George Orwell Always in the News Number 11
In The Independent of April 19th, 2015, Orwell biographer D J Taylor had a look at the work of Dave Hax, who has found a new way to peel potatoes.
‘…he offers advice on the best way to peel a potato… it reminded me of something else. It took a second or two’s thought to establish that the thing it so strongly recalled to mind was not another online video but an essay entitled “A Nice Cup of Tea”, which George Orwell contributed to the London Evening Standard in January 1946.’
Does D J Taylor’s language sound familiar? I think it does, as Orwell used a very similar recollection in ‘Benefit of Clergy’, his essay on Salvador Dali. “When I read the passage I quoted at the beginning, about the kicking of the little sister’s head, I was aware of another phantom resemblance. What was it? Of course! Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes, by Harry Graham. Such rhymes were very popular round about 1912…”
Pretty clever: not only is Taylor able to link Orwell and potato peeling, he is also able to do it in the style of Orwell, using not only the memory but also the use of dates. An ability such as D J Taylor’s to use Orwell’s voice in so good a pastiche is not common. Some Orwell Society members think that they found it in US historian Thurston Clarke’s only novel, “Thirteen o’clock: A novel about George Orwell and ‘1984’” (which recreates the strange meeting of Orwell and Ernest Hemingway in wartime Paris), but we are not aware of many others.
Meanwhile, a note of caution. Richard Blair, OS patron, says of the potato peeling advice: “It only works on the old fashioned varieties, ones with thick skins, such as Golden Wonder and those that were developed in N. Ireland and Arran, which were main crop. The early variants are too thin in the skin. Asbestos fingers also help!”
By LJH
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