When I "discovered" Orwell, the four volume Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters, carefully gathered from used bookstores, were my best friends, so much so that the trade paperback copies (this one, happily, is a hardcover) are falling apart.

Unfortunately, they still are my best friends. The 20 volume Peter Davidson Complete Orwell was in print for about 60 seconds, and I don't believe ever was published in the US, so had to be gotten from the UK. I have one volume, very fortuitously found in a used bookstore. I can't afford the rest.

That doesn't make the original 4 volume set unworthy, but it is wretchedly incomplete and often censored because people Orwell was writing about were at the time still alive. This particular volume, My Country Right or Left, covering 1940-1943, has much in it that illustrates Orwell's rapid growth as a writer during the first part of the Second World War. He himself felt that much of the period was wasted, but in this volume we have jewels like The Lion and the Unicorn and essays like "New Words," "Looking Back on the Spanish War," and his classic on popular culture, "The Art of Donald McGill" (picture my reaction when I found out that an Australian airman serving in the UK was sending his girlfriend Donald McGill postcards). Also included are his London Letters to the US magazine Partisan Review and his wartime diaries through November 1942, as well as short pieces based on radio talks he was giving on the BBC India Service, letters, book reviews, etc. It's 450 pages of Orwell approaching his peak. Orwell may have thought these years were thrown away, but here we find Orwell learning how to write with speed and grace - and the first faint hints of Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Very much worth having, but a poor substitute for the Complete Orwell I can't afford and feel the lack of deeply.

Orwell was a great thinker and a great writer. He had a tremendous memory and self deprecating wit. All of these qualities are on display here. While not as good as "Funny, But Not Vulgar," this is still an educational and often fun read.

It's important that Orwell reminds us that Nazis were Socialists, while at the same time it's difficult to read Orwell praise that Nazis' Socialism as the superior method of organizing a country. He failed to see increases in productivity come from the freedom offered in a capitalistic democracy, and he also failed to see that countries which go the route of Socialism either wake up and revert to Capitalism or they sleepwalk their way to totalitarianism.

Additionally, reading Orwell reminds us that no matter how much things change, they can stay the same. Read this quote inserting "the US" for "England" and "American" for "English." "With all its injustices, England is still the land of habeas corpus, and the overwhelming majority of English people have no experience with violence or illegality. If you have grown up in that sort of atmosphere it is not at all easy to imagine what a despotic regime is like."

Orwell's abilities as a prophet are mixed, "Almost certainly we are moving into an age of totalitarian dictatorships-an age in which freedom of thought will be at first a deadly sin and later on a meaningless abstraction."

Orwell is certainly quotable:
"One cannot see the modern world as it is unless one recognises the overwhelming strength of patriotism, national loyalty."

"Patriotism is usually stronger than class-hatred, and always stronger than any kind of internationalism."

Upon realization that every example of Socialism is handcuffed to a reduction of artistic freedom, "Totalitarianism has abolished freedom of thought to an extent unheard of in any previous age."

Given the period of this 2nd collection, it is hardly surprising that most of Orwell's writings here focus on the outbreak of WW II. The letters he wrote to the Partisan Review in America and the number of "war diary" entries certainly focus on this and are of only historical interest as a window into England's internal political situation at the time. There are though, as always,a number of gems: "Tolstoy and Shakespeare", "The Frontiers of Art & Propaganda", "The Art of Donald McGill" (a rumination on snarky, "obscene" postcards), "Looking Back on the Spanish War"and "Poetry and the Microphone". In addition, his book reviews are interesting but are well-grounded in the political climes of the time in which he was writing.

More essays than letters, unlike the first volume -- an interesting view into the era. Ends with about a hundred pages of diary.

Has reviews, here, too, though more general than the last volume, which had a number that concentrated on the Spanish Civil War. Has rather more general essays on literature and writing. In one, he decries the practice of degrading writers because they hold the wrong opinions -- though a few essays earlier, he is writing on Yeats, who described a hierarchical society with great wealth in few hands, and instantly describes it as "unjust." Completely unaware that he is giving himself away. Unequal certainly, but Yeats would not have praised it if he thought inequality unjust.

The gleeful watching of how he thoroughly abuses those who held his own pre-war opinions swings about to the abuse side here, after the dramatic irony of watching him unfold the opinions.

He also unfolds a view of Socialism that turns on the assumption that a Socialist state automatically wins the loyalty of the populace. Tom Simon observes in "The strawman fallacy in Utopian fiction" that 1984 has only a bit of straw in it, but that lay in its lack of ruling philosophy and the assumption they ran on pure lust for power. I suspect that weakness stems from this; admitting that the tyranny sprang from trying to force round pegs into square holes -- and blaming the pegs when it failed -- would meant that his own desired square holes were unachievable.

A number are columns sent to America to fill them in on the war and England. A combination of information on the ground and Orwell's innocent certainty that the war could not be won without socialism. He points to how Hitler militarized his country on seven years to prove how effective it is. Also interesting tidbits about life, including such things as that if you went to someone's place for dinner it was normal to stay the night owing to the problems getting back home.

Seperti essai-essai Orwell yang pernah saya baca sebelumnya, kumpulan essai-essai dalam buku ini pun menunjukkan tingkat intelegensi Orwell sebagai seorang penulis yang mampu menuliskan sebuah essai bertema sosio-politik menjadi sangat menarik laiknya sebuah karya seni.
Ditulis dengan pengamatan yang gamblang , jujur, dan mengagumkan akan keadaan masyarakat Inggris dan eropa semasa dan setelah Perang Dunia II, tulisan-tulisan Orwell di buku ini membuat pembaca berpikir akan banyak hal, baik bagi yang setuju dengannya ataupun tidak.
Kecerdasan, kejernihan berpikir, dan kejujuran Orwell terepresentasikan dengan sangat jelas dalam tulisannya. Kalimat pendek dan bernas yang ia gunakan sangat berpengaruh, meski kadang orang-orang menganggap gaya tulisan itu membuat pengarangnya tampak arogan, tetapi Orwell mengelolanya dengan cemerlang.
Dia benar-benar membuat seni menulis politik. Selain seni dalam arti seseungguhnya dimana dalam buku ini pun ia mengulas tentang ulasan buku juga membahas puisi dan keadaan sastra kontemporer.
Benar-benar buku yang "mencerahkan" dan menegaskan bahwa manusia adalah makhluk yang (seharusnya) berpikir. Really Worth Reading.

Orwellovy eseje nebo romány jsou mnohem lepší. V deníku se mi líbí, že sice Orwell podporuje spojence, ale pořád nás upozorňuje, že Stalin je zločinec, neidealizuje si Churchilla ani jeho válečný kabinet. A také jeho poznámky o americkém veřejném mínění nebo o složité situaci v Indii jsou zábavné. Poněkud otravné je Orwellovo předvídání a přivolávání sociální revoluce. Pro českého čtenáře může být zajímavé, jak málo je v deníku o atentátu na Heydricha.
Také si při čtení deníku uvědomíte, jak obtížné bylo i pro Orwella dostat se při své práci v BBC k čerstvým informacím o průběhu války. Na jednom místě je poznámka, že ani Churchill prý nemá dostatek informací o vývoji války v Řecku. Jaký kontrast s tím, že už první válku v Iráku streamovala CNN a válku na Ukrajině můžeme sledovat skoro v přímém přenosu. A přesto hustá fog of war přes množství dostupných informací nám stejně jako Orwellovi nedovoluje odhadnout další vývoj.

As always, Orwell's clarity and perceptiveness never cease to amaze. "Literature and Totalitarianism," "Looking back on the Spanish War," and "The Lion and the Unicorn," each drew and interesting perspective towards the political world we currently reside.

Though I like reading letters and essays, I found this book a bit tough going. I felt like the author had written for a rather esoteric audience, that did not include me. Nevertheless, between Orwell and Muggeridge, I certainly know a lot more, than I did before, about the morale of the intelligentsia in England during World War II.