fieldus

New Statesman - Eternal vigilance

He was not, as Lionel Trilling once pointed out, a genius; he was not mysterious; he had served in Burma, washed dishes in a Parisian hotel, and fought for a few months in Spain, but this hardly added up to a life of adventure; for the most part he lived in London and reviewed books. So odd, in fact, has the success of Orwell seemed to some that there is even a book, George Orwell: the Politics of Literary Reputation, devoted to getting to the bottom of it.

When you return to his essays of the 1940s, the mystery evaporates. You would probably not be able to write this way now, even if you learned the craft: the voice would seem put-on, after Orwell. But there is nothing put-on about it here, and it seems to speak, despite the specificity of the issues discussed, directly to the present. In Orwell’s clear, strong voice we hear a warning. Because we, too, live in a time when truth is disappearing from the world, and doing so in just the way Orwell worried it would: through language. We move through the world by naming things in it, and we explain the world through sentences and stories. The lesson of these essays is clear: Look around you.

Describe what you see as an ordinary observer – for you are one, you know – would see them. Take things seriously.

And tell the truth. Tell the truth.

Mr Gessen is smug and high handed at time, but some of his observations are interesting. He’s keen not to confine himself to embelishing the great man’s reputation - he points out numerous inconsistencies before looking at Orwell’s disillusionment with journalism - based on the direct experience of just how bad reporting can be in the Spanish Civil War.

Why is Gessen writing this? Because he wants to learn from Orwell - figure something out and correct the course he sets for himself. Perhaps it’s as much as a reminder to himself as a desire to enlighten the reader that he ends the essay with what he takes their lessons to be.