Anti-soviet books blow up after middling performances from the rest of his works
Good writer, good for fighting fascists, but his conception of socialism was rooted in his own upper class colonial upbringing and ultimately scarred by British exceptionalism (he valued "British decency" above everything else while somehow not reconciling that with colonial horrors he witnessed)
Anyone using 1984 to form their political argument doesn't make sense, it's based around a caricature of governments Orwell had personal bad experiences with (British government bureaucracy, and Stalinists during the spanish civil war). It's not a terrible book, but forming a serious political opinion for or against it is not a useful thing to do.
Though, imo, Orwell states the hopes are the proles because he does fundamentally believe in socialism from below, however he's so mixed up in his upbringing it never gets coherent.
I also personally don't really like Asimov's review. Beyond his own work having a lot issues (like the Foundation series can be read as a gross distortion of historical materialism), the review also comes off as kind of jealous. Also some of the parts of the review are just wrong about the book that makes me question how Asimov read it, like the comment on Orwell thinking there had to be constant war. The point is that the war does not exist, dunno how he missed that. Or that he accuses Orwell of not forseeing computers, but Asimov admitted to doing that himself after the review was published. To me the book is still a very effective novel about the psychological methods of power, and as political satire (if clouded and dated by personal politics and lack of knowledge of the purges. It'd be really interesting to see a rewrite that focused more on the mass paranoia the party was in).
True, I'm more talking about his essays (which I also don't really 'like' but I can appreciate his ability as an essayist). Incidentally the essay kind of parts of 1984 are easily the strongest imo. The rest of the book reads like any YA dystopian novel tbh
To the petite bourgeoisie, actual existing socialism is totalitarianism. They gorge themselves on the fruits of other's labor and when that's taken away, they begin to see themselves as oppressed.
Pretty sure Animal Farm was banned in England upon release (or at least restricted or refused publishing) because Stalin was considered such an important ally at the time.
It wasn't until Communism became the next big bad that it was allowed to be publish and sold.
Yeah publishers didn't want to accept it, one was going to but then rescinded after discussing with the Ministry of Information. Secker and Warburg, an anti-fascist and anti-communist publisher, chose to publish it eventually once attitudes towards the Soviets shifted.
Secker and Warburg went on to become Harvill Secker and then was bought out by and became an imprint of Penguin Books. And what do you know?
The book Pressing the Fight: Print, Propaganda, and the Cold War details how as well as holding sway over the BBC it (the Foreign Office's Information Research Department) also approached, funded, and essentially ran publishing companies as outlets for propaganda: >“This program began with the identifying and recruiting of suitable authors and independent publishers deemed trustworthy and politically sympathetic” (Barnhisel, Turner 113). Their relationship with Penguin >books is a famous “example of (…) the organization attempting to recruit commercial publishers for the purpose of ‘grey’ propaganda” (Barnhisel, Turner 113)
Also:
Orwell wrote the book between November 1943 and February 1944, when the United Kingdom was in its wartime alliance with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany, and the British intelligentsia held Stalin in >high esteem, a phenomenon Orwell hated
Good writer, good for fighting fascists, but his conception of socialism was rooted in his own upper class colonial upbringing and ultimately scarred by British exceptionalism (he valued "British decency" above everything else while somehow not reconciling that with colonial horrors he witnessed)
Not even a good writer. Watch Issac Asimov obliterate him
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Anyone using 1984 to form their political argument doesn't make sense, it's based around a caricature of governments Orwell had personal bad experiences with (British government bureaucracy, and Stalinists during the spanish civil war). It's not a terrible book, but forming a serious political opinion for or against it is not a useful thing to do.
Though, imo, Orwell states the hopes are the proles because he does fundamentally believe in socialism from below, however he's so mixed up in his upbringing it never gets coherent.
I also personally don't really like Asimov's review. Beyond his own work having a lot issues (like the Foundation series can be read as a gross distortion of historical materialism), the review also comes off as kind of jealous. Also some of the parts of the review are just wrong about the book that makes me question how Asimov read it, like the comment on Orwell thinking there had to be constant war. The point is that the war does not exist, dunno how he missed that. Or that he accuses Orwell of not forseeing computers, but Asimov admitted to doing that himself after the review was published. To me the book is still a very effective novel about the psychological methods of power, and as political satire (if clouded and dated by personal politics and lack of knowledge of the purges. It'd be really interesting to see a rewrite that focused more on the mass paranoia the party was in).
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True, I'm more talking about his essays (which I also don't really 'like' but I can appreciate his ability as an essayist). Incidentally the essay kind of parts of 1984 are easily the strongest imo. The rest of the book reads like any YA dystopian novel tbh
The words "Br*tish" and "decency" do not belong together
To the petite bourgeoisie, actual existing socialism is totalitarianism. They gorge themselves on the fruits of other's labor and when that's taken away, they begin to see themselves as oppressed.
Pretty sure Animal Farm was banned in England upon release (or at least restricted or refused publishing) because Stalin was considered such an important ally at the time.
It wasn't until Communism became the next big bad that it was allowed to be publish and sold.
Yeah publishers didn't want to accept it, one was going to but then rescinded after discussing with the Ministry of Information. Secker and Warburg, an anti-fascist and anti-communist publisher, chose to publish it eventually once attitudes towards the Soviets shifted.
Secker and Warburg went on to become Harvill Secker and then was bought out by and became an imprint of Penguin Books. And what do you know?
Also:
seething