Orwell: Wintry Conscience of a Generation - Softcover

Meyers, Jeffrey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393322637 ISBN 13: 9780393322637

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001

Synopsis

"Admirable...consistent with its subject's unassuming intelligence.... Meyers relates [Orwell's] life crisply and judiciously."―The New York Times

Respected biographer Jeffrey Meyers delves into the complex life of the man whose visionary work gave us the great anti-utopias of modern literature. "The breadth of his research is impressive" (New York Times Book Review), drawing on a close study of the new edition of Orwell's Complete Works, personal interviews, and unpublished material in London's Orwell Archive.  Meyers's "briskly paced, absorbing narrative...offers keen insights" (Boston Sunday Globe) on Orwell's intellectual development, as well as his human failings―his childhood insecurities, his political dilemmas, and his conflicted relationships with women. "Leagues in front of" Orwell's previous biographers, Meyers "convincingly demonstrates the essence of [Orwell's] character" (Denver Post), revealing a "much more helpful and believable portrait" (Paul Theroux). "The breadth of his research is impressive."―New York Times Book Review "A respected biographer and no stranger to his subject."―Newark Star-Ledger  "[B]riskly paced, absorbing narrative...offers keen insights."―Boston Sunday Globe "[Meyers] convincingly demonstrates the essence of [Orwell's] character."―Denver Post  "[A]dmirable for its portrayal of Orwell the man and writer--dark, disturbed, obsessing, contrary....both moving and edifying."―Paul Theroux "[L]ikely to be seen as the most insightful and balanced portrait...for a long time to come."―Joseph Frank "Meyers has uncovered fascinating aspects of Orwell's life that put a new face to one of Britain's most influential authors."―Phillip Knightley, author of The First Casualty 10 pages of black and white photographs

About this title

Review:

It was a fellow English writer, V.S. Pritchett, who called George Orwell (1903-50) "the wintry conscience of a generation," and wintry is certainly an appropriate adjective for Jeffrey Meyers's somber portrait. It's not that veteran biographer Meyers doesn't admire the author of Animal Farm and 1984; he rightly sees Orwell as one of the 20th century's most penetrating critics of totalitarianism and most passionate advocates for a more humane society. He also notes that this combative polemicist could be "kind and gentle in his personal relations." But there's no way to make the chronicle of Orwell's life into a cheerful story. Born Eric Blair, he had an unhappy childhood, stifled by the conventions of a class system he grew to despise. Writing under the name George Orwell, he offended fellow socialists with his blunt criticisms of their failures in The Road to Wigan Pier, then, in Homage to Catalonia, infuriated communists by denouncing Stalinist persecutions of anarchists during the Spanish Civil War. His first wife died suddenly at age 39; his second married him on his deathbed. By the time 1984 made Orwell famous and wealthy in 1949, he knew the tuberculosis that had plagued him since childhood would soon kill him. As was the case in his books on F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edmund Wilson, and many others, Meyers's brisk narrative goes no deeper than the conventional wisdom about Orwell's writing, and his psychological assessments are similarly accurate but superficial. But for those just getting to know England's most scrupulous and influential political novelist, this no-frills biography makes a good introduction. --Wendy Smith

About the Author:

Jeffrey Meyers, a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, has written biographies of D. H. Lawrence, Robert Frost, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0393322637
• ISBN 13: 9780393322637
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 402