George Orwell

This biography provides excellent research material for students engaging in critical analysis while examining relevant influences from the author's life. It's well organized and thorough.

Bowker is obviously a fan of Orwell's economy of expression and lucid style, as his prose is straight-forward and very readable. This biography is interesting and informative, and reads like a novel not a thesis. Orwell is a very interesting character and perhaps should be credited with having lead an interesting life as much as his biographer is lauded for describing it. The only criticism I would have of this excellent treatment, would be Bowker's over-reaching attempt to flesh out his theory of repressed homo-erotic inclinations. This suggestion would seem to be based on some very flimsy hearsay evidence. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in one of the 20th century's greatest social commentators.

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.

The title is indeed descriptive as the author probes the inner workings of the great author - Eric Blair (aka George Orwell). Bowker exposes the dualism of Blair/Orwell to describe many of the man's layers. Blair, in his twenties, was a policeman for the empire in Burma. He came to loathe the job and what he did. Just what he did can only be conjectured - but one can imagine the power of a colonial authority in Burma in the early 1900's. In later years George Orwell would write about power in a far more pervasive atmosphere - notably in his two great twentieth century works - "Animal Farm" and "Nineteen Eighty-Four". While it is true, as Bowker says that his two major works were miss-interpreted, they are so substantial and multi-faceted in scope that they can be given many different interpretations. In their beauty, power and longevity they are multi-faceted. I feel that Bowker left out one for "Nineteen Eighty-Four" which is the cult of mediocrity (as seen through the proles). We certainly have been experiencing this for many years on TV, newspapers and magazines which constantly aim for the lowest common denominator. Also, while Bowker explores Orwell's relationship to several British authors (Maugham, Wells), he has skipped over the American side. What about Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tools" which is the most popular book on the Spanish Civil War. As Bowker points out it was Orwell's participation with the Republicans in Spain that led almost directly to "Animal Farm" and "Nineteen Eighty-Four". Also what of Sinclair Lewis whose social satire books were extremely popular during Orwell's era? Nevertheless he does paint a portrait of an extremely troubled man - his many affairs, his constant health problems. His dualism to experience poverty with people who were barely literate I found perplexing and as Bowker says anthropological. His accent would immediately set him apart and made him ill-suited to assimilate with homeless people - even though it led to his `poverty books'. Also Orwell could miss-read events - he sided with Chamberlain on the Munich appeasement. During the onset of war (the London Blitz) he predicted a forthcoming revolution to a classless society. Bowker's description of Orwell's essay on Dali's paintings is illuminating. Was Orwell seeing something of his inner self in the surreal and underworld Dali paintings - perhaps getting an all to close glimpse of himself in Burma, his philandering and sexual mis-treatment of women (Orwell was not one to shy away from direct sexual approaches to woman). Orwell died at age 46 - what other major works were hidden within him?

This book is the best of the newer Orwell biographies, but it still falls short in some respects. Bowker does a far better job than D. J. Taylor at creating a sense of continuity and purpose in Orwell's life. Bowker is a good writer, occasionally showing bits of inspired analysis, but still there are passages of utility-grade stuff. The two biographies, Bowker and Taylor, published in the same year, offer readers an opportunity to compare two quite different treatments of the same life, treatments that both use previously unknown materials. Taylor's treatment is more episodic and seems to lose no opportunity to highlight something dark, unflattering, or unpleasant about Orwell. Bowker gets at Orwell's quintessential Englishness. I was happy he used exactly that word, Englishness, which I think is an important and appealing aspect of Orwell. It is a word I've always associated with Orwell much as I do with figures such as Dickens or Graham Greene. This is a quality virtually ignored by Taylor, unless you accept his references to old-boy school snobbery as a rough substitute, references I believe are clear distortions. Bowker is sympathetic to his subject without ever being servile or sentimental, a position which is right for a biographer. While Taylor makes some effort to convince us of his old admiration for his subject, his words ring false. Taylor displays strong antipathy towards his subject, releasing it slowly through the book, and to my mind this is never the correct position for a biographer. Moreover, the clash between Taylor's claims of admiration and his clear antipathy introduces a howling note of falseness that warns of the author's intent. Bowker does an excellent job of summarizing the saga of Orwell's widow (his second wife) Sonia and his literary legacy - a tale in which the new Cold War becomes an important element - an interesting topic with which Taylor doesn't do much. Bowker also does a nice job of explaining why a biographer would write about Orwell despite the author's well-known wish that he wanted no biography. The portion of new material in either book dealing with Orwell's sex life does not shed a pleasant light on part of his character. I couldn't help thinking of passages in Benita Eisler's Byron dealing with the poet's grotesque servant-boy swapping and Mediterranean tours to buy boys in various countries - activities that would put him in prison today - passages that frankly left me feeling as though I needed fresh air. No, Orwell wasn't as twisted as Byron, but he was double-dealing in his sexual affairs and apparently sometimes found the charms of young girls selling themselves in exotic lands an irresistible purchase. I very much agree with Arthur Koestler's observation, quoted in Bowker, "I don't think George ever knew what makes other people tick, because what made him tick was very different from what most other people tick." Orwell was in many ways what contemporary speech might describe as "out of