This comment may seem wasteful, but I thought I’d add my two cents to state that while one may one may disagree with Orwell, he most certainly does not suck. Through his ideas on goverment and philosophy, his writing techinique, or his popularity, it fails to reason that he entirely sucks. I admit that Smiling Bandit may have some points, but I think it’s oversimplistic and trite to claim that Orwell sucks, espcially if the goal is to raise awareness of the thread.
Absolutely.
I think Orwell was at his best, in books like this, when he was engaging in this type of seemingly effortless and yet incredibly rich observation and description. And in some ways, this early book is probably the best example. It has much less of the overt moralizing and prescriptive finger-wagging that characterized works like Road to Wigan Pier, and that made that book such an exercise in exasperation for some readers–and indeed for its subjects, some of whom later took issue with Orwell’s description of how they lived, and what they saw as his condescension.
Anyone whose writings inspired David Bowie to create Diamond Dogs can’t be all bad, right?
Yeah, I can see how him writing that Rob Schneider movie would disillusion you.
Could I ask Smiling Bandit to do a pitting of Will Shakespeare? I think the Blackadder approach works best.
Blackadder turns and knocks Shakespeare down with one clean punch.
Blackadder-
"That is for every schoolboy and schoolgirl for the next four hundred years. Have you any idea how much suffering you are going to cause. Hours spent at school desks trying to find one joke in A Midsummer Night’s Dream? Years wearing stupid tights in school plays and saying things like ‘What ho, my lord’ and ‘Oh, look, here comes Othello, talking total crap as usual’
Blackie meets Willie
I also love Orwell (and I’m not just claiming that).
smiling bandit - while you’re perfectly entitled to dislike the writer and the work - it’s not whether you think he’s smart or accurate or right or a good person or even a good writer. You didn’t put the books down out of boredom, though you may have done so out of disgust. He had some kind of an effect on you. He made you think, he presented information that your brain was able to engage with and you questioned it - you questioned the man, his ideas, his method of communicating them and his motivations. He was doing something right.
Just because you are opposed to or appalled by so many aspects of his work - doesn’t mean the work ‘sucks’. It means you disagree.
Yes, smiling bandit saying that Orwell sucks does, in fact, mean that Orwell sucks. There is no objective measure of quality, no magic stick that we can wave over a novel and get a universally agreed upon determination of inherent goodness. “Orwell sucks” is a purely subjective statement. “Orwell is great” is similar. And both statements can be correct at the same time, simply because people have different tastes. And this is true, even when they don’t put the book down, but decide to read it to the end.
Now, I personally don’t think that Orwell sucks. I’m a fan of his fiction. But “Politics and the English Language” sucks big time. It’s hilarious that in the same work where he recommends the active voice instead of the passive whenever possible, his own passive usage runs at about 20%. That’s more than any survey of newspaper writing, which runs at the most at about 13%.
I’m gonna give Orwell the benefit of the doubt and assume he was blithely ignorant and not disgusting hypocritical: It’s amazing how a person can so develop their craft in English composition, and yet be entirely unaware of their own writing habits. Orwell on language is just another example of someone who can’t help being a smarmy, oblivious, know-it-all, conceited jackass when they decide to opine about English.
Having read the complete works of George Orwell and this discussion so far, I’m going to say that he’s a more interesting and persuasive writer than any of you. Instead of reading to judge, you might try reading to learn.
Thanks especially to Cervaise and mhendo. It would have taken me all day to respond half as cogently as you guys have. Glad now I don’t have to.
What I can say is this: although smiling bandit does not have a huge profile here, over the past few years I have found that I disagree with him on absolutely everything, from politics and economics to games and books. I think he is the person here with whom I share the absolute least common ground. So since I believe he is wrong about just about everything important in the world, I am gratified also to see that he loathes Orwell. This can only mean that he is another cow likely to remain sacred for a good long time.
My two favorite books by Orwell are Burmese Days and Coming Up From Air. The first is heart-breaking and the second had me quivering with laughter the entire time I read it. I can think of few writers who can manage both devastating tragedy and fantastic satire.
I also have found his essays and literary criticism illuminating. Whether or not “Politics and the English Language” is “correct,” it is a useful tool for young writers… though I find that the 20th Century advice to writers by luminaries such as White and Orwell is of decreasing relevance. They were cautioning against overdone writing, but those rules are now so well known they border on dogma, and if writers err, it is on the side of colorlessness instead of purpleness. When late 20th Century writers like Elmore Leonard and Stephen King continue with the same assault on adverbs, I wonder who they are talking to.
I agree with the estimation of Animal Farm above – it’s probably his laziest work. 1984 is brilliant, but so well known it’s difficult to read it with clear eyes. That book is on a short list of most misread and most abusively alluded to, with his “Big Brother” character trotted out for such trivial things as enforcement of parking tickets or limited smoking bans. I guess it shows the extent that he caught the public imagination, and it’s a compliment, but it drives me mad when people do that.
Actually, no. He’s much more concerned the masses will submit to a very different kind of ruler, one like Hitler, who offers them not bread and security and equality, but patriotism and struggle and sacrifice and excitement.
Burmese Days is my favorite Orwell novel. I read it for a class in college and re-read it for fun a few years later. I wouldn’t base my opinion of Orwell on the heavy-handed satire he’s most famous for, he is a hell of a writer if you can get into his lesser-known works.
I think Animal Farm is not trite and simplistic, mhendo. I think it is a popularization, a modern parable. It was written simplistically, in order to reach a larger and younger audience. Sort of the equivalent of Stephen J. Gould for political theory.
Please tell me you really mean evolutionary biology and not political theory. 
It was implied in the construction, I think.
Orwell : politics :: Gould : biology.
I would also strongly recommend his nonfiction, particularly Homage to Catalonia (about his volunteer service in the Spanish Civil War), and any collection of his essays you can find. (You can find fifty of his essays online here.)
Do not judge him, smiling bandit, until you have read his essay, “Why I Write.”
The moral of the story is do not post while on conference calls.
There’s only one episode in Orwell’s life that is nowadays considered in any way disreputable or even controversial, and it ain’t all that bad in context:
I think the following rules will cover most cases:
(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
If this is really true, would you and the bandit kindly kill yourselves