Wednesday, June 25, 2003

Happy Birthday, George Orwell. Born Eric Blair 100 years ago today, George Orwell never reached his 50th birthday. Tuberculoses took his life shortly after he completed the classic novel, 1984. I heard him once described as every conservative's favorite liberal and every liberal's favorite conservative.

Regretfully, he is only famously known for 1984 and Animal Farm, but his other work is just as interesting. Orwell's nonfiction book Homage to Catalonia, written about his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, document his conversion from Marxist to anti-Communist. Those experiences in Spain would eventually lead to both Animal Farm and 1984. But Orwell wrote other interesting novels as well. His first novel, Down and Out in Paris and London, is a great journey of a man who loses his job and then his possessions and ultimately becomes a bum. It's a compelling first person journey that weaves great insight into the overall plot.

No matter what Orwell wrote about, he wrote with insight and persuasion. I particularly like his essays which you can read here.

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