Orwell is a brilliantly acerbic writer. All the pieces in this anthology are beautifully crafted and interesting. The longest (which can be read here: http://orwell.ru/library/essays/lion/...) provides a thought-provoking perspective on prospects for the future of Britain, written at the height of the Blitz. In it, Orwell muses on the characteristics of the English, some of which seem oddly familiar more than seventy years later. On the other hand, it's sad to contemplate the massive inequality still present in the 21st century, which Orwell was adamant could not survive the war. His condemnation of left wing party politics also seems oddly apposite today.

The highlight of the book, however, appears at the end. 'Politics and the English Language' is fantastic (and can be read here: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel...). After reading it, I tried to continue with Judith Butler's 'Gender Trouble' and could not bear its dense academic style, which is peppered with words like cathexis, teleology, and semiotic. (I blame Lacan who, ironically, has much to say about language.) Orwell unequivocally condemns the rise of a writing style that I recognise, and am ashamed to have repeatedly used myself, which tries to occlude meaning in order to seem clever. See, I used the word occlude there for just such a purpose! It is so tempting to use long words, but unnecessary verbiage prevents understanding. In this essay can be seen the same preoccupation with how words shape our thoughts that Orwell illustrated so chillingly in '1984' with newspeak. I won't reproduce his main points of contention, as they can be quickly read at the link above. It's enough to say that I agree with him and now intend to try and write more clearly. Also, I must try to avoid the passive voice, which is endemic in academia.

...I can rarely resist an opportunity for pedantry, though. I was amused to spot that Orwell objects to the use of foreign words and little tags, then lists a few. One of these is 'mutatis mutandis' ('changing only what needs to be changed'), which he uses in the prior essay, 'The Lion and the Unicorn'. I felt a petty little thrill at spotting this, then was shamed by Orwell's self-deprecating concession later in the essay that he knows himself to be guilty of the rhetorical tricks he deplores. The point being, they are very hard to avoid, and their constant use has implications for society and politics. His warning about the reduction of communication to stock phrases, whose meaning erodes to practically nothing, is a worrying one. Clarifying your style of writing is a challenging, constant battle against conventional style. Thanks to his awareness of this, Orwell is admirably lucid, here and elsewhere. I was especially struck by this comment:

'In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different.'

জর্জ অরওয়েলের লেখক হয়ে ওঠার ইতিকথা ''Why I Write".

শুনতে হয়তো আশ্চর্যজনক শোনাবে তবু অরওয়েল লিখেছেন মাত্র পাঁচ কি ছয় বছর বয়সেই তিনি ঠিক করেছিলেন লেখক হবেন। বাবা-মায়ের মেজছেলে অরওয়েল বেড়ে ওঠা একাকিত্বের মধ্য দিয়ে। সমবয়সীদের সাথে সখ্য তার গড়ে ওঠেনি৷ কারণ নিজেকে সর্বদাই অন্যদের চাইতে ভিন্নতর হিসেবে আবিষ্কার করতেন অরওয়েল।

মাত্র ছয় বছর বয়সেই লেখালিখিতে হাতেখড়ি তার। বাঘ নিয়ে রচিত একটি কবিতার দিয়ে 'লেখক' হলেন অরওয়েল। যদিও স্বীকার করেছেন উইলিয়াম ব্লেকের 'টাইগার' কবিতাখানা অম্লান বদনে টুকলিফাই করে 'কবি' বনেছিলেন তিনি!

প্রথম মহাযুদ্ধ অরওয়েলের মনোজগতে প্রভাব রেখেছিল। তবে, ব্রিটিশ পুলিশ সার্ভিসে বার্মায় কর্মজীবনকে সবচেয়ে ঘেন্নার চোখে দেখেন তিনি। অবশ্যি পুলিশগিরি না করলে সাম্রাজ্যবাদ চেনা হতো না - এও বুঝতে পেরেছেন অরওয়েল। স্পেনের গৃহযুদ্ধ, হিটলারের উত্থান দেখার আগপর্যন্ত নিজের সত্তায় অনাবিষ্কৃত ছিলেন অরওয়েল। এই দুটি ঘটনা তার জীবনের মোড় বদলে দেয়। চিনতে বাধ্য করে আপন সত্তাকে। লেখক হওয়ার সত্যিকারের প্রেরণা এই ঘটনাগুলিই তাকে দেয়।

একজন মানুষের লেখক হওয়ার পেছনে চারটি কারণ রয়েছে বলে অরওয়েল মনে করেন। কারণ চারটি হলো-

১. খ্যাতিমান হওয়ার লোভ: লোকে চিনবে, লেখক হিসেবে খাতির করবে - মূলত এই লোভেই যে-কোনো ব্যক্তি লেখালিখি করে।

২. সৌন্দর্যপিপাসা: নান্দনিকতাবোধের বহিঃপ্রকাশের একটি উপায় কলম ধরা।

৩. ইতিহাসচেতনা: অতীতের ঘটে যাওয়া ঘটনা বুঝতে ও অপরকে জানানোর অভিপ্রায় থেকেও কেউ কেউ লেখক হন।

৪. রাজনৈতিক মতাদর্শ প্রচার: সবার রাজনৈতিক মতবাদ রয়েছে। এটা লেখার মাধ্যমে প্রচার করাও একটি উদ্দেশ্য। অনেকে দাবি করেন, শিল্পকলা রাজনীতির গণ্ডির বাইরে। অরওয়েল মনে করেন, এই যে শিল্পকে রাজনীতির গণ্ডি বহির্ভূত গণ্য করা হচ্ছে, এটিও একপ্রকার রাজনৈতিক মতবাদ!

ছোট্ট অথচ শক্তিশালী একটি লেখা "Why I Write".

George Orwell explains his main motivations for writing in these four essays, which are included in the Penguin Great Ideas box set. Basically, he always knew that he would become a writer and his life experiences shaped him, all stemming from when he lived in Burma and saw the injustices of the Imperial Administration that he served as a policeman under. This led George Orwell to become a Socialist, or rather a Democratic Socialist and his journalism exposes the injustices of the system that he lived under, especially during the inter-war years. His main novels, or at least the ones we most remember him for, were crafted later in his life (Animal Farm and 1984), and really his later beliefs were all shaped during the Spanish Civil War and his subsequent disillusionment that he experienced having witnessed the suppression of the 'dissident' POUM and CNT-FAI by the Communists. He explains that:

"The Spanish war and other events in 1936-7 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. 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."

He explains that because of the tumultuous era that he was living in, witnessing the Spanish Civil War, the Great Depression, the Second World War and the rise of political extremes, no one really could not escape from writing about those times very neutrally, unless you wrote pure descriptive scenes that was totally devoid of anything substantial. 'The Lion and the Unicorn', the second essay in this pamphlet, is George Orwells 'mission statement' - it was written during the Blitz and in it he states that the only way for England to win this war was for a revolution to happen in the UK. It goes into serious depth about the nature of 'Englishness' (rather than 'Britishness') and Patriotism, and he sets out a blueprint on how the war could be won as well as what type of society was needed after the war (i.e some sort of 'English' Socialism). Its interesting that he also attacks the left-wing intelligentsia in England as well as the Tory right. Both he argues were bringing the country down and he also believes that Marxism (that he describes as a German theory realised by Russia) would not work here along with its polar-opposite, Fascism. This is quite a hefty essay that saw his ideas never actually came true although he was right to say that after the war there would be some sort of social change, and there was with the establishment of the Welfare State and the Labour election victory, although there was no revolution.

If you wanted to know how Orwells description of a dystopian society that 1984 portrays was developed, what shaped this writers ideas, then this pamphlet would suffice. I think that his later ideas stemmed from what he experienced in Spain (as my quote states) and that he actually became fearful of Russian Marxism later on in his life. Interesting little read.

“Darağacına daha kırk metre kadar vardı. Mahkumun çıplak kahverengi sırtının önümde hareket edişini izledim. Bağlı kollarıyla beceriksizce ama Hintlilerin dizlerini hiç düzleştirmeden yukarı aşağı sallanan yürüyüşleriyle durmadan ilerliyordu. Kasları her adımda mükemmel bir şekilde oynuyor, saçının bukleleri yukarı aşağı dans ediyor, ayakları ıslak çakıl zeminde iz bırakıyordu. Ver her iki omzunu da tutan adamlara rağmen, önüne çıkan bir çamur birikintisinden sakınmak için bir kere hafifçe kenara çekildi.

İlginçtir, sağlıklı ve bilinçli bir insanı ortadan kaldırmanın ne anlama geldiğini o ana kadar kavrayamamıştım. Mahkumun çamur birikintisinden sakınmak için kenara çekildiğini gördüğümde, akıp giden hayatı birdenbire sonlandırmanın gizemini, kelimelerle söze dökülemeyecek yanlışlığını gördüm.”(s.94)

Kitabın ilk beş sayfası 'neden yazıyorum'la ilgili, kalan sayfalar ise Orwell'in çalkantılı WW2 döneminde İngiltere için düşündükleri ve öngördükleri ile ilgili. Detaylı bir şekilde siyasi fikirlerini anlatmış ve temel yazma güdüsünün siyasi sorunlarla oluştuğunu anlatmış. İngilizlerin genel karakter özelliklerinden girmiş 'ideal yönetim sistemi ne olmalıdır'a geçip Burma günlerinden iki anısı ile kitabı bitirmiş ama kitabın adı nedense 'neden yazıyorum'. Bence 'sosyalizm ve gelecekteki İngiltere' daha uygun olurmuş. Orijinal adı da 'why i write' işin enteresan tarafı...
Yazmak ve yazarlarla ilgili tespitleri çok güzel olmakla birlikte ilk beş sayfaya sıkıştırılmış.

Published in 1946, Why I Write is one of Orwell's better known essays. It's really a mini-biography because he talks about his motivations and thought processes relating to his writing at the various stages of his life. He lists political motivation as the most important aspect of writing a novel, for him anyway. He believes that all novels are somewhat political in nature. Also sheer egoism is motivational, the need to be successful, to be remembered. That's just part of it. It's provides an insight, a window into the creative mind of a very interesting man, and a great writer.

لماذا أكتب

في مصافحتي الاولى لأورويل أصبت بالدهشة ، كنت أعتقد أن مجال اورويل هو السياسه فقط وذلك بحكم شهرته عن روايته 1984 ومزرعة الحيوان ، لكن ما أتضح لي أنه بارع وجدا في مجالات عده ويملك قلم مبدع


لماذا أكتب هو عبارة عن مجموعة مقالات متنوعه كتبها اورويل تتباين في جماليتها ولا اقول انه يوجد نص سيء فيها الا أنني لم استطع فهم ما يقصد دائما خصوصا اذا مل تكلم عن كتاب لم استطع القراءة لهم او العثور على معلومات بعد بحثي في الانترنت لكنني دائما ما انتهي بجمله انه على حق

لا ابالغ اذا ما قلت بأنني قرأت النص الاول لغاية اربع مرات مقدار السحر فيه أكثر من رائع وهو بعنوان واقعه شنق يوصف فيها اورويل مدى قوة الحياة حتى حين محاولة انهاءها وذلك اثناء تنفيذ حكم الاعدام في بورما كيفية اقتياد المحكوم عليه واثناء مناجاته بل انه لم يغفل تنحية عن بركه موحله رغم انه في طريقه للفناء

اسفار جيلفار ايضا من النصوص الجميلة في الكتاب وفيها يحلل اورويل نص سويفت الذي يشرح مدى الانحطاط الانساني وكيفيه قدرة المؤلف في بناء صفات لدولة فاضلة يحلم بها هذا النص جعل كتاب اسفار جليفار ضمن قائمتي حتما

في نص لماذا أكتب وهو المقتبس عنه عنوان الكتاب يتحدث فيها اورويل عن دوافعه في الكتابه وقد لخصها في اربعة اسباب لن اطلعكم عليها بالطبع لا يمكن الحصول على كل شي بسهوله.هناك العديد من النصوص الرائعه مثل نص صيد فيل هكذا كانت المسرات ولا انسى النص الرقيق لكوب لطيف من الشاي ،بالطبع لن تكون مصافحتي الاخيرة لهذا العظيم

اربع نجوم

Read. Listen. Think and Reflect.

Why I write? I always have this fear of not having a story to tell, not having an original idea to contribute to the world of literary geniuses and to even stand among the intellectuals with a voice. I fear that. I always want to say things that are my own, because to face the truth, we all have a desire to share our experience which we feel is valuable and to make a positive impact with those words, but more often than not we are gripped by the fear and self-doubt, so when I begin to think that I am not able to convey my thoughts precisely, then I resort to quote the words of creative literary geniuses who often had me entirely at their mercy. The habit of quoting literary notables lead me to a quote by Virginia Woolf, “Read a thousand books and your words will flow like a river”, so I thought if I wish to write, all I have to do is to read. It’s that easy. But I am not some exception to the rule, where amidst the constant influx of information, all of us often fall short of words unless we know how to be mindful of what we learn. Even though I started reading voraciously over the past few years when it comes down to pen my thoughts, I always find it difficult to start but as George Orwell said, to write, you must first know what you want to write about. I see a similarity in all the books that I have read till now, the writer is always conscious about what they want to write, and when we know with some clarity, what we have to tell and stay true to our thoughts, we begin to find words because it’s all there, it has always been.

I also write because when I read, I don’t want to just cram my head with few words or some purple passages but instead I want those words to change me in some way, no matter how small they are. A change is a change. So when I write my thoughts down about something that I have read, in the process I begin to comprehend it and understand things clearly and see what I might otherwise have missed. Reading more books out of sheer egoism, just for the sake of being proud of the number of reading goals I have achieved is of no use to me. If I don’t remember or if I can’t recall what a book made me feel, I think such reading is by no possible means adequate, it’s not merely an aesthetic experience for me. Reading for me is to let myself immerse in the writing, to let the words pull me inside the pages and when I emerge, I am not the same, I have outgrown myself. That’s what the passages and sometimes words have the power to do to you. To take you in pieces and then make you whole, that’s the true use of literature, to tie up the few loose ends and in turn expand your thinking.

Published as part of the wonderful Penguin series, Great Ideas, this book contains four of Orwell’s essays, only one of which relates to his early attempts at writing. His message here is that if you want to do something strongly enough you have to be prepared to slog away at it and to be a bit rubbish at it to start with. I was reminded of this quote from Margaret Atwood: “Writing is like trying to catch a greased pig in a dark room. Only become a writer if you are compelled to.”

Another essay recounts Orwell’s experience as an army officer in Burma witnessing the hanging of a prisoner. He understood that the formal ritual of state execution – the march to the gallows, the soldierly guards, the stand to attention, the order given – is designed to subsume the brutal truth of what is taking place. The veneer was shattered on this occasion by a large, barking dog bounding loose around the yard and jumping at the prisoner before it could be caught. Afterwards, the uniforms gathered for a stiff drink and a nervous laugh, in the way that people do when a collective wrong has been committed in the hope that a blame shared is a blame reduced. It is not so.

The longest essay in the book, The Lion and the Unicorn, is meant, I think, to solidify Orwell’s antifascist views. Given that it was written in 1940 as German bombs were falling on London, some concession can be given for its jingoistic tone but only some. It is sentimental, imperialist tripe, waxing tediously about glorious England (not Britain), that jars horribly with the current times and with the rest of Orwell’s normally fine writing. This is the missing star; it was nearly two.

The fourth essay is an extract from Orwell’s Politics and the English Language and is a rant against what we would now call management-speak or PR spin. I remember it well from my public-sector years – why write two or three honest sentences when a page and a half of impenetrable waffle will do? Although such nonsense is often satirised by the likes of Private Eye or the Dilbert cartoons, I fear it is getting worse. It is a linguistic framework, which, going forward, may negatively impact our mental energies and impair networking strategies. Indeed.

An excellent selection of Orwell's essays. It provides an interesting perspective of his views on political language, as well as his perspective on the English political character. While we certainly glimpse his opinions through his more popular novels, reading a more plain and direct discussion of socialism in England in "The Lion and the Unicorn" was a fascinating complement. Also, his comments in the final essay, "Politics and the English Language", are so relevant they could have been written yesterday.

"The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude."

I am making up my mind about the book.
Before telling what I didn't like, here are the lines I liked:
*Hitler will at any rate go down in history as the man who made the City of London laugh on the wrong side of its face.
*War is the greatest of all agents of change. It speeds up all processes, wipes out minor distinctions, brings realities to the surface. Above all, war brings it home to the individual. That he is NOT altogether an individual.
* England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality.
* Nations do not escape from their past merely by making a revolution.
* English language becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.

The book is good, very good, at most of the places.
But some views of George Orwell-- GEORGE ORWELL (Et tu, Brute?)-- were offensive to any Indian who has read Indian history. His opinions on India's struggle for independence (and India's future without British Colony) were not well-researched. I genuinely want to give him a benefit of doubt because I am a die-hard fan of his fictions.
That said, the book is good at most of the places.