Comment

May 03, 2015lukasevansherman rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
"I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts."-Orwell, 1946 Not to speak ill of the dead, but I always found the late Christopher Hitchens a bit irritating: arrogant, sardonic without being funny, and not as smart as he thought he was. He seemed to fancy himself an iconoclast and wrote about such strong minded individuals as Thomas Jefferson and Orwell, while bashing organized religion ("God is Not Good") and Mother Teresa. Whatever you think of the later, it's hardly sporting to attack a defenseless old lady who has devoted her life to others. And I do wonder just how iconoclastic you can be when you work for "Vanity Fair," a magazine devoted to flattering the rich, famous, and powerful. All that said, this is a fine, insightful book about one of my favorite writers and Hitchens admirably and convincingly shows Orwell's importance, as well as reclaiming him from both conservatives and liberals. Hitchens point is that almost everybody has an opinion about Orwell and often both the man and his body of work are lost. I'd advise reading the two volumes of Orwell's essays, "Facing Unpleasant Facts" and "All Art is Propaganda," after finishing this book.