Page 127 "Orwell scares me."





[George Orwell (1903-1950) was an English author and journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense, revolutionary opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language and a belief in democratic socialism.  Orwell wrote fiction, polemical journalism, literary criticism and poetry and is best known for the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four and the satirical novella Animal Farm. They have together sold more copies than any two books by any other 20th-century author. His Homage to Catalonia, an account of his experiences as a volunteer on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War, together with his numerous essays on politics, literature, language and culture, are widely acclaimed.  Orwell's influence on contemporary culture, popular and political, continues. Several of his neologisms, along with the term Orwellian, now a byword for any draconian or manipulative social phenomenon or concept inimical to a free society, have entered the vernacular.]


     From page 127 of the book:  "...Sarah was already charmed during the course of the evening. This latest compliment put her over the edge. She was completely in Ebert's hands. I still had reservations, since most of the conversation centered around our immediate past and what precipitated our emigration to France. Then there was talk of writing, of the many authors Ebert had met and known over the course of many decades. His fondest memory was that of knowing George Orwell for a brief period of time.
    "Orwell scares me," Owen admitted.
    "Well, Orwell saw the hard truth, and it wasn't a vision that he sentimentalized, I'll have you know."
    "That's why he scares me," said Owen.
    "That's why it's the hard truth," replied Ebert. "Later, during the Fifties, my own intimate circle in Paris denounced him as a mediocre talent, or a highbrow personality. What did they know?! The Left Bank. I liked him. I thought he was right. And I broke ranks with mes frères Parisiens. Snobs. I don't think you'd characterize any of his books as exciting."
    He puffed out some smoke and stared at the table.
    "Certainly Keep the Aspidistra Flying is sadly oppressive in its way."
He looked toward Sarah and me, as we weren't familiar with the novel, and then explained.
    "It was about a working-class fellow who wants to overcome his meager, penurious life. He wants to go beyond what everyone else will surely become; that is, a comfortable middle class life. Not a tragedy, but the truth."
    Ebert raised his eyebrows and looked at me.
    "Not a tragedy, but the truth," Owen echoed. "I'll drink to that.""