Why I Write (Penguin Great Ideas) (alkuperäinen julkaisuvuosi 1946; vuoden 2005 painos)

A political deep dive during WW2 by a great writer. I read it as an aspiring writer and the tip I got was. Don’t hide a bad idea with pretty words.

Fun and at least 3 times laugh out loud funny. This is a book I will probably go back to at some point to redirect my mind. ( )

I already had some idea from his other books as to how pretentious Orwell was, but if I was at all in doubt, this book displays Orwell's personality at its most elitist, arrogant and annoying. Here is a man who 'knows' how Great Britain should be responding to the events of WWII, and whose solution to everything is socialism, the sort that interestingly enough is fully realized in the current society of North Korea. With such an example as that for what Orwell's cherished system could look like in its full glory, I am glad he was not taken more seriously. His last essay in this book, from which the book gets its title, is possibly the worst writing advice I have read in a very long time. As an amusing look at a perspective that helped shape literature and society, this is an interesting book, but it is not one of Orwell's better books. ( )

If you've only read Orwell's fiction, you are doing yourself a disservice. Homage to Catalonia and this slim collection of essays, Why I Write, offer--to use the circumlocutious writing Orwell finds most deplorable--pellucid accounts from the trenches of the Spanish Civil War and from the bombing of London respectively. It is though the "ruin of all space, shattering glass and toppling masonry" only serves to sharpen Orwell's political and cultural acuity. His full-throated support of democratic Socialism in the face of burgeoning Fascism is as inspiring today as it is relevant. ( )

George Orwell is one of my favourite authors, but I hadn't read any of his essays before (although I have got Decline of the English Murder and Inside the Whale and Other Essays on my 'to read' pile) so I'd nothing to compare it with really. Although I enjoyed it I did find the second (and longest) essay 'The Lion and the Unicorn' a bit dry... but then I'm not a political person (although I must stress that I do always use my vote seeing as women died so I could do that) so I think that's probably why. I'm very much looking forward to reading more of his essays though. ( )

Good essay on the connections between aesthetics and politics. A good meditation for life in an overwrought world. ( )