> Yes. I wonder how many of Orwell's critics have read _Homage to Catalonia_?
> And unlike many of his later critics Orwell took a bullet in the throat
> while fighting fascism in Spain; he also came close to taking one from
> Stalinists only months later.
There are at least points here that kind of bother me, although I'll concede my particular experience of Orwell may not be all that expert at this point.
Obviously any significant critique of Orwell as a writer/thinker in general should consider all his work, and some of critics even amongst what I've read clearly have read Catalonia, Williams included. But there's a place for a critique of Animal Farm, for example, or the deployment of 1984 in popular culture or highschool curricula that isn't a treatise on Orwell as a whole.
Second, I actually don't see why being shot is a defense of his political ideas - it's a fact about his personal situation, but you could be the most useless thinker in the world and still have been shot in such a way. It just doesn't prove or justify anything when it comes to his political/critical thought.
Catherine
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