| Inside the Whale by George Orwell, 1957 - Penguin, Middlesex. At work the other day I was on Wikipedia and I thought that I would like to remind myself what Yahoo! stands for. On the Yahoo! page it mentioned Gulliver's Travels and I had a look at that page, as you do, and then I looked at the page about Jonathan Swift. All three pages were interesting. At home that evening I thought about reading my copy of Gulliver's Travels but I think that perhaps I have a distorted children's version of the novel. Ben said that he had a copy that I can borrow. For now however I chose Inside the Whale and other essays by George Orwell. I had previously read England Your England and Politics and the English Language in Why I Write (I mention this merely because it is worth mentioning, not because I am trying to impress you). The two essays from Inside the Whale that I am going to attempt to write about are Politics vs. Literature: An examination of Gulliver's Travels and The Prevention of Literature. As you may understand I have a limited vocabulary and intelligence. The thing is that I read sometimes and I am driven to write about what I have read because I am inspired to write by the writing of others. It is true that on occasions I have had to force it out but that is because the warmth of enjoyment that occurred while I was reading the book is typically long gone by the time I get around to sitting in my cold computer room writing about the warmth. So the first is Politics vs. Literature: An examination of Gulliver's Travels which was written in 1946. As I mentioned before I had been reading about Jonathan Swift and Gulliver's Travels on the day that I decided to read Inside the Whale. That there is an essay about Gulliver's Travels in Inside the Whale is pure coincidence. What this means however is that I was particularly interested in this essay and enjoyed reading it very much. Part of my enjoyment came from having already formed an opinion of Jonathan Swift from what I had read about him on Wikipedia, specifically his misanthropy and the notion of misanthropy. And so when I read the essay and it explained in a sort of critical way Jonathan Swift's attitude towards society and other humans I sort of did not like it. The shame of my writing is that I can never remember what I was thinking when I wanted to write it and so when I re-read it afterwards in an effort to remind myself of my incredible insight I think to myself oh what is the point, just tell them to read it themselves. Eventually I bow to pressure and quote from the writing:
The Prevention of Literature, written 1945-6, is my next excuse to ramble and annoy. What I think I ought to write about is that this essay made me want to write a book about a man who writes a book about anarcho-primitivism and instructs readers to lash out at those who they consider to be unhelpful towards the human race. This does not just include people with power but everyone. For instance my first idea for the first attack would be when a man who is a greedy lawyer or something gives the book to another lawyer friend who then, inspired by the book, kills the greedy lawyer and probably a lot of other people. I cannot remember what it was in The Prevention of Literature that influenced this idea. I will have a look back. I think I remember. The essay is about how whatever political situation a person is in affects their writing. So for instance in a totalitarian society literature is entirely restricted to nonsense that has no purpose because it cannot motivate people politically and George Orwell says that all writing is politically motivated in some way:
George-Orwell.org - his complete works online - though books, used ones, are nicer to touch. Wikipedia: George Orwell, Jonathan Swift, Misanthropy, Anarcho-primitivism. |