Orwell's Ghosts

April 29, 2024
This invigorating study from historian Beers (Red Ellen) investigates what George Orwell’s life and writings can teach contemporary readers about modern controversies. Charting the development of Orwell’s politics and philosophy, Beers notes that the author had become by his own account “a bit Bolshie” while attending the elite Eton boarding school, and that witnessing Britain’s oppressive regime in Burma while enlisted in the Indian Police Service “awakened his social conscience.” Evaluating competing ideological claims to Orwell’s legacy, Beers argues that Orwell would have regarded skeptically individuals who invoke his name (and his dystopian novel, 1984) to complain about being de-platformed by social media companies for politically contentious views, citing Orwell’s belief that his publisher had been within its rights to renege on their agreement to put out Homage to Catalonia in the late 1930s because it feared the report would undermine the anti-Franco cause in Spain. Beers has a knack for finding fresh angles on the much discussed author, highlighting both his overlooked sense of humor and the less savory aspects of his character, including his failure to consider the oppression of women in his writings on inequality and his disrespect for “women’s boundaries and bodily autonomy” (he made “repeated unwelcome advances on women” and opposed abortion). This is a valuable exploration of what it actually means to be “Orwellian.”