Review of:
Becoming George Orwell: Life and Letters, Legend and Legacy, by John
Rodden, Princeton University Press, 360 pp, £25, ISBN: 978-0691182742
Rodden gives a good account of the rise and robustness of Orwell’s
reputation, while suggesting that the author’s early death might have
been timely for it. That is correct, I think. Had Orwell lived even a
few more years he would have been drawn into public discussions of
Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-four and their meaning. And had he
equalled his friend Cyril Connolly’s longevity and lived into the 1970s,
he would have become embroiled in controversies like the Cold War,
nuclear disarmament, feminism, decolonisation, Vietnam, immigration and,
who knows, Northern Ireland. He would also have seen his Labour Party
move, not closer to socialism, but further away from it. The way he
reacted to all of this would have affected the way we think of him.
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