Homage to Orwell
Like everyone in the English-speaking world, my first encounter with George Orwell was in high school when I read both Animal Farm and 1984. Since high school reading lists contain probably the only great literature most people will ever read, a great deal of people who understand neither government nor Orwell are introduced to perhaps some of the greatest works to explore the nature of totalitarianism, and subsequently abuse Orwell's legacy. Looking at the Sci-Fi Friending Meme I complained about earlier, one can see the huge number of people who listed 1984 as a favorite book, including a fair number who mis-named it "1985".
My disillusionment with Orwell grew from his abuse by morons who encountered him in high school too, hearing people describe anything bad, or seemingly bad about government as "Orwellian", often in a completely partisan way. Only later did I realize that this was no fault of Orwell's, when I read his classic Politics and the English Language, as the vast majority of the uses of the word "Orwellian" is ironically "Orwellian", as individuals are letting a vague and cliched term do the thinking for them.
What really reestablished George Orwell as one of my favorite writers of the 20th century was when I recently read his 1938 offering, Homage to Catalonia. The book is a personal account of Orwell's experiences during the Spanish Civil War, focusing alot on the political infighting between the factions comprising the Republican side, particularly the June 1937 purging of the radical revolutionary POUM by the Spanish Communist Party on the orders of Stalin himself. The POUM were vilified as Trotskyists, working as a huge Fascist plot. Essentially, Homage to Catalonia contains the seeds of what would later become Animal Farm and 1984, as Orwell got of Spain just ahead of the Communist secret police, as he had been a member of the POUM.
Homage to Catalonia was essentially adapted into the 1995 film, Land and Freedom (view it here) by Ken Loach (The Wind That Shakes the Barley). Basically, Orwell was replaced with someone better looking and a love story was added and the director uses the film to explore his own revolutionary socialist leanings, especially in the scene where the merits of collectivizing the village are debated. The film is certainly biased, missing Orwell's commitment to honesty, but all in all it's a pretty good film about a woefully under filmed historical period. Overall the the thrust of the film remains the same as the book, that it was the Stalinists who betrayed the revolution, revealing the weird irony that the greatest enemy of the left is usually other leftists.
The film touched off fierce criticism from many Britons who had fought for the International Brigades in Spain, and in many cases they repeated the old Stalinist lines that had originally been used to denounce the POUM in 1937. On the IMDB boards for the film, there is even a real, live Stalinist, denouncing the film as "Trotskyite Drivel", which of course leads into a long and tiresome debate about the merits of communism vs capitalism, missing the point of the film. Perhaps the only surprising thing is how heated the debate is about such a politically irrelevant thing, especially in a world where the free market and liberal democracy have triumphed as simply a better system.
However, considering the brilliant part of 1984 is how easily elements of our own political situation reflect that of the novel, I don't think we shall ever be free of abuses of Orwell, but at the very least the man has been redeemed in my eyes.
And yes, this post is related to karenjeane's post with a new cover for Homage to Catalonia, because I asked her to do the design, mainly because most of the contemporary covers suck.
My disillusionment with Orwell grew from his abuse by morons who encountered him in high school too, hearing people describe anything bad, or seemingly bad about government as "Orwellian", often in a completely partisan way. Only later did I realize that this was no fault of Orwell's, when I read his classic Politics and the English Language, as the vast majority of the uses of the word "Orwellian" is ironically "Orwellian", as individuals are letting a vague and cliched term do the thinking for them.
What really reestablished George Orwell as one of my favorite writers of the 20th century was when I recently read his 1938 offering, Homage to Catalonia. The book is a personal account of Orwell's experiences during the Spanish Civil War, focusing alot on the political infighting between the factions comprising the Republican side, particularly the June 1937 purging of the radical revolutionary POUM by the Spanish Communist Party on the orders of Stalin himself. The POUM were vilified as Trotskyists, working as a huge Fascist plot. Essentially, Homage to Catalonia contains the seeds of what would later become Animal Farm and 1984, as Orwell got of Spain just ahead of the Communist secret police, as he had been a member of the POUM.
Homage to Catalonia was essentially adapted into the 1995 film, Land and Freedom (view it here) by Ken Loach (The Wind That Shakes the Barley). Basically, Orwell was replaced with someone better looking and a love story was added and the director uses the film to explore his own revolutionary socialist leanings, especially in the scene where the merits of collectivizing the village are debated. The film is certainly biased, missing Orwell's commitment to honesty, but all in all it's a pretty good film about a woefully under filmed historical period. Overall the the thrust of the film remains the same as the book, that it was the Stalinists who betrayed the revolution, revealing the weird irony that the greatest enemy of the left is usually other leftists.
The film touched off fierce criticism from many Britons who had fought for the International Brigades in Spain, and in many cases they repeated the old Stalinist lines that had originally been used to denounce the POUM in 1937. On the IMDB boards for the film, there is even a real, live Stalinist, denouncing the film as "Trotskyite Drivel", which of course leads into a long and tiresome debate about the merits of communism vs capitalism, missing the point of the film. Perhaps the only surprising thing is how heated the debate is about such a politically irrelevant thing, especially in a world where the free market and liberal democracy have triumphed as simply a better system.
However, considering the brilliant part of 1984 is how easily elements of our own political situation reflect that of the novel, I don't think we shall ever be free of abuses of Orwell, but at the very least the man has been redeemed in my eyes.
And yes, this post is related to karenjeane's post with a new cover for Homage to Catalonia, because I asked her to do the design, mainly because most of the contemporary covers suck.