This is an extended review of an overall bad Orwell biography, focusing mainly on one issue. It's an issue that I didn't know about before, until a Goodreads friend asked me if I had read another book about Orwell.
I had long known that many leftists had some degree of discomfort with Orwell. I had bits, but not that much, and didn't know why these others had that high degree of discomfort. Well, the editorial blurb for that other book, "George Orwell and Russia," mentions "Orwell's List." And, I quickly found out why, indeed, and joined their ranks.
Orwell: The New Life by
D.J. Taylor
My rating:
2 of 5 stars
Probably 3.5 if I'm generous, but I just can't do that.
UPDATE: Dropped to two stars; see below.
First, riffing on another reviewer, this is less a new bio than a revision of the author's previous. I'll take that person's word for it.
Now, my thought.
A prediliction for physiognomy present in older English (sic, not “British”) historians still seems to abound with Taylor. What ARE stereotypically Gallic features? Fortunately, unlike them, the author doesn’t seem to venture into physiognomic essentialism.
But, he does flirt with presentism. He notes that Orwell called Spender a “pansy,” and then says, OK, that’s bookmarked, move on. Ditto on talking about a feminist author in modern times attack Orwell for misogyny and compare it to shooting an elephant with a pea-shooter. Seeing all this predisposed me to be less than enthusiastic.
That said, he insinuates that the “How I Shot an Elephant,” as well as “A Hanging in Burma,” may not be factual. Says the latter has clear ties to a similar Thackaray piece. But, while insinuating, takes no stand.
As for big issues? Taylor doesn't fully tackle the issue, beyond the above, as to how good of a non-communist leftist Orwell was, or was not.
The bio itself is in a vignette style. It’s interesting, but doesn’t always flow well.
Also, misses chances at psychological takes. Was the adoption of Orwell as literary pseudonym also that of a literary persona? Why the one foot back in Edwardian times? What was up with the one foot in the Church of England from the early 1930s to the end of his life? Per one bit of cynicism, did he have jealousy as well that he had not gone from Eton to Oxford himself? Regret?
Add in that I hit my library's timewall, and that I've long thought Brave New World was more prescient than 1984 (and a better read, as is Darkness at Noon) and, the book just petered out on me.
Orwell's List a VERY controversial, it seems, and totally new to me, compilation of names of writers and other creatives for the British government's Foreign Office by Orwell (see a quote from the Wiki page below), basically a list of people who in the US in the McCarthyist 1950s would have been called "Comms and Comm symps," is "addressed" in less than two full pages by Taylor.
Nut graf:
"(W)hat came to be known as 'Orwell's List' has occasionally been used as a stick with which to beat his supposed [emphasis added by me] intolerance.
From Wiki:
Typical comments were: Stephen Spender – "Sentimental sympathiser... Tendency towards homosexuality"; Richard Crossman – "Too dishonest to be outright F. T."; Kingsley Martin –"Decayed liberal. Very dishonest";[9] and Paul Robeson – "very anti-white. [Henry] Wallace supporter"
From Wiki, comment by Alex Cockburn:
Cockburn attacked Orwell's description of Paul Robeson as "anti-white", pointing out Robeson had campaigned to help Welsh coal miners. Cockburn also said the list revealed Orwell as a bigot: "There seems to be general agreement by Orwell's fans, left and right, to skate gently over Orwell's suspicions of Jews, homosexuals and blacks".
Taylor doesn't even mention Robeson being on the list, let alone why.
Folks, this confirms my sneaking suspicion that this book was hagiography.
And, I disagree with people at that Wiki link claiming that this was not McCarthyist. He gave it to the Information Research Department at the Foreign Office, at least his "finalized" list. And, had he lived longer, he might have submitted more names from his personal list. (Robeson was on there; so were George Bernard Shaw, Katharine Hepburn, Orson Welles, and John Steinbeck, among others; aside from Orwell being an informant, this leads to questions of his general judgment.) I also disagree that he would have broken with the IRD had he realized, with living longer, what it was up to. Claims that he would have are an argument from silence.)
In that case, these defenders are saying that, either due to late-life health problems, or general causes, Orwell had a high naivete level. You want to stand on that ground? Even a writer for Socialist Review makes that claim. Note: Now that I know why Orwell "wrote up" some of these people, Alan Turing was lucky not to be "outed" until 3 years later, I guess. And, the idea that tuberculosis can make you "ga-ga" in late stages is painting with a humongously broad brush.
And, resorting to such a brush is a clear sign of being a member of a cult of Orwell.
And, that is also "Orwellian."
View all my reviews