the unbelievably clarity of his prose. This man could put sentences together with such finesse that just reading them is a kind of mental therapy. That is exactly what Big Frank is going to do with these next few posts on Orwell; he is going to display the brillance not only of what Orwell said, but the beauty in how he said it.

Let's begin with why it is that Orwell wrote. He put the reasons down in an essay entitle "Why I Write". I gives four main reasons - listed below in an excerpt from the essay: to be noticed, to percieve beauty, to get to the truth of the matter, and to put the world right in some way.

Big Frank's favorite line below is this: "The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all — and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class."

An essay could be written on this line alone: what does it really mean to "live their own lives to the end"?

OK - here's Orwell's four great motives for writing:

(i) Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen — in short, with the whole top crust of humanity. The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all — and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists, though less interested in money.

(ii) Aesthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story. Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed. The aesthetic motive is very feeble in a lot of writers, but even a pamphleteer or writer of textbooks will have pet words and phrases which appeal to him for non-utilitarian reasons; or he may feel strongly about typography, width of margins, etc. Above the level of a railway guide, no book is quite free from aesthetic considerations.

(iii) Historical impulse. Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.

(iv) Political purpose. — Using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

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For the complete essay go here.
George Orwell: ‘Why I Write’
First published: Gangrel. — GB, London. — summer 1946.