Why I Write by George Orwell

George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Why I Write, the first in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell describes his journey to becoming a writer, and his movement from writing poems to short stories to the essays, fiction and non-fiction we remember him for. He also discusses what he sees as the ‘four great motives for writing’ – ‘sheer egoism’, ‘aesthetic enthusiasm’, ‘historical impulse’ and ‘political purpose’ – and considers the importance of keeping these in balance. Why I Write is a unique opportunity to look into Orwell’s mind, and it grants the reader an entirely different vantage point from which to consider the rest of the great writer’s oeuvre. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times

This little pamphlet contains three essays and one short story: (1) Why I Write [essay], (2) The Lion and the Unicorn [essay], (3) A Hanging [story], and (4) Politics and the English Language [essay]. The common theme between the pieces is the way language is used to convey political ideas. To quote the final page of the book: “...to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind” (p120).

Why I Write is largely concerned with Orwell's political motivations: “Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism [emphasis author's]” (p8). For some (those who have only read Animal Farm or 1984), learning that Orwell was a self-proclaimed socialist will raise many questions, but it's simply a misunderstanding: Orwell wanted the state to do it's job by providing a good quality of life to its people, keeping them out from under the boot of the rich, and then to otherwise leave them alone.

The Lion and the Unicorn is the most difficult essay to get through (I, admittedly, DNF'd it) and concerns the political climate of Europe at the time of writing (1941) and the hope that Europe would move away from its totalitarian, capitalistic, unplanned economy, and move toward a more socialistic, planned economy, which sought to better the lives of its citizens rather than investors and businessfolk.

A Hanging is a short story about a group of British officials who oversee the execution of a brown-skinned prisoner (in some British-occupied country), and the way the whole thing is rather annoying and unpleasant to them, not because it is barbarous but old-hat. The story ends with the unnamed narrator asking if such executions are justifiable for any reason.

Politics and the English Language is the real meat of this book though (although considerably shorter than The Lion and the Unicorn), and was the reason I picked up this little volume. Here, Orwell gives his brilliant explanation of why imprecise language is an enemy of commonfolk: “in my opinion” may be more polite than “I think,” but is less precise, and needlessly wordy. In one hilarious stretch, he rewrites a passage from Ecclesiastes in the style of what he considers Modern English Prose.

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account. (p110)

This book contains four essays. “Why I Write” is sort of too short to be very useful. The longest essay is “The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius”, in which Orwell argues that World War II should be a revolutionary war for socialism. It's fairly interesting in a historical sense. “A Hanging” is a well-observed vignette of an execution. The last essay is “Politics and the English Language”, in which Orwell sets out his prescriptions for good (or less awful) political writing. It's got good advice that I should heed more often.