Somehow found 90 minutes to watch this entire program yesterday – “George Orwell – A life in pictures.”
What I learned:
- Was born into “lower end of upper middle class England” and lived among the homeless for two years to understand what it was like to hit bottom so that he could effectively write about it.
- Orwell didn’t write “Animal Farm” and “1984” to promote free markets and democracy. As an ardent defender of the working class, he was an anti-totalitarist.
- He believed that one might as well put salt or pepper in their tea if they were inclined to use sugar. Tea should be strong to the taste, with six scoops without a bag of any kind to
- He fought in the Spanish revolution in the 1930s.
- He wanted Britain to have their own workers revolution that he personally witnessed in Spain.
- The British government didn’t want him to publish Animal Farm in 1944 because of the war effort, and suggested that he change the ruling class in the book from pigs to some other animal that would be less offensive.
- He wrote 1984 from his bed, and finishing the book, collapsed from his long bout with tuberculosis and died just weeks later.