Nineteen Eighty-Four is one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. It’s long been a favourite of mine, though I find its ultimately despairing climax more irritating now that I’m a Christian than I did in my days of pre-conversion darkness.
I wonder whether Orwell remained an atheist until the end of his tragically shortened life. My memory is that he was becoming somewhat shaky in his atheism. He was also a very non-socialist sort of socialist and expressed sympathy on at least one occasion with the distributism of Chesterton and Belloc, though he also criticizes the Chesterbelloc in the humorous opening chapter of his underrated novel, Keep the Aspidistra Flying. Clearly the author of Nineteen Eighty-Four was no great admirer of socialist-style big government. Ultimately Orwell was, and is, an enigma.
Here’s a link to an interesting article in England’s Guardian newspaper on Orwell’s writing of Nineteen Eighty-Four. I note with pleasure that the article makes reference to the possible influence of Chesterton’s Napoleon of Notting Hill on Orwell’s masterpiece.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/may/10/1984-george-orwell
Thanks for the link. Speaking of the movie, I believe it profited from 38 years of collective reflection after the book’s publication.
Not a sentence meant to be read in America:
“Soon after Richard was adopted, Orwell’s flat was wrecked by a doodlebug.”
There’s a bit in Waugh, writing to him saying something like-it was as if he (Orwell) didn’t even know of the existence of the Catholic Chruch.
Didn’t know of it existence and huge influence.
His ignorance for a man of traditional humane education-seems to me wilful.