[PEN-L:33370] Hitchens on Orwell's Victory

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

This bitter and no doubt
controversial review below by Will Podmore, of Hitchen's book on Orwell,
appeared in yesterday's Morning Star, daily paper supported by the small
and unreconstructed Communist Party of Britain.  Commendably Amazon
includes it on their website, which reports 145 other reviews by Will
Podmore.

Hitchen's own web page, "The Hitchens Web", carries a link to
Powells.com for the book under the US title, Why Orwell Matters. Some of
these damn with fainter praise.

> Review: "For a slender book, WHY ORWELL
> MATTERS is oddly unfocused and hard to get through. What Hitchens has to
> say is what a sympathetic reader of Orwell would want said. But he never
> sustains a line of thought long enough or searchingly enough to reach a
> truly provocative insight. There's no sense of a deepening engagement
> with the subject; one is never allowed to forget the gesticulating
> presence of the critic. The valuable reflections on Orwell keep getting
> interrupted...." New York Times Book Review, 09/30/2002* -- George
> Packer
>
> Review: "Admirers of Hitchens should find no fault with this
> appreciation....Neither should admirers of Orwell." Kirkus Reviews,
> 08/15/2002*

The commerical website helpfully offers two synopses one of the US title,
one for the UK??? It is not clear whether it is just the title that is
different.

> Synopsis: In this brilliant and contemplative
> biographical essay, Hitchens assesses the life, the achievement, and the
> myth of the great political writer and participant George Orwell. The
> result is the perfect convergence of two kindred spirits, and a book that
> addresses not only why Orwell matters today but how he will continue to
> matter in a future, uncertain world.
>
> Synopsis: In this appreciation, Christopher Hitchens identifies George
> Orwell's three major contributions to the world of ideas: his negative
> takes on imperialism, fascism, and communism--written at a time when such
> attitudes were by no means universal. He also takes issue with previous
> Orwell critics and their misreading of his
> work.*


Clearly IMO Hitchens identifies himself as a subjective idealist of
integrity, and thereby lays himself open to all those who might wish to
attack his own integrity.  - 

Chris Burford



Here is the bitter review in the Morning Star by Will Podmore
Hitchens defends Orwell's
misguided judgements
 
ORWELL'S VICTORY 
by Christopher Hitchens Allen Lane,
£9.99.
 
Revealingly, Hitchens dedicates this hagiography of George Orwell to
Robert Conquest, as a "premature anti-Stalinist.'  Hitchens
praises Orwell too as "an early coldwarrior." 

Hitchens claims that Orwell always supported India's independence. Would
that include when Orwell wrote that India's independence would be
"nonsense" and that India could "no more be independent
than can a cat or a dog?" 

Most historians of the war in Spain believe that the
"revolution" supported by the POUM distracted from the war
against Franco and his nazi backers. Hitchens denies this, claiming
bizarrely, "the words 'most historians' are meaningless - no such
consensus exists or ever has," Can he really mean
"meaningless?" 

He dismisses those who fought for the Republic as "the Stalintern
forces." 

Orwell wrote Animal Farm during World War Two, writing against our chief
ally, which destroyed three-quarters of Hitler's divisions. Animal Farm,
like 1984, is unavoidable in schools, simply because they serve the
employing class.

In 1948, Orwell wrote against the trade unions - "a strike is in
effect a blow against the community as a whole, including the strikers
themselves, and its net effect is inflationary." Tony Blair couldn't
have put it better! 
 
As for Orwell's fabled independence of mind? When in the Empire's
service, he served the Empire - in Spain in turmoil, he was for "the
revolution," in England at peace, he was for peace, but against the
anti-fascist alliance that could have saved peace. In England at war he
was for England and war. When Labour was in office, he was for Labour. In
the cold war, he was for the cold war. 

Hitchens, like Orwell?s other sycophants rehearsing their treacheries,
tries to defend Orwell's giving a list of "crypto-communists and
fellow travellers" to a Foreign Office agent.
 
Hitchens hates "the crowd," who "will yell with joy to see
rebels dragged to the scaffold." He writes, "politics are
relatively unimportant," which, means, in practice, other people are
ummportant. 

He lauds "the few irreducible individuals who maintain allegiance to
principles, like himself.

Like Orwell, Hitchens sees through everybody and damns everybody
else  as materialist.