International Aspects of Irish Literature Book

130th book of 2020.

Inside are the following essays -
"Inside the Whale"
"Down the Mine"
"England Your England"
"Shooting an Elephant"
"Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool"
"Politics vs Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's Travels"
"Politics and the English Language"
"The Prevention of Literature"
"Boys' Weeklies"

I won't discuss all essays but there are certainly some that have noteworthy elements. The final essay was perhaps my least favourite, though interesting as a metaphorical 'Polaroid' of the time - Orwell analyses the sorts of weekly stories one could buy at a shop, mostly 'boy' stories.

"Inside the Whale" begins as an essay on Henry Miller's 1935 Tropic of Cancer which I found very interesting. Frankly, for whatever reason, Orwell doesn't strike me as the man who would read or enjoy Miller, but he speaks incredibly highly of him. Notably (about Miller's second novel Black Spring), There is a long passage in the earlier part of Black Spring, in praise of the Middle Ages, which as prose must be one of the most remarkable pieces of writing in recent years... And although I do not remember the instance Orwell is referring to in the novel, I do agree with something from later in the essay. Though I am certain I underlined it, I cannot find it in my copy, but, paraphrased, Orwell claimed that Miller's writing had a way of lingering in your mind, and that I can very much agree with. In the essay his scope widens to the generation's other writers, and about the state of literature. On Joyce he said: When you read certain passages in Ulysses you feel that Joyce's mind and your mind are one, that he knows all about you though he has never heard you name, that there exists some world outside time and space in which you and he are together. But most interestingly on Miller, Orwell says, If this were a likely moment for the launching of 'schools' of literature, Henry Miller might be the starting-point of a new 'school', and I wonder how right he is? Kerouac (and perhaps the whole of the Beat Generation) certainly seems to be a by-product of Miller's, and maybe Dos Passos, too.

"Down the Mine" and "Shooting an Elephant" are less essay. The former simply describes the conditions and feeling of mine-work in great (I could even say Orwellian) detail, suffocating and claustrophobic - again, even, dystopian - like where Morlocks dwell. Interesting as an essay but its merit lies within a just a few lines: You could quite easily drive a car right across the north of England and never once remember that hundreds of feet below the road you are on the miners are hacking at the coal. Yet in a sense it is the miners who are driving your car forward. Their lamp-lit world down there is as necessary to the day-light world above as the root is to the flower. The latter is one of the better pieces in the collection. Though it has never been confirmed as being true or not, the biography aligns with the story - a policeman in Burma having to shoot at elephant that has gone wild. In true Orwell fashion, it is not only about shooting at elephant; it is about the white man. The famous quote from it being, I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. And just as interestingly, A white man mustn't be frightened in front of 'natives'; and so, in general, he isn't frightened. It's a short piece, but horribly powerful, in both story and theme.

"Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool", "Politics vs Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's Travels", "Politics and the English Language" and "The Prevention of Literature" are all heavily literature based. The first in the list touches upon (Orwell, even then, says how hard to come by the pamphlet is, and that our only chance of hearing any part of it is through him) Tolstoy's hatred for Shakespeare. As someone who has always felt alienated by fairly negative views towards Shakespeare (on the whole) I found this essay fascinating. Though Orwell steps in and (mostly) disregards Tolstoy, it is an interesting debate. The best quote on the matter: Tolstoy is right in saying that Lear is not a very good play, as a play. It is too drawn-out and has too many characters and sub-plots. One wicked daughter would have been quite enough, and Edgar is a superfluous character: indeed it would probably be a better play if Gloucester and both his sons were eliminated. "Politics and the English Language" has too much to quote, as a student of Creative Writing, Orwell dissects 'poor' writing and gives wonderful advice - quotes like these are gems: The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. He strikes down poor use of metaphors, of idioms and passive writing. The latter I am guilty of, horribly so. The other two are interesting, discussing literature and language, but I won't go into all.

Finally, "England Your England". For some reason I read it first despite being the third essay because I was drawn in by its fantastic opening line, As I write, highly civilised human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me. As expected, it is a novel on England, and though the title does not speak to all (because for some, it is not their England - Orwell certainly wrote the essay for his own countrymen) - it spoke to me, as an Englishman. This essay was magnificent, both intellectual and full of his wit (which I feel is often forgotten, in the same way Orson Welles complained that no one ever seems to know how funny Hemingway was). He says the English are not gifted artistically, or, the English are not intellectual. Better yet (for even today this stands true), One has only to look at their methods of town-planning and water-supply, their obstinate clinging to everything that is out of date and a nuisance, a spelling system that defies analysis and a system of weights and measures that is intelligible only to the compiles of arithmetic books, to see how little they care about mere efficiency. It is so true that even this morning my girlfriend and I were laughing and saying how right Orwell was, because even now we all drive manual cars, when America has long transitioned to the far simpler automatic. Today I believe it is still considered effeminate to pronounce a foreign word correctly, too. But some elements are less humorous. Orwell touches upon the English quality that repels the tourist and keeps out the invader, which to me, stung, thinking about the people complaining and abusing the poor families landing on our beaches from war-torn countries. But let's not get political. Orwell sums up the English as this, and I wouldn't jump to say he's wrong:

They are inveterate gamblers, drink as much beer as their wages will permit, are devoted to bawdy jokes, and use probably the foulest language in the world.