Orwell On Writers And Writing

Inside the Whale: On Writers and Writing

A Review

‘Every novelist has a message, whether he admits it or not.’

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Pushkin Press has just published two volumes of Orwell’s essays in a striking and highly portable pocket paperback format.

Inside the Whale: On Writers and Writing brings together four of his essays, each concerned with a different set of authors or ideas, which give insight into Orwell’s perspective on the literary world.

The works included in the neat volume were first published between 1940 and 1948. ‘Inside the Whale’ and ‘Charles Dickens’ appeared in 1940; ‘Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool’ in 1947, and ‘Writers and Leviathan’ in 1948. However, his criticism spans a canon dating back as far as 500 years, starting with Shakespeare and taking in several 19th and 20th Century literary giants to boot.

He argues consistently that literary criticism is fundamentally subjective in nature. No matter what rationale the critic may come up with, Orwell maintains that ‘…every literary judgement consists in trumping up a set of rules to justify an instinctive preference.’ (‘Writers and Leviathan’).

Orwell has an enduring interest in the motivation of the writer, and their relationship with the events going on in the world around them. In ‘Inside the Whale’, he finds much of Henry Miller’s prose memorable, and his characters’ dialogue liberally peppered with ‘unprintable words’ which are nevertheless true to conversations he has heard in real life. In his use of language in general, Orwell attributes Miller with courage and integrity that goes far beyond the shock value. And while he concludes that Miller is not a ‘great author’, and he finds his tone amoral, this is a forgivable reaction in a terrifying age. This is, after all, the essay in which Orwell predicts the end of free speech. And Miller knew a thing or two about being banned. Orwell concludes that in a world threatened by totalitarianism, a writer needs courage to say anything against the orthodoxy: ‘Good novels are written by people who are not frightened.’

‘Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool’ is primarily concerned with unravelling a rare Tolstoy pamphlet in which the Russian author exposes his lifelong loathing of the bard. He finds him excessively derivative, his dramatic characters poorly defined, and mistakenly attributes his longevity to a conspiracy of German professors at the end of the eighteenth century. Orwell, it turns out, it more on the side of Shakespeare. He wonders whether Tolstoy, not being a native English speaker, missed something of the poetry in Shakespearean language; and whether his Christian beliefs alienated him from the plays which, though moral, seldom have a conventional religious message. He also takes a long hard look at parallels between Tolstoy’s life and that of Lear, and considers whether the theme of abdicating power, and subsequently being surprised at the consequences not having it any longer, might have been too close to Tolstoy’s own reality to for him to be able to bear what happens to Lear in the end.

In the essay on Charles Dickens, Orwell displays some admiration for the prolific Victorian author’s repeated attempts to address poverty, cruelty and the unfairness of class system in his work. He likes the subversive nature of his humour which is often pitted expertly against authority figures. However, Orwell is fundamentally disappointed that Dickens’ recipe for social reform is at best lightweight. Improvements in the world seem to depend almost entirely on the decency of the ‘good rich man’, with Dickens’ own experiences as a parliamentary reporter having left him disillusioned at the possibility of any political remedy. Dickens may be on the side of the working class, but he lets himself down by regarding himself as being above them.

Finally, ‘Writers and Leviathan’ runs to little more than ten short pages. It’s not about the Thomas Hobbes book, however. It is concerned with the relationship between the writer and the political domain. Grounded in the post-war years, it gives us a glimpse into Orwell’s own sense of horror at what is happening, and his disillusionment with party politics. Ultimately, he sees a role for the writer as someone who must record events while refusing ‘to be deceived as to their true nature.’

How then, in the end, are we to judge what makes literature good? By its longevity. Orwell’s schadenfreude is palpable when he points out that King Lear has stood the test of time and triumphed over Tolstoy’s ‘Shakespeare and the Drama’ which has been long forgotten.

What is the author to do? Escape into the comforting and womb-like belly of the whale, an imagined refuge in a time of total war? Or reflect what is going on in the world around them? The two options are inseparable. Even withdrawal is a political act. As Orwell says, in ‘Inside the Whale’, ‘Every novelist has a message, whether he admits it or not.’

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Inside the Whale: On Writers and Writing by George Orwell

• Pushkin Press, ISBN-13: 9781782276753
• Publication date: Thursday, January 7, 2021
• Price: £12.00