His less-famous novels aren’t as good. On the other hand, some of his essays are among the clearest, most intelligent thinking I’ve ever come across, and would probably be of a lot of interest to LessWrong readers...
Oh yeah. Politics and the English Language is a classic on a par with the great two novels. I first read that in 1992 and wanted to print copies to distribute everywhere (we didn’t have internet then).
Yeah, that’s one of those I was thinking of. Also things like the piece about the PEN ‘anti-censorship’ event that wasn’t, and his analysis of James Burnham’s Managerialist writing...
I’m terribly curious now—did the use of any of the phrases Orwell singles out in the article actually drop significantly after the article was published? Wikipedia will not say...
Well, reading it in the 1990s and having a burnt-out ex-Communist for a housemate at the time, I fear I recognised far too many of the cliches therein as current in those circles ;-)
A lot are still current in those less rational/more angry elements of the left who still think the Labour Party represents socialism and use phrases like that to justify themselves...
Read them. They’re actually really good books. His less-famous ones are not as brilliant, but are good too.
(We were taught 1984 in school, I promptly read to the end with eyes wide. I promptly borrowed Animal Farm of my own accord.)
His less-famous novels aren’t as good. On the other hand, some of his essays are among the clearest, most intelligent thinking I’ve ever come across, and would probably be of a lot of interest to LessWrong readers...
Oh yeah. Politics and the English Language is a classic on a par with the great two novels. I first read that in 1992 and wanted to print copies to distribute everywhere (we didn’t have internet then).
Yeah, that’s one of those I was thinking of. Also things like the piece about the PEN ‘anti-censorship’ event that wasn’t, and his analysis of James Burnham’s Managerialist writing...
I’m terribly curious now—did the use of any of the phrases Orwell singles out in the article actually drop significantly after the article was published? Wikipedia will not say...
Well, reading it in the 1990s and having a burnt-out ex-Communist for a housemate at the time, I fear I recognised far too many of the cliches therein as current in those circles ;-)
A lot are still current in those less rational/more angry elements of the left who still think the Labour Party represents socialism and use phrases like that to justify themselves...