/lit/ - Literature

Homage to Catalonia is not more of the same. It's his account of his time in the Spanish Civil War. You can see how some of the events in the war, particularly those dealing with the Kremlin, could go on to influence his later writing of 1984, but really they are wholly separate entities. And that's a good thing. 1984 and Animal Farm were his two worst works, most of the rest of his writing is far more nuanced and has actual depth. I'd also suggest you read Keep the Aspidistra Flying, and find some collection of his non-fiction essays and articles. Anything that has Politics & The English Language is good, Why I Write is good, To Shoot an Elephant is good but not quite as good as the previous two.
Just keep in mind his two most popular works (1984 and Animal Farm) are the exceptions to the rule when it comes to Orwell.

Why does /lit/ consider Orwell's works as plebian?

"It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself--anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face...; was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime..."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hostile_Intent


obligatory watchwords: Artistic Assasins

Orson Welles and his 1985 book.

Orwell has the best selling pair of books out of any 20th century author. His books Animal Farm and 1984 are routinely taught in high school classes and are widely referred to, with words such as Orwellian, newspeak, thoughtcrime, and so on becoming parts of our standard vocabulary. He's my favourite author. The thing is, Animal Farm is shite compared to his other works (Homage to Catalonia, Keep the Aspidistra Flying), and 1984 had been almost bowdlerized. George Orwell was cited by a Republican politician as being one one of his intellectual role models. Why? Why has Orwell been so popularized as to lose sight of his original messages? Remember, Orwell was a socialist. He was a member of the Independent Labour Party. He fought in a communist, near-Trotskyist militia during the Spanish Civil War. At times in his life he said he was nearly an anarchist. He wrote, "Every line I have written since 1936 has been against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism." But yet in a recent introduction to 1984, the passage was quoted and the "democratic socialism" part was censored. How apropo. So how can one read 1984 without being led astray? Personally, I feel it's important to know more about Orwell before reading 1984. There needs to be context to understand what he was saying. Politics and the English Language ties in perfectly, and Homage to Catalonia gives you Orwell's personal experiences, where he's coming from when he writes.

>your face when you realise 'Atlas Shrugged' is longer than 'War and Peace'.

what's this?

A wild George Orwell appears!

>>1256396
Hey Hemingway, wanna go duck hunting? Oh wait...

really? i find them rather Orwellian

If you don't read you miss out on all the good books. You can't just watch the movie, because the movie is has always cut something, made changes, and it does all the imagining for you. You get see the movie, you get one experience, you read the book, you get another. You don't read books, you miss all those experiences.

You can get water from a bottle...
ORWELL