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Why I Write (Penguin Great Ideas)

Penguin (Non-Classics)

List price: $8.95
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Average customer rating: 4 stars

Question is: Why Should I Buy this particular "Why I write?" Compilation?

In evaluating "Why I write?," I am not evaluating Orwell: he is - in my opinion - beyond evaluation. Brilliant, unorthodox, humanistically transparent - he is a model of existential integrity. In evaluating "Why I write?" I am offering an evaluation of this particular compilation of essays. I am trying to answer the question of "Why should I buy the 'Why I write?'"

This particular compilation of Orwell's essays consists of "Why I write?," The Lion and the Unicorn," "A Hanging," and "Politics and the English Language." As you might have already gleaned from you search, the books of Orwell's essays are all over the market place. This one - consisting of four iconic essays - is a great primer.

The "Why I write?" humbles with introspection and humanistic self-acceptance. "The Lion and the Unicorn" showcases Orwell's keen journalism and the capacity to be on the outside of the phenomenon in question, even when that phenomenon is his own culture. "A Hanging" is a normalizing glimpse into how we deal with our own mortality superimposed onto a social statement against capital punishment. And the "Politics and the English Language" is a brilliant examination of the human consciousness, a study of the interplay of thought and language, an anti-dote to propoganda, a treasure trove of linguistic hypotheses, and, if nothing else, a useful commentary on the rationale behind the "1984" Newspeak and Doublethink.

As such, this particular collection of Orwell's essays reveals the breadth of his thematic spectrum - without the biographical weight of more exhaustive essay compilations.

Pavel Somov, Ph.D.

Author of "Eating the Moment: 141 Mindful Practices to Overcome Overeating One Meal at a Time" (New Harbinger, 2008)

Inside the mind of George Orwell

Here is your chance to go into the thoughts and political beliefs of the famous writer George Orwell with the filter of his fictional writings removed. This work contains four short essays. In the first essay "Why I write" you really get an understanding of the man and his motivations to write. He is very candid in this essay and you get to know the man behind "Animal Farm" and "1984".

In his second essay "The Lion and the Unicorn" he lays bare his political beliefs. In this short work he lays out his thoughts about Communism, Fascism, and Socialism and the struggle between them in England during World War II. What I really liked about this essay is that he wrote it while bombs were falling on London and with the outcome of World War II still undecided. While I strongly disagree with Orwell's Socialist ideals, they may have been more appropriate for his time period in his country. I enjoyed reading his opinions and learning about the social situation at that time in history.

His third very brief essay tells about his witness to a hanging in Burma.

The final essay is excellent in its examples of how in his time writers using the English language were drifting away from clarity and into using metaphors, similes, and figures of speech. He calls for a return to the clear and precise use of the language. He writes of six rules that will make that happen.

If you enjoy George Orwell's writings, I believe you will enjoy this book.

hmm.... read this before you buy...

1984 is my most favorite book out of anything I have ever read. After learning about this book I bought it immediately, I'm a writer and I thought i would learn a lot from this authors book.

I was greatly disapointed. I wish i could say i wasn't, because I love him SO much, and I read the first page reviews of it and thought it would be awesome. i was expecting a book about george orwell, about how he came to write, why he wrote and maybe tips or something, but the first four or five pages speak of writing, and that's about it. After that, the entire book is very long and honestly quite boring, all he talks about is politics and war and "england this, england that, england people are unified, and they do this..." and i was like... where's the writing?

I'm not saying you might not like it, im just saying that you might only like it if your interested in war and england and politics. And england, of course.
But if your a writer and your expecting a book all about writing, im seriuos, you might as well just read the first page reviews and that's it.
:/ i wish i could give it more stars.

Good overview of Orwell the Writer and the Man

This book provides a good overview of who Orwell is, in terms of both a writer and a man, in his own words. He explains why he writes, his political views and the imporance he subscribes to political writing. If you are looking to fulfill your curiosity with respect to the above no other book does it better. The only weak spot of the book (why I give it 4 instead of 5 stars) is that it has references to many historical events/facts that, unless you are a student of history (particulary Orwell's times) are not common knowledge. The editors should have placed more footnotes to assist non-students of history. If you are very knowledgeable of the history of the times, however, it should be a five star book for you.

Behind the Writer's Perspective

This short (120 pages) book of 4 essays from one of the great modern writers is worth the read for three reasons:

1. The last essay, 'Politics and the English Language' should be required of all political writers and business writers as well. Though 50 years old it is equally pertinent today; well summarized in the 6 rules in the next to the last page.

2. The Hanging showed his descriptive skills, "Eight o'clock and a bugle call, desolately thin in the wet air, floated from the distant barracks." His description of the hanging of a Hindu man had more clarity than any modern photograph.

3. The Lion and the Unicorn, the longest of the essays, described the state of the English culture and its challenge from the growing European Fascists. It is an excellent picture of the British before their moment of truth. "It is a land of snobbery and privilege, ruled largely by the old and the silly.... A family with the wrong members in control." " A nation trained to think hedonistically cannot survive amid peoples who work like slaves and breed like rabbits, and whose chief national industry is war." Orwell's solution is democratic socialism; more acceptable in its day, less convincing 50- years later with the hindsight of many failures in socialism.

These essays are valuable to students of writing and to those who want to know more about the background of a great modern writer known for the classics Animal Farm and 1984.