“A Collection of Essays” by George Orwell
George Orwell (1903-1950) is world famous for his novels, most notably 1984 and Animal Farm. And as a big reader of non-fiction books I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that he wrote a series of non-fiction essays, 2 dozens+ short stories that dive deep into his world views and opinions.
However, you know that expression never meet your hero? Well this is kind of like that, never read the real-life thoughts of your fiction-writer hero. Because it is just God-awful. It is full with rants and criticism towards seemingly everyone in his childhood, towards the English language, as well as filled with all the negative things he has been holding in for fellow writers such as Charles Dickens, Henry Miller, Rudyard Kipling, and many more. And the awful things he says about Mahatma Gandhi? What a dickhead.
To be fair, it’s not all bad, the essays on his experience at the Spanish War are insightful. The essay on why he writes, almost single-handedly makes the book so much better. And the essays on his time in Marrakech and Burma are quite interesting, although the former reveals his racist views on Africans and the latter shows a terrible colonial racism mentality that he apparently has. A “man of his time” indeed.
Needless to say, apart from few 4-stars essays there are loads of crappy 2-stars gibberish to counter balance the value of the book. And this, in the end, is the reality of his real thoughts. Truly disappointing for a man of his stature.
THE CHAOS THEORY 