George Orwell's Diaries
If you have read this blog, by now, you know that I adore George Orwell. Nonetheless, it is one thing to read his marvellous novels and essays, it is another thing to read his memories during Battle of Britain! Penguin’s publication is truly elite.
I’m very interested in the history WW2, and in particular, Britain stood against Nazi after the fall of France. The glorification of that area is something commonplace to see though we also have fantastic TV series like Foyle’s War. However, it is rare to read the thoughts of a very sharp intellectual. He is pessimistic, as always. It is evident that the idiocy and betrayal of Allied to the Spanish Republic has hurt him deeply. “I told you so” about the most destructive war in history is not something to overweening about...
“… said to me recently, “ Don’t you feel that any time during the past ten years you have been able to foretell events better than, say, the cabinet?” I had to agree to this. Partly it is a question of note being blinded by class interests etc., e.g., anyone not financially interested could see at a glance the strategic danger to England of letting Germany and Italy dominate Spain, whereas many right-wingers even professional soldiers, simply could not grasp this most obvious fact” (1940, June, 8th).
Due to his poor health, he was disqualified from joining the British army and had to stay back in London. That gives us of a brilliant chance: to see the Battle of Britain from inside, from London: how people react or think about the war. Orwell, as always, was not just a sharp observer, he also compares the collective thinking/behaviour prior to the war. He, as always, kept his sense of humour. His political mood sounds like Chaplin’s Modern Time: Orwell had the potential to become a humorist like Mark Twain. At one point he tries to get a soldier’s cap for himself (as a home guard):
“… it seems that forage caps over size 7 are a great rarity. Evidently, they expect all soldiers to have small heads” (1940, September, 1st).
Or his constant observation of slogans on walls:
“… had chalked “ Cheese, not Churchill”. What a silly slogan. It sums up the psychological ignorance of these people who even now have not grasped what whereas some people would die for Churchill; nobody will die for cheese” (1941, March, 20th).
Or just simple comments like:
“No one is patriotic about taxes” (1940, August, 9th).
“So also at every moment of crisis from 1931 onwards. You have all the sensation of kicking against an impenetrable wall of stupidity” (1941, April, 15th).
The memos are important from another side too. Orwell is going to write/publish his next, most famous, and critically acclaimed books: Animal Farm (published in 1945), and Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949). It is easy to foretell the upcoming books:
“… such horrors as the Russian purges never surprised me, because I had always felt that – not exactly that, but something like that – was implicit in Bolshevik Rule. I could feel it in their literature” (1940, August, 8th).
“One could not have a better example of the moral and emotional shallowness of our time, than the fact that we are now all more or less pro-Stalin. This disgusting murder is temporarily on our side, and so the purges, etc., are suddenly forgotten” (1941, July, 3rd).
“All quite sound from a propaganda point of view in my opinion, seeing how politically ignorant the majority of people are, how uninterested in anything outside their immediate affairs, and how little impressed by inconsistency” (1942, March, 22nd).
And of course, Orwell’s passion for “The Internationale” (i.e., the Anthem of Soviet Union) or as he called it in Animal Farm: the song of Beasts of England (see notes of 1940, June, 30th).
And the rumours of RADAR activates in Battle of Britain which was very amusing (see the notes of 1941, March, 14th).
I enjoyed reading the book, but as always some questions came up:
Where is the biography of events between 1942 and 1945? Why do we only have the worst and the darkest time? It is usual for Orwell to just pessimistic but why not writing or even say anything about Stalingrad or siege of Leningrad? Anyway, I cannot imagine he would mention anything nice about the Soviet Union, actually the opposite: I can imagine, as much as he hated the fascists, he preferred the crush of USSR. We see Orwell’s demise of moral (i.e., fanatic hatred towards pro-soviets) on the path of writing his infamous list. However, it is not Orwell who abandoned the socialist camp but the camp that betrays everything that was presented and promised.
Even from the psychological perspective of masses, his notes on influences of V1 and V2 at the end of the war could be very precious.
We don’t have any records of Orwell’s broadcast in BBC. This diary between 1942 and 1945 could give us fantastic records of that time. Unfortunate that it misses this period.
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)