Orwell

[Dr Jekyll]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28971276

Will Self is criticising George Orwell's writing! Moreover, either he is criticising it precisely because he disapproves of clarity, or Will is writing so badly that I'm misunderstanding his argument.

[Dr Jekyll]

paranoid airbag said:

I don't know who will self is, but 1984 was boring to read, and its importance as a "predictor" book is vastly overstated. Whether that's his fault, or that of people decreeing any govt restriction whatsoever as "Orwellian" and diluting the phrase, I don't know - but it gets the narrative of the impact of technology on power structures in the 20th century almost completely wrong. Far better dystopias out there.

Animal farm's alright though, for 14 year olds at any rate.

1984 certainly isn't his best written book, it was dashed off in a few months while he was ill and it shows. It was never meant to be technologically predictive, just taking authoritarian trends and techniques to their logical conclusion. Somebody (Anthony Burgess?) reckoned it was actually a satire on 1948, this was treated was derision but I think there may be a grain of truth in it.

If you want to know why Orwell is well regarded as a writer, read his essays.