Extracts from Peter Davison's introduction to "A Life in Letters", p. XIII:
There is also a long poem describing a day in London which I am doing, and it may be finished before the end of this term. [poem in Orwell's Aspidistra novel] Volume 1, p. 102
By the way, the other day I saw a man - Communist, I suppose - selling the Daily Worker, & I went up to him & said, 'Have you the D.W.? - He: 'Yes, sir.' Dear old England! ["D.W." = Daily Worker] Volume 1, p. 129
As to a pseudonym, a name I always use when tramping etc. is P.S. Burton, but if you don't think this sounds a probable kind of name, what about
Kenneth Miles,
George Orwell,
H. Lewis Allways.
I rather favour George Orwell. Volume 1, p. 129
[discussing Joyce and Ulysses] .. what a novel normally sets out to do. I should say that it sets out first .. to display or create character, secondly to make kind of pattern or design which any good story contains, and thirdly, if the novelist is up to it, to produce good writing, which can exist almost as it were in vacuo and independent of subject. Volume 1, p. 150
E.g. the typical middle-class socialist not only doesn't eat with his knife but is still slightly horrified by seeing a working man do so. And then so many of them are the sort of eunuch type with a vegetarian smell who go about spreading sweetness and light and have at the back of their minds a vision of the working class all T.T., well washed behind the ears, ..
I was never once socked on the jaw and only once told to go to hell, and then by a woman who was deaf and thought I was a rate-collector. Life-in-Letters p. 36
It is very little trouble & no hanging about like in a bookshop. In a grocer's shop people come in to buy something, in a bookshop they come in to make a nuisance of themselves. .. [marriage] .. we talked it over & decided I should never be economically justified in marrying so might as well be unjustified now as later. I expect we shall rub along all right - as to money I mean - but it will always be hand to mouth as I don't see myself ever writing a best-seller. Life-in-Letters p.61
This was George Orwell and his boots arriving to fight in Spain .. up to his last day George was a man of utter integrity; deeply kind, and ready to sacrifice his last worldly possessions – he never had much – in the cause of democratic socialism. Part of his malaise was that he was not only a socialist but profoundly liberal. He hated regimentation wherever he found it, even in the socialist ranks. Life-in-Letters p.69
[being wounded] I also can't sing, but people tell me this doesn't matter. .. What I saw in Spain did not make me cynical but it does make me think that the future is pretty grim. Life-in-Letters p. 81
I am glad you are enjoying yourself in Denmark, though, I must admit, it is one of the few countries I have never wanted to visit. Life-in-Letters p. 88
A year ago Eileen said I should never be quoted in a blurb because what I said about people’s books was always too offensive, & though it wasn't meant as such I took this as a compliment. But now I've been on two blurbs, one of them one of W's [Warburg's], & I don't want to become a sort of fixture on the backs of his dust-covers with '"Genius" - George Orwell' kept permanently in type. The trouble is that everyone in writing is torn between three motives,
I can't tell you how deeply I wish to keep alive, out of jail, and out of money-worries for the next few years. Life-in-Letters p. 150
Pacifism refuses to face the problem of government and pacifists think always as people who will never be in a position of control, which is why I call them irresponsible. Life-in-Letters p. 190
[about Max Plowman's death] .. one never seems able to feel any resentment against an opinion which is sincerely held. Life-in-Letters p.191
Nine tenths of what one does in this direction is simply wasted labour, but now and again a pamphlet or a broadcast or something gets to the person it is intended for, and this does more good than fifty speeches by politicians. Life-in-Letters p. 214
But I would brush up the English a bit (rather involved and foreign-sounding in places) Life-in-Letters p. 218
I must add, however, that by my own experience it is almost impossible to mention Jews in print, either favourably or unfavourably, without getting into trouble. Volume 3, p. 128
I know enough of British imperialism not to like it, but I would support it against Nazism or Japanese imperialism, as the lesser evil. Volume 3, p. 178
.. we have to keep on making it the better, which involves constant criticism. Life-in-Letters p. 233.
.. But for people like ourselves, who suspect that something has gone very wrong with the Soviet Union, I consider that willingness to criticize Russia and Stalin is the test of intellectual honesty. It is the only thing that from a literary intellectual's point of view is really dangerous. If one is over military age or physically unfit, and if one lives one's life inside the intelligentsia, it seems to me nonsense to say that it needs any courage to refuse military service or to express any kind of antinomian opinions. To do so only gets one into trouble with the blimps, and who cares what they say? In any case the blimps hardly interfere. The thing that needs courage is to attack Russia, the only thing that the greater part of the British intelligentsia now believe in. ...
I don’t agree with pacifism, but I judge the sincerity of pacifists by the subjects they avoid. Volume 3, p. 237
.. I don't think it matters killing people so long as you do not hate them. Volume 3, p. 241
May one remind him that the particular version of socialism that he advocates is in no way aided by a mean untruth? ..
Mr. Miller ignores all this and simply picks out isolated sentences which seem to support his thesis, a method by which anybody can be made to say anything. Life-in-Letters p. 268
For example, that Spanish war book, which is about the best I have written, ..
I belong to the Left and must work inside it, much as I hate Russian totalitarianism and its poisonous influence in this country. Volume 4, p. 49
'All progress comes through heretics' Life-in-Letters p. 276
I an supposed to be the tenant of a cottage in the Hebrides, but it's possible they won't have it in living order this year, in which case I shall probably take him to the east cost somewhere. Volume 4, p. 132
I am very glad to hear about the projected Norwegian and Danish translations ..
I am going to drop all journalism for six months as from the end of April and get on with another book. I don't suppose I shall finish one in that time but I shall break the back of it. It is to be a novel, but I don't care to say more than that about it at present. Volume 4, p. 137
In the third number I have a long article on James Burnham which I shall reprint afterwards as a pamphlet. He won't like it - however, it is what I think. Life-in-Letters p. 301
I am going to get out of it and go to Scotland for six months to a place where there is no telephone and not much of a postal service. p. 177
It is a beautiful place, quite empty and wild. [Jura] Life-in-Letters p. 308
It's in an extremely un-get-atable place, but it's a nice house and I think I can make it quite comfortable with a little trouble, .. Life-in-Letters p. 310
Bring any food you can manage, & bring a towel. You'll need thick boots & a raincoat. Life-in-Letters p. 313
I don't know what you'll do on the train, but on the boats from Gourock and Tarbert it pays to travel 3rd class because there's no difference in the accomodation and the food is filthy any way. Life-in-Letters p. 316
[coming to Jura] You want a raincoat & if possible stout boots or shows. Volume 4, p. 374
I don't like talking about books before they are written, .. Life-in-Letters p. 357
Did you know by the way that this book hasn't got a semicolon in it? I had decided about that time that the semicolon is an unnecessary stop and that I would write my next book without one. Life-in-Letters p. 367
I can't show you the part-finished novel. I never show them to anybody, because they are just a mess & don't have much relationship to the final draft. I always say a book doesn't exist until it is finished. Life-in-Letters p. 379
The central thing one has to come to terms with is the argument, always advanced by those advocating repressive legislation, that 'you cannot allow democracy to be used to overthrow democracy - you cannot allow freedom to those who merely use it in order to destroy freedom'. This of course is true, & both Fascists & Communists do aim at making use of democracy in order to destroy it. But if you carry this to its conclusion, there can be no case for allowing any political or intellectual freedom whatever. Evidently therefore it is a matter of distinguishing between a real & a merely theoretical threat to democracy, & no one shuld be persecuted for expressing his opinions, however anti-social, & no political organisation suppressed, unless it can be shown that there is a substantial threat to the stability of the state. That is the main point i should make any way. Of course there are many others. Life-in-Letters p. 381
.. I'm not sure either that one ought to trouble too much abt bringing a child into a world of atomic bombs,
[streptomycine] I suppose with all these drugs it's rather a case of sinking the ship to get rid of the rats. Volume 4, p. 471
I may be wrong, but my instinct is simplicity every time. Volume 4, p. 475
I am not a real novelist anyway, and that particular vice is inherent in writing a novel in the first person, which one should never do. Volume 4, p. 477
On the other hand so long as I live a senile sort of life I feel all right, .. Life-in-Letters p. 416
.. the book is fearfully long, I should think well over 100,000 words, possibly 125,000. .. I am not pleased with the book but I am not absolutely dissatisfied. .. I haven't definitely fixed on the title but I am hesitating between 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' and 'The Last Man in Europe'. Volume 4, p. 507
I seem to be all right so long as I stay in bed till lunch time and then spend the rest of the day on a sofa, .. Life-in-Letters p. 422
I’m glad you liked the book. It isn't a book I would gamble on for a big sale, but I suppose one could be sure of 10,000 anyway. Volume 4, p. 518
.. I should have thought the Fletchers, who are interested in keeping the North End under cultivation might be able to arrange for someone to keep house for Bill during the winter. Volume 4, p. 532
.. the Book of the Month club have selected my novel after all, in spite of my refusing to make the changes they demanded. So that shows that virtue is its own reward, or honesty is the best policy, I forget which. .. at any rate this should pay off my arrears of income tax. Volume 4, p. 549
I regard Conrad as one of the best writers of this century, and - supposing that one can count him as an English writer - one of the very few true novelists that england possesses. .. During his lifetime he suffered by being stamped as a writer of 'sea stories,', and books like The Secret Agent and Under Western Eyes went almost unnoticed. Actually Conrad only spent about a third of his life at sea, and he had only a sketchy knowledge of the Asiatic countries of which he wrote in Lord Jim, Almayer's Folly, etc. What he did have, however, was a sort of grown-upness and political understanding which would have been almost impossible to a native English writer at that time. I consider that his best work belongs to what might be called his middle period, roughly between 1900 and 1914. This period includes Nostromo, Chance, Victory, the two mentioned above, and several outstanding short stories. Life-in-Letters p. 446
It appears to me that one defeats the fanatic precisely by not being a fanatic oneself, but on the contrary by using one's intelligence. Life-in-Letters p. 448
.. virtue is its own reward, or honesty is the best policy, I forget which. Life-in-Letters p. 459
But it seems to me very important to attempt to gauge people's subjective feelings, because otherwise one can't predict their behaviour in situations where the results of certain actions are clear even to a self-deceiver. Life-in-Letters p. 470
I am in most ghastly health,& have been for some weeks. .. I asked the doctor recently whether she thought I would survive, & she wouldn't go further than saying she didn't know. .. Don't think I am making up my mind to peg out. On the contrary, I have the strongest reasons for wanting to stay alive.
I am glad 1984 has done so well before publication. Life-in-Letters p. 471
My recent novel is NOT intended as an attack on Socialism or on the British Labour Party (of which I am a supporter) but as a show-up of the perversions to which a centralized economy is liable and which have already been partly realized in Communism and Fascism. I do not believe that the kind of society I describe necessarily will arrive, but I believe .. that something resembling it could arrive. I believe also that totalitarian ideas have taken root in the minds of intellectuals everywhere, and I have tried to draw these ideas out to their logical consequences. .. Volume 4 p. 564
