caroparr's review against another edition
3.0
I had to read this after finishing Taylor's biography of Orwell. One of the best-known essays, about Orwell's horrible experiences at his public school, Taylor says is not supported by Orwell's contemporaries, but it's still a powerful piece. A good collection of some of his best work, including Why I Write and A Hanging.
katrinky's review against another edition
4.0
I read "Why I Write" a few months ago and was pretty floored by it. Essays are a true test for the writer, I think; their intelligence and expertise are fully on display, while a novel, poem or short story is but a glimpse into exactly what the writer wants revealed. Orwell's work is a product of its time, for better or worse, but even when worse (eg. racist and classist statements about the Indian and Burmese peoples with whom he worked as a member of the Burmese Police), he confronts whatever it is making him tick. He writes an article about the use of words like Negro/negro, Chinaman/Chinese, Mahomaden/Moslem, and how use must be constantly modified to reflect circumstances (of course, he does this while continuing to write "Coolie" quite freely).
My favorite of these essays, devoid of racial or class commentary, or a privileged intelligentsia-type lording over political information, were the ones about English life. "In Defense of English Cooking," for example, made me laugh out loud, and "A Nice Cup of Tea" is comprised of precisely eleven tenets of tea drinking which Orwell holds to be self-evident.
Other favorite (EVER-TIMELY) passages:
"When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive... All the organs of his body were working... His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, when he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live. His eyes saw...and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned- reasoned even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone."
--A Hanging
"From a letter from Lady Oxford to the Daily Telegraph, on the subject of war economies: 'Since most London houses are deserted there is little entertaining...in any case, most people have to part with their cooks and live in hotels.'
Apparently nothing will ever teach these people that the other 99% of the population exist."
--War-Time Diary
My favorite of these essays, devoid of racial or class commentary, or a privileged intelligentsia-type lording over political information, were the ones about English life. "In Defense of English Cooking," for example, made me laugh out loud, and "A Nice Cup of Tea" is comprised of precisely eleven tenets of tea drinking which Orwell holds to be self-evident.
Other favorite (EVER-TIMELY) passages:
"When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive... All the organs of his body were working... His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, when he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live. His eyes saw...and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned- reasoned even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone."
--A Hanging
"From a letter from Lady Oxford to the Daily Telegraph, on the subject of war economies: 'Since most London houses are deserted there is little entertaining...in any case, most people have to part with their cooks and live in hotels.'
Apparently nothing will ever teach these people that the other 99% of the population exist."
--War-Time Diary
vsbedford's review
2.0
This collection of essays is probably best parceled out over time; in reading them as a piece I began to be immensely irritated at the persnickity tone and know-it-all-ness pervasive in most of the essays. His War Diary is intensely interesting, as are the more journalistic pieces (his stay in a work house or his experiences in the Spanish Civil War), but the presumptions he makes about the inner lives of his general "Other" grate after long exposure.
kenziekuma's review against another edition
challenging
dark
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
jeffhall's review
5.0
Orwell was at heart an essayist, and his narrative essays are the really good stuff (at least in relation to the pieces included in the companion volume of critical essays). "Shooting an Elephant" is probably the single best thing that Orwell ever wrote, and other items in this volume are almost as perfect; highlights being "Bookshop Memories", "Looking Back on the Spanish War", "In Defence of English Cooking", "How the Poor Die", and the absolutely essential "Such, Such Were The Joys" wherein Orwell manages to draw on memories of his boarding school days to get at critical truths underlying the golden days of British empire and how it is that a damp island nation become (for a time) the ruler of half the globe.
henryarmitage's review against another edition
4.0
I found the essays about WWII most interesting, but it was all pretty good.
One thing that was striking is how similar the politics of 1930s-40s were to today's politics.
You can see the early development of some of his ideas that led to [b:1984|1167751|1984|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1383200871l/1167751._SY75_.jpg|153313], for example the falsification of news and history.
I never knew that Orwell was a socialist before, seemingly in reaction to the oppressive climate of inherited privilege and wealth he grew up in.
One thing that was striking is how similar the politics of 1930s-40s were to today's politics.
You can see the early development of some of his ideas that led to [b:1984|1167751|1984|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1383200871l/1167751._SY75_.jpg|153313], for example the falsification of news and history.
I never knew that Orwell was a socialist before, seemingly in reaction to the oppressive climate of inherited privilege and wealth he grew up in.