NP Orwell

[Otto]

A Critic at Large
HONEST, DECENT, WRONG
by LOUIS MENAND
The invention of George Orwell

"(...) Writers are not entirely responsible for their admirers. It is
unlikely that Jane Austen, if she were here today, would wish to become a
member of the Jane Austen Society. In his lifetime, George Orwell was
regarded, even by his friends, as a contrary man. It was said that the
closer you got to him the colder and more critical he became. As a writer,
he was often hardest on his allies. He was a middle-class intellectual who
despised the middle class and was contemptuous of intellectuals, a Socialist
whose abuse of Socialists-"all that dreary tribe of high-minded women and
sandal-wearers and bearded fruit-juice drinkers who come flocking toward the
smell of 'progress' like bluebottles to a dead cat"-was as vicious as any
Tory's. He preached solidarity, but he had the habits of a dropout, and the
works for which he is most celebrated, "Animal Farm," "1984," and the essay
"Politics and the English Language," were attacks on people who purported to
share his political views. He was not looking to make friends. But after his
death he suddenly acquired an army of fans-all middle-class intellectuals
eager to suggest that a writer who approved of little would have approved of
them.

Orwell's army is one of the most ideologically mixed up ever to assemble.
John Rodden, whose "George Orwell: The Politics of Literary Reputation" was
published in 1989 and recently reprinted, with a new introduction
(Transaction; $30), has catalogued it exhaustively. It has included, over
the years, ex-Communists, Socialists, left-wing anarchists, right-wing
libertarians, liberals, conservatives, doves, hawks, the Partisan Review
editorial board, and the John Birch Society: every group in a different
uniform, but with the same button pinned to the lapel-Orwell Was Right.
Irving Howe claimed Orwell, and so did Norman Podhoretz. Almost the only
thing Orwell's posthumous admirers have in common, besides the button, is
anti-Communism. But they all somehow found support for their particular
bouquet of moral and political values in Orwell's writings, which have been
universally praised as "honest," "decent," and "clear." In what sense,
though, can writings that have been taken to mean so many incompatible
things be called "clear"? And what, exactly, was Orwell right about?"

 ...continues at:
http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/?030127crat_atlarge

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