„The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all — and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists, though less interested in money”

Four excellent essays with Why I Write, The Lion and the Unicorn, A Hanging and Politics and the the English Language. My favourite was the second written during the Second World War. Orwell’s prediction of a new socialist wave and nationalization was spot on with Clement Atlee’s reforms. Of course his prediction of a weakened aristocracy failed to materialize and England is still one of the most class ridden countries under the sun.

His four reasons for why people write are insightful. Aesthetic enthusiasm, Sheer egotism,Historical impulse and political purpose are spot on.

لماذا أكتب؟
جورج أورويل
.............
ثالث عمل أقرؤه للكاتب جورج أورويل بعدما قرأ أشهر عملين له وهما: مزرعة الحيوانات، و1984. وقد يتصور من يبدأ قراءة هذا الكتاب أنه سيقرأ تجربة الكاتب مع الكتابة؛ لأنه يحمل عنوانا يدل علي ذلك، إلا ان الكتاب بعيد تماما عن هذه الفكرة، والعنوان خادع تماما؛ لان هذا الكتاب عبارة عن مجموعة متفرقة من المقالات لم يجمعها الكاتب ولم يرتبها بنفسه. وقد يخرج قارئ المقالات برأي سلبي عنها إذا قرأها بعد روايتين من أشهر الروايات في العالم، خاصة وأن الكاتب لم يقم بجمع هذه المقالات ولا رتبها بنفسه.
الكتاب يتكون من مجموعة من المقالات بعضها قصصي وبعضها نقد أدبي، ويختلف التقييم بين هذه المقالات حسب نوعها.
المقالة الأولي تحدث فيها عن وقعة شنق لبعض الوطنيين في بلاد كان فيها يعمل جندي احتلال بريطاني، والثانية كانت عن واقعة مطاردة وقتل فيل شارد أيضا في بلاد كان يعمل فيها جندي احتلال. في المقالين غلب عليهما الطابع القصصي، وهما من أجمل مقالات الكتاب.
في مقالات أخري تحدث الكاتب عن تجربته في محلات بيع الكتب، وتجاربه مع النقد لكتب سماها (جيدة رديئة)، وقد حصر منها كثير من كتب المشاهير. وممن خصهم اتلكاتب بمقالات نقدية الكاتب الشهري مارك توين، وتولوستوي ونقده لأعمال شكسبير.
الكثير مما كتبه المؤلف في الكتاب لم يمثل أي جديد بالنسبة لي، ففي مقاله عن غاندي كان كله قديما لأني قرأت السيرة الذاتية لغاندي، وكان كل ما قاله المؤلف يعتمد عليها، فلم يكن هناك جديد. وكذلك نقده وتحليله لرواية (رحلات جيلفر)، قرأت مثله من قبل.
تضمن الكتاب مقالات خفيفة مثل: كوب خفيف من الشاي تحدث فيه عن الطرق المتعددة لعمل كوب شاي ورغم خفة المقال إلا انه كان مسليا.
من أجمل الكلمات التي قالها المؤلف في كتابه والتي توضح مذهبه في الكتابة:
عندما أجلس لكتابة كتاب لا أقول لنفسي "سوف انتج عملا فنيا". أكتبه؛ لأن هناك كذبة ما أريد فضحها، حقيقة ما أريد إلقاء الضوء عليها.
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عند وضع الحاجة لكسب العيش جابنا، أعتقد ان هناك أربعة دوافع للكتابة
حب الذات الصرف/ الحماس الجمالي/ الحافز التاريخي/ الهدف السياسي
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أكثر ما رغبت به طوال السنوات العشر الماضية هو أن أجعل من الكتابة السياسية فنا.
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قد تشعر للوهلة الأولى عند قراءتك لعنوان الكتاب أنه يتحدث عن الكتابة، ولكن غالباً ما يكون العنوان خادع، فالكتاب بشكل عام عبارة عن مقالات وقصص مر بها الكاتب وعاشها.

أغلبها كانت آرائه في كُتاب معينين، كما ستجده يخوض في الحرب العالمية والإسبانية، أما الباقي وهو الجزء الأقل سيتكلم فيه عن حياته.

الجميل في الكتاب أنك ستتعرف على بشر مختلفين وتكتشف عصور وأزمنة لم يتسنى لك العيش فيها.

أمانةً أحسست بالضياع نوعاً ما في المقالات التي تحدثت عن الكُتاب، فهناك كتاب لم أتعرف عليهم لذلك لم أفهم تماماً كل ما تحدث فيه عنهم خصوصاً انه بزمن مختلف لا أعرف تماماً مايدور به من أحداث، ولكن من ناحية أخرى هي نقطة إيجابية للتعرف على كتاب لم تسمح لي الفرصه بالتعرف عليهم. أما المقالات التي تطرقت لكتاب أعرفهم مسبقاً فقد استمتعت بها وتعرفت بها أكثر على الكتاب وحياتهم كذلك شخصياتهم وسلوكهم.

بالنسبة لي استمتعت أكثر بالمقالات التي تحدث فيها عن حياته الشخصية والمواقف التي عاشها بالذات مقالة ذكريات محل بيع الكتب فقد كانت احبهم لي.

Neden Yazıyorum - Edebiyat Üzerine - Faşizm Kehanetleri toplu yorumudur. Valla bunlar çok güzel, Orwell’in eserlerindeki dünyanın arkasını anlamak isteyenler için birebir. “Edebiyat Üzerine”de yazarın ütopyalar ve distopyalara dair fikirleri, komünizm ve kapitalizme dair oldukça ilginç analizleri ve “sol edebiyat”la ilgili çok kafa açıcı analizleri var. “Faşizm Kehanetleri” yine ağırlıklı edebiyat eleştirilerinden oluşuyor, içindeki “Milliyetçilik Üzerine Görüşler”e bayıldım. “Neden Yazıyorum”, aslında daha önce okuduğum “Bir İdam” ile büyük ölçüde çakışıyordu, benzer bir derleme. Ama Orwell’in meşhur “Bir Fili Vurmak” öyküsü de bu kitapta. 7 sayfalık bir metin nasıl ciğerinizi sökebilir deneyimlemek isterseniz tavsiye ederim.

“Why do you write?” must have been a question George Orwell was asked countless times in his short life. Indeed, anyone who has seriously tried to write must ask themselves this now and then. It is usually a stressful, solitary and for the most part thankless task, yet for some the drive is constant and impossible to ignore; it always has been and always will be. As George Orwell said:

“I seemed to be making this descriptive effort almost against my will, under a kind of compulsion from outside.”

In the summer of 1946, the now defunct London literary magazine “Gangrel” decided to ask a selection of writers to explain why they write. Perhaps for the first time George Orwell addressed the question in public, giving as always a frank and honest assessment. He looked back over his whole oeuvre of work so far. The essay has become more significant than he might have supposed, because poignantly, George Orwell was to die less than four years later, at the age of 46.

Why I Write therefore reads as a sort of extremely short autobiography of George Orwell, and why he became a writer. He describes a childhood probably familiar to many, with childish attempts to write poems about a tiger, or other aspects of nature. He remembers one “ghastly” short story, and some comic verse, as well as what he was required to write for school. But what interested me about this part of his life, was his description of carrying on a continuous “story” about himself in his head. He maintained that this was like a rather humdrum running commentary of what he was doing, rather than anything creative.

In part this reminded me of an obsessive relative I knew, who would routinely comment on what she was doing (“Now I’m putting the carrots on to boil” kind of thing), but also, I noted with surprise, of myself. For as long as I can remember, if I have needed to speak to a large group of people, I have gone over and over what I would say in my head beforehand, rehearsing and improving it. Perhaps this is not unusual, but I also tend to prepare whatever I am going to write in my head beforehand too. This includes both formal letters, and also long chatty ones to friends, or journals, and so on. I mentioned this once to my husband, who is a writer, but my own “inner running commentary” baffled him. Obviously then, I haven’t hitherto shared it more widely, anticipating a slightly embarrassed hasty retreat from friends and neighbours. Nowadays, it tends to be my reviews for Goodreads which are written in my head, before they find their way to the keyboard. It does though make me wonder whether many of us have a version of George Orwell’s inner monologue, and if it does not have a routine outlet, whether in some this becomes the irresistible urge to write.

Perhaps it also sometimes stems from a tendency to be introverted. George Orwell tells us that he was a lonely child who would make up stories and hold conversations with imaginary people. His own desire to write seems to be linked to his feeling of being as he says “isolated and undervalued”. During the First World War, when he was still a child, George Orwell had two poems published in the local newspaper, and that was the beginning of his publishing career.

George Orwell concludes that by this, he knew he would be a writer from a very young age. Although he tried to abandon the idea in early adulthood, as many do, he knew it was his true calling and that he would eventually “settle down and write books”. When he was in his twenties, he had ambitions of writing as he says:

“enormous naturalistic novels with unhappy endings, full of detailed descriptions and arresting similes, and also full of purple passages in which words were used partly for the sake of their sound”.

We might dispute that George Orwell ever wrote “purple passages”, but he maintains that his first novel, “Burmese Days” (1934), was this kind of book.

He then goes in to identify what he sees as four chief motives for anyone becoming a writer. The first, he frankly admits, is egoism: the desire to be thought clever, to be talked about when alive and remembered after death—even perhaps to get your own back on anyone who might have snubbed your early efforts and aspirations. Any writer who disputes this, he roundly remarks is talking “humbug”. But then George Orwell always speaks his mind, as in:

“Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists, though less interested in money.”

The second is aesthetic enthusiasm: the perception of beauty in the world around the writer, as well as the beauty of language itself: its words and forms. George Orwell maintains that there are very few examples of writing which are entirely free from these aesthetic considerations.

The third is an historical impulse: a desire to see things as they are, to discover the truth, and present it faithfully as a record for the future.

George Orwell’s fourth reason is perhaps the one which has been the most misunderstood. It is that of political purpose—although he immediately qualifies this statement with the words:

“using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense.”

By this time, George Orwell had come to realise that his best writing was when he felt passionately about a particular cause. Earlier in this essay, he had identified the Spanish Civil War as the defining event which had shaped the political slant of his writing. Here he asserts that all writers have a desire to push the world in a certain direction, and to change what people believe about society. He goes further:

“No book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.”

These are very particular and specific assertions. George Orwell’s style is minimal and precise. Earlier in 1946, he had written an essay called “Politics and the English Language” in which he heavily criticised the deliberate use of misleading language in politics. He loathed the skewed language of party politics, and had given many examples of meaningless slogans and bombastic rhetoric. Of any writer, he says:

“His subject-matter will be determined by the age he lives in—at least this is true in tumultuous, revolutionary ages like our own—but before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape.”

By this we can see that although George Orwell identified the Spanish Civil War as his personal breakthrough, it is his moral principles and ethical beliefs which underpin any and all of his political affiliations. Even though he was English, and was not involved in Spanish life and culture, he felt so passionately about individuals’ rights and freedoms that he travelled to Spain to fight for the Republicans against Franco’s Nationalists. Yet he had waited 10 years to write this essay, so this is a carefully considered retrospective opinion, looking back over all his life up to that point.

Indeed, throughout his life, George Orwell went through several different political affiliations. He had worked for the British colonial government in Burma and India, but also for a Communist newspaper. He had once described himself as a “Tory-anarchist”, but more often as a democratic socialist. George Orwell liked to provoke arguments by challenging the status quo, but was also very English in his love of traditional values. His political views were extremely complex, but by the time of this essay he states:

“Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.”

At the time of the Spanish Civil War, George Orwell had been strongly influenced by the Trotskyist and anarchist critiques of the Soviet regime, and after Spain by the anarchists’ emphasis on individual freedom. One of the key insights in Why I Write is the link he makes between his own efforts to become a successful writer and the broader political scene at the time. The Spanish Civil War, and the rise of Nazism, fascism, and Stalinism, all gave him a clear sense of what he should write about. He returned from Catalonia a staunch anti-Stalinist, and joined the British Independent Labour Party in June 1938.

By the time of this essay, George Orwell’s conception of socialism was of a traditionally planned economy, alongside democracy. His emphasis on “democracy” places a strong emphasis on civil liberties within a socialist economy. To create memes from the observational gems in this essay, quoting them out of context and superimposing a simplistic idea of his political affiliations, is to travesty what George Orwell was trying to do. Both extremes of political persuasions have adopted his phrases in this essay, to support their own jingoism. George Orwell must be turning in his grave.

The year before this essay, his near-perfect satire, the novel “Animal Farm” had been published, resulting in both critical and commercial literary success. Of it he says:

“Animal Farm was the first book in which I tried, with full consciousness of what I was doing, to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole. I have not written a novel for seven years, but I hope to write another fairly soon. It is bound to be a failure, every book is a failure, but I do know with some clarity what kind of book I want to write.”.

By now he was seriously ill and desperate to get away from London to the island of Jura, Scotland, in order to start work on it. In the event his words proved to be poignant and ironic, since his next book was to be his final one, the hugely influential masterpiece “Nineteen Eighty-Four”. These two novels, often the only ones readers now remember, exemplify what he claims in this essay:

“What I have most wanted to do … is to make political writing into an art.”

George Orwell, the lonely introverted child, admits that for him personally, the first three motives would naturally far outweigh the fourth; that he felt “forced” into political writing, because of the age he lived in. It is difficult to think of anyone less devious and manipulative in his writing than George Orwell. He deplored the hyperbole of political language, and how all its propaganda debased language, promulgating inaccuracies. With his lucid prose and keen eye, the political world of slippery ethics, pamphleteering and broken promises seems a world away.

Whatever your own political persuasion, it is impossible to deny that George Orwell acted on his underlying principles throughout his life. The political scene helped him to sharpen and hone his own writing. He wrote with a purpose, and describes that as a “political purpose”, but it is clearly very different from how we colloquially use that phrase in the 21st century. The cause, or party may have differed for George Orwell according to the time, country or context, but his sense of injustice remained constant. Remember his words:

“My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice. When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art’. I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.”

These are not the words a politician would say (or only in rare cases). They are the words of a highly principled, honourable person with an overpowering urge to write. It is surprising that George Orwell is principally known for “political” writing, when his passion is clearly to right wrongs, and tailor his writing to his ethical and social principles. Truth and a sense of justice are essential. After all:

“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist or understand.”

Many who aspire to write will read this essay out of curiosity—and find it really rings a bell for them. The political causes or parties George Orwell joined, or even quite literally fought for, were therefore an outward expression of his inner principles. That is what he means by “political purpose”. His life was cruelly cut short. This essay is typically frank, and forthright, seeming to address each reader personally.

We cannot know how George Orwell would feel had he lived for 40 or so more years, and which political cause he would have embraced. But we can be sure that he would always feel passionately committed to writing with a social or “political” purpose, and would never produce what he called “lifeless” prose.

***

“And the more one is conscious of one’s political bias, the more chance one has of acting politically without sacrificing one’s aesthetic and intellectual integrity.”

I excepted this to be a simple, easy read about Orwell’s motivations and techniques when it comes to writing. It was actually a lot more. In the first essay his focus is on the writing, including, as he sees it, the main motives for writing and the general disposition of any writer. That’s where the simple stuff that most people will expect ends, though. Right there on page 10. The remaining 110 pages are where things get interesting.

I’ve never found myself quite so into politics. Of course, i keep up to date with what’s going on and have strong-to-vehement opinions on it all, but this was the first time i remember being truly engaged on the right level. I think it helps that Orwell comes at it from a good angle. That angle being it’s a fucking mess and a hell of a lot more needs to change than simply the party in power. He’s my kind of reasonable (which is to say, perhaps, not at all)–he’s equally insulting and fed up of it all. He’s not pushing for a particular agenda or trying to persuade anyone of anything, just stating the facts as he sees them, and his opinion on where and how things are fucked up and unfair.

Some reviews i read from people who did not enjoy this book as thoroughly as I did claim it’s not about why Orwell writes, and I’m left wondering if they’ve ever read any of his other books. Animal Farm, 1984… politics is why he writes. Reading him talk in such an honest and straightforward manner about his political views was thrilling. Without the metaphors and refined prose of a fictional narrative Orwell is sharp, witty, and on point. I could have coped with this book being twice as long, honestly.

A longer review can be read at my book blog: Marvel at Words.

Recopilación de ensayos (más un relato corto) de George Orwell a modo de batiburrillo, donde la mayor cantidad del espacio la ocupa una disertación de escaso interés para la mayoría de los mortales: "The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius". Pese a todo, una joyita.
Reseña completa:

http://www.libros-prohibidos.com/geor...

There are a few essays in this book, most of them I read before. However, a rereading was welcome, because there was only one essay that I had remembered quite well - Politics And the English Language. I read that one ages ago, when I was still a student. I must admit that Politics And the English Language is still one of my favourite essays by Orwell. It is simply brilliant. If there was a way to do it, I would force everyone to read it. Anyway, today I will review only one essay and that will be- Why I Write. The other essays in this book I will review when I review the editions I had originally read them in.


Why I Write was more personal in tone than I expected it to be. Not that I'm complaining. I consider Orwell to be one of the best essayists in the English language, if not the best. As much as I love the directness of his famous essay about the politics and the English language, I'm always interested in learning more about him, so this essay proved to be a wonderful read. In other words, I was only glad to read about Orwell's relationship with writing from a more personal point of view. Take a look at this, the opening sentence to this essay: "From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer. Between the ages of about seventeen and twenty-four I tried to abandon this idea, but I did so with the consciousness that I was outraging my true nature and that sooner or later I should have to settle down and write books." Now, that's pretty personal, isn't it?


Orwell's words made me think of other writers I admire and sure enough they also wrote about writing being essential to them, about feeling that it is a part of their nature. Is the need for writing something we are born with? Is it nurture or nature? I can't help noticing that a lot of writers, great writers, were rather sickly (or isolated/lonely) as children. For many great writers to be, childhood was a challenging time at best. I remember what Kazuo Ishiguro said about writing, how it is important to start writing young and not to wait for mature years, how you can write just as well and in some cases even better as young. How young is too young or is there such a a thing? Is it a coincidence that a lot of great writers had the habit of escaping into dream worlds as kids?

I read a few books of Orwell's collected essays so I remember reading about his unhappy and lonely childhood before. Still, I couldn't help being touched when I read this: " I had the lonely child's habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginary persons, and I think from the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued." In addition, that sentence made me think about how much does childhood affects a writer. Is it perhaps the crucial time in a life of a writer, something one always comes back to, or is a place from where the inspiration comes, from where the feelings are born, both the good and the bad ones?

Orwell seems to be aware of all the complex influences on the writer and about this important subject he says the following: "I give all this background information because I do not think one can assess a writer's motives without knowing something of his early development. His subject matter will be determined by the age he lives in — at least this is true in tumultuous, revolutionary ages like our own — but before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape. It is his job, no doubt, to discipline his temperament and avoid getting stuck at some immature stage, in some perverse mood; but if he escapes from his early influences altogether, he will have killed his impulse to write. Putting aside the need to earn a living, I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. They exist in different degrees in every writer, and in any one writer the proportions will vary from time to time, according to the atmosphere in which he is living."


Orwell goes on to explain how there are four main reasons why any writer writes: Sheer egoism, Aesthetic enthusiasm, Historical impulse and Political purpose. He explains it rather well, as you can imagine. I honestly think that any reader (and writer) for that matter will find that part of the essay extremely interesting. From there, Orwell continues to write a bit more about his own writing path, about historical events that influenced him and so on. Orwell says that by the end of 1935, he still didn't reach a solid decision about whether to be a writer or not. Orwell even included a little poem that he wrote as a result of his dilemma- to be or not to be a writer? I rather liked it, so I'll post it bellow:

A happy vicar I might have been
Two hundred years ago
To preach upon eternal doom
And watch my walnuts grow;
But born, alas, in an evil time,
I missed that pleasant haven,
For the hair has grown on my upper lip
And the clergy are all clean-shaven.
And later still the times were good,
We were so easy to please,
We rocked our troubled thoughts to sleep
On the bosoms of the trees.
All ignorant we dared to own
The joys we now dissemble;
The greenfinch on the apple bough
Could make my enemies tremble.
But girl's bellies and apricots,
Roach in a shaded stream,
Horses, ducks in flight at dawn,
All these are a dream.
It is forbidden to dream again;
We maim our joys or hide them:
Horses are made of chromium steel
And little fat men shall ride them.
I am the worm who never turned,
The eunuch without a harem;
Between the priest and the commissar
I walk like Eugene Aram;
And the commissar is telling my fortune
While the radio plays,
But the priest has promised an Austin Seven,
For Duggie always pays.
I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,
And woke to find it true;
I wasn't born for an age like this;
Was Smith? Was Jones? Were you?


After sharing this poem, Orwell talks a bit more about political writing, explain what it means and shows what its challenges are. At the conclusion of this essay, he gets a bit softer and opens up again. He talks about the process of writing with a refreshing honestly. There is one sentence that really stayed with me and I must share it - "Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. "

Bu kadar objektif ve net bir anlatım tabi ki Orwell'a yakışırdı. Her satırını sindire sindire okuduğum çok güzel bir kitaptı.

3.5

Four brilliant essays by George Orwell about the political state of the UK in the 40s. He argues that language and politics are related, and how the former influences the latter: He states very good points on tactics that politicians and feeling-politicians still commit today! Amazing read.

Kitapta yazarın
*Neden Yazıyorum
*Aslan ile Tekboynuz: Sosyalizm ve İngiliz Dehası
*Bir İdam
*Bir Fili Vurmak adlı denemeleri yer alıyor.

Sel Yayıncılık’ın kitaba “Neden Yazıyorum” ismini vererek hata yaptığını ve okuyucuyu yanılttığını düşünüyorum. Bu isim bana Orwell’ın kitaplarını nasıl yazdığını, yazma alışkanlıklarını, nelerden ilham aldığını ve kitaplarını yazma süreçlerini anlatacağını düşündürdü ama kitapta bu konularla ilgili bir bilgi yok. “Neden Yazıyorum” on sayfalık kısa bir yazı. Merak ettiğim, okuyacağımı düşündüğüm sorulara cevap verme konusunda yetersiz. İkinci yazı, kitabın en uzun ve, bana göre, en sıkıcı yazısı. Son iki yazıyı yazarın anısı olarak düşünebiliriz.

Yayınevi kitaba “Yazılar” gibi genel bir başlık atsa hem kitabın içeriğine daha uygun olurdu hem de insanları yanlış beklentilere sokmazdı diye düşünüyorum. Maalesef şimdiye kadar okuduğum bütün Orwell kitapları içinde en beğenmediğim kitap bu oldu.