Orwell was a pretty good writer, though sometimes a bit of a fool. He was intimidated by the machine age, to the extent that he assumed the seaside postcard artist MacGill must be a vast production studio - when in fact it was just a guy, two streets down from him, with a desk and some pots of paint.
Nineteen Eighty-Four's Winston Smith's working life as propagandist re- writing history was based on his own experience at the BBC, where copy was vetted by MI5.
His critical insight into the disaster of Stalinism clouded his judgement, though, and he enthusiastically gave the names of left- wingers and fellow-travellers to MI5 after the war - people whom he had worked with, or had grudges against. He had, in fact, become the very thing he satirised in Nineteen Eighty-Four, a secret policeman.
In message <4.3.2.7.1.20010823145705.00b0baf0 at hsoak01a.ebay.sun.com>,
joanna bujes <joanna.bujes at ebay.sun.com> writes
>At 03:28 PM 08/23/2001 -0400, you wrote:
>>I don't know the first, but the moral of Shooting an Elephant seems to
>>be how those damn natives won't let an honest imperial master consult
>>his own better feelings. How inconsiderate of those naughty children to
>>demand that the poor sensitive Massa put on a show for them.
>
>You missed the irony.
>
>
>>As to prose style, there must be a dozen or so writers in the field of
>>crime fiction alone who write as well. Johnson's putdown of Swift (which
>>didn't hold for Swift) holds for Orwell. He had a small mind.
>
>A man with a small mind could not have written "Homage to Catalonia." It is
>true though that he wasn't "theoretical." That, however, is not the same as
>having a small mind.
>
>Joanna Bujes
>
>
-- James Heartfield