Why Orwell Matters

Hitchens raises his fists to defend his hero, Orwell, against all comers in this richly packed polemic. He presents Orwell as one of the very few intellectuals of his generation who negotiated the trecherous path between the pitfalls of Fascism and Communism and stuck to his intellectual honesty to bring back bulleteins of his era that make for compelling reading today. Orwell is portrayed as an appealing figure: an intellectual loner, always going against the fashionable grain, armed only with a battered typewriter to battle the turbulent political and social forces of his lifetime. Hitchens defends Orwell (quoting from both novels and essays, as well as a plethora of other intellectual reference points)against his detractors (and some of his adherents) on the left and right, against accusations of Communist spying collusion, trendy postmodernists and misguided feminist criticism. Hitchens fancies himself as a bit of an Orwell of the current age. Whether his own brand of freewheeling hard drinking contrarianism and neo-conservatism stamps its mark on the history of political writing as much as Orwell's remains to be seen. But he makes a fine balloon debate defender of Orwell, and will bring the committed reader back to the great man's works.

In "Why Orwell Matters" Hitchens makes a strong and spirited defense of his hero against his critics, including some of his good friends like Salman Rushdie and Edward Said (whose praise for Hitchen's earlier work appears in the dust jacket of this book). Starting off by writing that Orwell "would appear never to have diluted his opinions in the hope of seeing his byline disseminated to the paying customers; this alone is a clue to why he still matters," Hitchens extols the many virtues of Orwell without losing sight of his shortcomings and weaknesses. While writing of Orwell's utter contempt for imperialism (which he regarded as a money-making racket), Hitchens also points out that Orwell had to suppress his dislike and distrust of the poor and his revulsion for the colored masses; in other words, Orwell's humanity was the result of a long process of self mastery over his prejudices. Hitchens then quotes passages of criticisms from luminaries on both the left and the right, and refutes them with vigor and passion. His polemic is especially vitriolic against Raymond Williams and Claude Simon. He also writes about Orwell's indifference towards America, but points out that he had the foresight to write: "In the end, the European peoples might have to accept American domination as a way of avoiding domination by Russia, but they ought to realize, while there is time, there are other possibilities." Orwell's feelings towards his own country were ambivalent. He hated the feeling of Jingoism which was so rampant in his country and, at one point, felt that Britain wasn't worth fighting for, and also made a number of extremely foolish proposals to people for underground resistance to Churchill's government. On the other hand, he became a strong advocate of war of national survival and wrote patriotic verses. In an extremely absorbing chapter called "Generosity and Anger," Hitchens writes about Orwell's novels, pointing out his awkwardness as a writer of fiction by citing numerous banal and clumsy passages from his earlier novels. "Nineteen Eighty-Four," as per Hitchens, is the only time Orwell's efforts as a novelist rise to the level of his non-fictional essays. In another chapter Hitchens writes about Orwell's uneasiness with women and the fact that hardly, if ever, women are portrayed positively in his novels. Overall, this is an extremely well researched and well written book about a man who, through his writings, had done more to warn mankind of the horrors of totalitarianism than anyone else.

Orwell's work, writes Hitchens demonstrates "that politics are relatively unimportant, while principles have a way of enduring, as do the few irreducible individuals who maintain their allegiance to them." This statement is as true of Hitchens as it is of Orwell. For, to both these men, the great sin is compromising one's principles for the sake of realpolitik. Perhaps because he feels a political kinship with Orwell, Hitchens' essay about him is so passionate. In it, Hitchens defends Orwell from attacks from the Left (including from Hitchens' good friend Edward Said); takes pains to point out that Orwell cannot be read as a creature of the Right (a charge often leveled at Hitchens himself); and shows too that Orwell's was the face of the decent Englishman (one who, like Hitchens, was deeply ambivalent about `Englishness'). And yet to Hitchens' credit, this is not an idealized portrait of Orwell. Hitchens does not close his eyes to Orwell's lapses such as his lifelong detestation of homosexuality and feminism; nor is he blind to the racial prejudices Orwell worked his life to overcome. Hitchens reports these human failings honestly; without attempting to "whitewash" them. The result is a genuine and eminently readable book that serves as good an introduction to Orwell as it does to Hitchens. I highly recommend it.

Remarkably, as the 21st century opens George Orwell's shadow looms larger than ever over the world, undiminished by the end of the Cold War (a phrase which he probably invented). He is increasingly claimed by both Left and Right as one of their own. Two Englishmen now living in America, Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Hitchens, can best claim the mantle of Orwell by virtue of their clearsightedness and ability to cut through cant. Hitchens has written a short, bracing book on why "Animal Farm", "1984", and the collected essays are still essential reading. Orwell was a divided man. He was emotionally a conservative and intellectually a socialist. He was able to live out the contradiction and thus was blessed (or cursed) with the ability to see the big picture. Most of us in our own little lives are opportunists; our social and political views are shaped by what seems to us will allow us to rise in the world. Because of his awareness of his contradictions (and an unusual strength of will or character) Orwell could more closely approach "objectivity" (that noble dream) than most of us.Hitchens claims that Orwell was right about the three big issues of the 20th century--imperialism, Fascism, and Communism: something almost no other of his contemporaries can claim. In the chapter "Orwell and the Left" Hitchens swiftly eviscerates those critics who see Orwell as a sellout (Including Edward Said, whose blurb approving of Hitchens' earlier work appears prominently on the dust jacket of this one.) In "Orwell and the Right" he establishes that Orwell did not advocate mindless aggression against the Communists. Orwell attacked James Burnham for his pessimism and Hitchens says that Orwell didn't want a nuclear first-strike against the Soviets as so many did--it would have killed many of the people who made the successful peaceful revolution against Communism 40 years later. Perhaps the most important chapter in this book is "Deconstructing the Post-Modernist: Orwell and Transparency" in which Hitchens explains Orwell's abiding concern with "objective truth" and exposes the bad faith of the deconstructionists. (A disbelief in demonstratable truth can cover an awful lot of sins.)Hitchens has made a lot of news the past few years with his arguments with his friends on the Left. He detests Bill and Hillary Clinton; and he has broken with the anti-war movement because of what he says is its solipsism and anti-Americanism. In these things he is merely following the lead of his mentor Orwell, who angered many on the left with "Animal Farm" and "1984." But these books have been proved correct over the years as any books could be. I'm betting time will be kind to Hitchens, too.

Christopher Hitchens is one of my favorite authors, albeit from a misunderstood "liberal" bent whose books and past writings in The Nation and newer pieces in Vanity Fair I relish. So when I saw him on C-SPAN and other shows discussing his new book Why Orwell Matters I was made more more curious and curious as the hours went on and vowed that the book would be moved to the top of my "must order this week" list. And true to form Mr Hitchens does not disappoint. He gives the reader meat to chew on, which means I would read a chapter and then think upon what I had read, then the next chapter, and found that Orwell came alive to me. He became a man unlike the images liberals as well as conservatives had painted over the years. I especially was intrigued with his views on feminists which I realize are much the same as mine. And I realized that the often paraphrased sayings about the young being liberal and the older we become the more conservative, seem to mirror Orwells life in many ways. Many of us were taught that he was anti-business and anti-American and neither seems to be true. And I loved reading that Orwell admitted in many ways that he wrote based upon his place in life be it poor or better off financially. And as noted on page 174" that Orwell treasured certain 'bourgeois' values because he thought they might come in handy as revolutionary ones". If you are the least bit interested in authors lives and times this is a book you probably would enjoy and hopefully come away from, feeling better educated or informed.