Orwell's Centenary

June 25, 2003 1:39 PM

Today marks one hundred years since the birth of George Orwell. He may have died in 1950, just after finishing his master work, but he has remained culturally relevant ever since, and never more so than during the past two years.
posted by Silune (6 comments total)

Did you ever notice how Arts and Letters Daily and its sister unit Sci-Tech Daily use every opportunity to shoehorn in some link about George Orwell? I mean, I like Orwell, too, but is this some kind of cult?
posted by Faze at 2:03 PM on June 25, 2003

Here's an interesting article plep posted WarFi recently: Did love turn Orwell into a government stooge?
posted by homunculus at 2:08 PM on June 25, 2003

William Gibson's penned a piece on Orwell, too. (NYT link, you know the drill).
posted by thijsk at 2:23 PM on June 25, 2003

Faze, I think that's partly a reflection of ALD's fascination with Christopher Hitchens, who happens to write an awful lot of stuff about Orwell.

I suspect that Orwell really appeals to Dennis Dutton (ALD founder). He's a Anglosaxon skeptical pragmatist, hater of cant, and I think constitutionally disposed to be fascinated by Orwell.

Also, as Silune observes, Orwell remains really relevant. In particular, he's a readymade source of opinion for any commmentator, so something like ALD, which concentrates on commentary, is going to have a lot of Orwell references anyway. The man's a meme!
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 2:44 PM on June 25, 2003

Orwell is one of the best writers of our time and he's incredibly underappreciated.

Down and Out in Paris and London is an amazing story that's based on his real homelessness (though somewhat voluntary).

His other works are equally impressive, Burmese Days, The Clergyman's Daughter, Keep the Aspistras Flying and his well known works.

I have several books of his essays that he'd written for Tribune from 1943-1945 that are excellent. I'm positive Orwell would be a very well read blogger if he were still alive today.

I just linked to this short story/essay on my blog, Shooting an Elephant. It is my favorite short story of all time and is a great pre-read for Burmese Days.

Orwell Rocks!
posted by fenriq at 3:26 PM on June 25, 2003

The BBC revists Orwell's views on how to make the perfect cup of tea. Mmmm, a nice cuppa ...
posted by carter at 5:29 PM on June 25, 2003