Reviews for George Orwell and the Radical Eccentrics: Intermodernism in Literary London

The average rating for George Orwell and the Radical Eccentrics: Intermodernism in Literary London based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-01-22 00:00:00 Neil Churchill A very interesting and readable account of the relationship between oral, written and print culture in England from 1500-1700. Fox writes that "[t]he conclusion to be drawn from all of this evidence is that the written word, in both manuscript and print, penetrated to a far deeper level in society and circulated in much greater quantities than was once imagined. This was both cause and effect of the fact that many more people than has ever been suspected could read it to some degree for themselves. Ironically, by approaching early modern England from the perspective of its oral culture, this book has helped to demonstrate just what a literate and textually orientated society it was." But he also often returns to the important point that written and print culture did not destroy oral culture--they all fed into and out of each other. I've copied the table of contents below so you can see how many interesting things he discusses--you get a real sense of the culture from his discussions of everything from old wives' tales to libelous ballads. • Introduction: the Oral and the Literate • 1 - Popular Speech • 2 - Proverbial Wisdom • 3 - Old Wives' Tales and Nursery Lore • 4 - The Historical Imagination • 5 - Local Custom, Memory, and Record • 6 - Ballads and Libels • 7 - Rumour and News

Review # 2 was written on 2020-07-24 00:00:00 Morgan Ruoss While home visiting my parents, I noticed that my mother borrowed this book from the library, so I decided to give it a read. The book was a disappointment despite the glowing endorsements on the back cover, I can't understand how they read what I read. Lawlor simply was incomprehensible, unclear and scatter-brained. At first I thought the reason I couldn't pull any sense or meaning out of the letters printed on the page was because my dyslexic brain was having a bad day, but the following ones proved to me that it was Lawlor's disorienting writing style. Reading him was like struggling up a mountain but once I finally reached the apogee, the mist was thick that there is no view--no reward for ones effort.