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16. Bernard Crick "George Orwell: A Life"
I finished Bernard Crick's biography of Orwell this week. It is quite an undertaking at 580 pages of small, sometimes tiny, print. Before reading this book I only knew Orwell from his two famous works Nineteen Eighty Four and Animal Farm. I had no idea how much non-fiction he wrote, how much he wrote before those famous books, or how young he died.
It might be tempting to label his life as a tragedy, but many of the tragic bits were at least in part based on choices. He was wounded it the Spanish Civil war because he believed so strongly in socialism that he volunteered to go to Spain and refused to take a job anywhere but the front lines. He died of TB after spending his life sleeping rough, avoiding medical help, and smoking heavily (despite the lung problems since infancy). He chose not to do any work while in college, despite entering on a scholarship he graduated pretty much at the bottom of his class, ending any further chance in education. He was poor most of his life because he chucked the steady job he didn't like to become a writer, even though he hadn't written anything for years and basically had to learn by failing and starving.
He was a brilliant man and a bit nuts.
I think he and his wife Eileen were probably well suited. It took someone like her to put up with him and she was probably well suited for his unconventional life. They were two peas in a pod as far as selfcare because they wouldn't take care of themselves and both died prematurely. I also think his marriage to his 2nd wife was probably a good match as well, though on a completely different level. I think both parties knew it was a business arrangement.
I wonder if he would have continued to get better as a writer or if he had really hit his peak. Just before his death he was planning another novel.
I finished Bernard Crick's biography of Orwell this week. It is quite an undertaking at 580 pages of small, sometimes tiny, print. Before reading this book I only knew Orwell from his two famous works Nineteen Eighty Four and Animal Farm. I had no idea how much non-fiction he wrote, how much he wrote before those famous books, or how young he died.
It might be tempting to label his life as a tragedy, but many of the tragic bits were at least in part based on choices. He was wounded it the Spanish Civil war because he believed so strongly in socialism that he volunteered to go to Spain and refused to take a job anywhere but the front lines. He died of TB after spending his life sleeping rough, avoiding medical help, and smoking heavily (despite the lung problems since infancy). He chose not to do any work while in college, despite entering on a scholarship he graduated pretty much at the bottom of his class, ending any further chance in education. He was poor most of his life because he chucked the steady job he didn't like to become a writer, even though he hadn't written anything for years and basically had to learn by failing and starving.
He was a brilliant man and a bit nuts.
I think he and his wife Eileen were probably well suited. It took someone like her to put up with him and she was probably well suited for his unconventional life. They were two peas in a pod as far as selfcare because they wouldn't take care of themselves and both died prematurely. I also think his marriage to his 2nd wife was probably a good match as well, though on a completely different level. I think both parties knew it was a business arrangement.
I wonder if he would have continued to get better as a writer or if he had really hit his peak. Just before his death he was planning another novel.
