Re:George Orwell: Why I Write (1946)
by contingencies on Tuesday June 17, 2014 @12:32AM
(#7902856)
As an Australian who spent a year living in the same building Orwell did in London (Down and out in Paris and London), having read his 1984 and Animal Farm in my youth, and since having spent years living on the Burmese/Chinese border (as he lived in Burma during the English colonial period), and also struggling with writing what equates to an essentially political history (of that area, no less) I would like to TLDR this guy for the others.
Orwell was an individual, a talent, but above all an observer. He spent his time distilling injustice through a lens of analytical thought and regurgitating it as the written word in precisely the format most sought after as the entertainment of the era. In this form, he was a populist and he states as much in this famous summary of his motivations, prepared five years before his death at 47.
Perhaps the modern equivalent of his character would be living and traveling in relative poverty whilst independently producing media with political messages, and possibly distributing them freely online. Assange is undeniably politically motivated, moved around a lot living in Africa and other interesting locales before his 2010 run-in with the authorities, and could in this sense be considered a fair example of a modern day Orwell. (If only he could make it across town to East London, he too could see Orwell's old abode... I see the Wikileaks Party in Australia is organizing a care package for him in the Ecuadorian consulate. Anyone care to donate a UAV? :)
Finally, some parallels. First, between our learning of programming languages and Orwell's statements here on language in general: The problem of language is subtler and would take too long to discuss. I will only say that of late years I have tried to write less picturesquely and more exactly. In any case I find that by the time you have perfected any style of writing, you have always outgrown it.
Second, that of the notion that 'every program is buggy': I have not written a novel for seven years, but I hope to write another fairly soon. It is bound to be a failure, every book is a failure, but I do know with some clarity what kind of book I want to write.
Finally, on open source and distributed systems as social change: I see that it is invariably where I lacked a POLITICAL purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally.
Orwell was an individual, a talent, but above all an observer. He spent his time distilling injustice through a lens of analytical thought and regurgitating it as the written word in precisely the format most sought after as the entertainment of the era. In this form, he was a populist and he states as much in this famous summary of his motivations, prepared five years before his death at 47.
Perhaps the modern equivalent of his character would be living and traveling in relative poverty whilst independently producing media with political messages, and possibly distributing them freely online. Assange is undeniably politically motivated, moved around a lot living in Africa and other interesting locales before his 2010 run-in with the authorities, and could in this sense be considered a fair example of a modern day Orwell. (If only he could make it across town to East London, he too could see Orwell's old abode... I see the Wikileaks Party in Australia is organizing a care package for him in the Ecuadorian consulate. Anyone care to donate a UAV? :)
Finally, some parallels. First, between our learning of programming languages and Orwell's statements here on language in general: The problem of language is subtler and would take too long to discuss. I will only say that of late years I have tried to write less picturesquely and more exactly. In any case I find that by the time you have perfected any style of writing, you have always outgrown it.
Second, that of the notion that 'every program is buggy': I have not written a novel for seven years, but I hope to write another fairly soon. It is bound to be a failure, every book is a failure, but I do know with some clarity what kind of book I want to write.
Finally, on open source and distributed systems as social change: I see that it is invariably where I lacked a POLITICAL purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally.