"Orwell: The Authorised Biography" by Michael Shelden

 A biography, authorised by the literary executors, of Eric Blair who, under the pen name of George Orwell wrote, among other works:

• Animal Farm
• 1984
• Down and Out in Paris and London
• The Road to Wigan Pier
• Homage to Catalonia

Eric Blair was born in Bengal where his father was involved in selling opium under the auspices of the Indian Civil Service, an administrator for the British Raj. He went to a prep school in Eastbourne and then Eton College; he then joined the British Empire as a policeman in Burma, hated working for imperialism, and embarked on a career as a novelist and journalist for the political left wing. To further these goals he became a tramp in London and a dishwasher in Paris, he joined the republican army to fight in the Spanish Civil War, and lived in a cheap lodging house in Wigan. He adopted a baby, ran a village store in remote Hertfordshire, and lived on the Scottish island of Jura 25 miles from the nearest shop. This enormously readable biography not only chronicles the remarkable life of this unusual individual but also gives an insight into his work, both fiction and journalism. 

As with many biographies of this sort, some of the delight is in encountering other people were touched by the life of the principal. Thus, Orwell knew Cyril Connolly both at Eastbourne and Eton and in later life. He was at Eton with Steven Runciman who became an expert in the history of Constantinople. As a young man, Orwell worked as a private tutor to, among others, Richard Peters who became Professor of Philosophy of Education at the University of London, one of my alma maters. His second wife had been the lover of Lucian Freud. I love this sort of thing: within seven steps I can link myself to Sigmund Freud ...

Selected quotes:

• "St Cyprian's appears to have been a prison camp cunningly disguised as a top-notch, expensive preparatory school." (Ch 2)
• "He regards the loss of self-respect as a fate worse than poverty. In his eyes beggars are contemptible only if they come to share society's contempt for them." (Ch 9)
• "It is clearly past any hope of reform when the empire-builders are reduced to fighting over who has the right to kick the butler - completely ignoring the question of whether anyone should have that right in the first place." (Ch 10)
• "What Orwell is describing is ... the use of a dual perspective to bring into intimate contact two normally separate worlds." (Ch 10)
• "'Every book is a failure', he remarked in later years, but as soon as one 'failure' was complete, he could not wait to go on to write the next, always unsatisfied, always in doubt about his talent but always intent on doing his work better." (Ch 10)
• "A shilling was deducted from the man's pay whenever a fellow miner was killed - the money was contributed to a fund for the widow - but this deduction, or 'stoppage' occurred with such grim regularity that the company used a rubber stamp marked 'Death stoppage' to make the notation on the pay checks." (Ch 12)
• "The poor in Marrakech ... are, of course, all too visible, with their rags and outstretched hands, their physical afflictions, their corpses. But Orwell knows that these conditions exist because the colonial powers who could improve them have chosen not to see them." (Ch 15)
• "The one serious defect in the novel [Coming Up For Air] is Orwell's attempt to be the voice of his narrator-protagonist. He does not make a convincing middle-aged, overweight, suburban-dwelling, low-brow insurance salesman." (Ch 16)
• "Orwell finds numerous examples in Dickens's work of significant flaws - the cloying sentimentality, the over-reliance on character types, the superficial understanding of commercial and industrial work, the hopelessly unrealistic endings, the avoidance of genuine tragedy." (Ch 16)
• "Connolly wrote a short piece about a love affair between a young man and a woman in a totalitarian state headed by 'Our Leader', whose face looks down on people from neon signs high above the streets. The young man is arrested for treason, tortured by officials from the Censor's Department and forced into approving his death sentence." (Ch 17)
• "For most writers the use of slang or other informal expressions creates dangerous pitfalls, tempting them to be too casual in the construction of sentences." (Ch 18)
• "There is one part of you that wishes to be a hero or a saint, but another part of you is a little fat man who sees very clearly the advantages of staying alive with a whole skin." (Ch 18)
• "The philistines are determined to deny the independence of artistic vision, while it defenders are just as determined to exalt it beyond the reach of criticism." (Ch 20) Orwell wanted to be able to defend an artist's art while still admitting that the artist themselves might be an obnoxious specimen of humanity.
• "He wanted to establish just the right tone for the novel, and he wanted to show in the very style of his own prose how much would be lost in a future world dominated by the impoverished vocabulary of Newspeak." (Ch 22)
• "There must be time for wandering among old churchyards and making the perfect cup of tea and balancing caterpillars on a stick and falling in love. All these things are derided as sentimental and trivial by intellectuals ... but they are the things which form the real texture of a life." (Ch 22)

That rare biography which is at once comprehensive, and easy-to-read and offers a good insight into its subject. May 2024; 489 pages

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God