Jeffrey
Meyers is a biographer of some renown. An accomplished writer of
criticism, his works focus mainly on literature, covering subjects
from 'Homosexuality and Art' to studies on the mechanics of biography
itself. He has published portraits of many literary figures - Robert
Frost, D.H. Lawrence and Ernest Hemingway, displaying an uncanny
genius for research. ~Orwell - Wintry Conscience of a Generation~ is
one of his more recent contributions that has given us a new and more
down to earth portrayal of one of the most admired literary
cult-figures in English letters. This book is not a hagiography, a
monument-chiselling-exercise, creating more myth than fact: in this
biography we are introduced to a human being, at times dark and
disturbing, who received the calling to write somewhat late in life,
and who showed a staunch integrity that today is quite rare.
Personally,
reading Orwell is similar to sitting in the principal's office, being
told in no uncertain terms the hard facts about the world, to then
come away with a much firmer hold on reality. Orwell is a wake-up
call, shattering any illusions you might have of a so-called just and
fair society, revealing the numerous machinations of power under
superficial propaganda that those in a position of influence want us
to believe. While others were band wagging, blowing any which way the
political and philosophical breeze was heading at the time, Orwell
held fast to what he knew to be the truth - and eventually paid the
price.
It's interesting that Eric Blair (Orwell) suddenly dropped his
career as a colonial policeman in Burma, (a truly detestable job for
any man of conscience) to become a full time writer without having
really written anything of significance. From the point of this
'calling', until his early death from tuberculosis at 47 years of
age, wrote some of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, not
to mention a myriad of essays, articles and reviews, which scholars,
historians, and political scientists are pouring over to this day.
Another interesting point - Orwell believed that if a writer produced
anything less than 100,000 words a year, they were not doing their
job. Anyone who writes professionally or other wise, knows this to be
a daunting task.
At
the beginning of Orwell's writing career, his actions showed
considerable courage, a self-imposed guilt, believing that a rough,
tramp-like existence was absolutely necessary: "...Every
suspicion of self advancement, even to "succeed" in life to
the extent of making a few hundreds a year, seemed to me spiritually
ugly, a species of bullying...My mind turned immediately towards
extreme cases, the social outcast: tramps, beggars, criminals,
prostitutes...what I wanted, at the time, was to find some way of
getting out of the respectable world altogether." As Meyers
simply explains, "Living rough and becoming a writer were part
of the same route out of the respectable world." (p.79)
One
of my favourite novels, 'Down and Out in Paris and London', describes
this conscious escape from the privileged Victorian middle class into
the dark recesses of working class poverty. Orwell is of that
particular writing school where, in order to write about it, you have
to live it - and he did so, plunging himself continually into
personal and political conflict.
Jeffrey Meyers has done us all a big favour, giving us a gritty astonishing portrait of a man of letters, who fought for social justice, informing us through his actions and writing the importance of personal and political integrity - Orwell is a true prophetic moralist.
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