Posted by Tim Cratchit on September 25, 2002 at 23:29:36:
In Reply to: we need dirt on orwell posted by horatio on September 25, 2002 at 09:53:26:
He cheated on his first wife Eileen and she probably cheated on him. This was a rocky relationship, but he was crushed when she suddenly died during what was supposed to be a routine surgery. They were through a lot of things together (Spain war) and she was very bright, outspoken and independent person.
Also, read about Sonya (here, on this site), his second wife. Orwell knew Sonya for a long time and based the Julia character of "1984" on her.
She married him on the deathbed. Orwell wanted somebody to take care about his son and literary estate, she liked him as a famous, controversial socialist autor. She called herselves "Ms. Orwell" ever since (Orwell is a pseudonyme, his real name was Eric Blair), ruled his literary estate with iron fist and kicked out his orphaned son as soon as she could. She also squandered the huge profits from "1984" and "Animal Farm" royalities - when she died, old and bitter, no money was found.
Also, Orwell was recently accused of manipulating - exaggerating - the data in his poverty study/socialist commentary "Road to Wigan Pier", so as to shock the reader by the horrible conditions the miners lived in. He was a socialist by belief and wanted to shake the people's conscience about powerty of workers.
Comparison with his own diary from Wigan Pier and research into the condition of the people there shows that O. has not chosen as representative examples to back his social commentary, as he pretends there. So, there was some well-meaning propaganda instead of straight reporting.
Also, there was an argument that the "Down and Out in Paris and London" is a bit exaggerated, that he wanted to make his poverty struggle in Paris seem more dramatic, as he was never in a real desperate situation - he had an aunt in Paris, who could help him if he asked. Seems like he chose to have an inspiration for a book about poverty, instead.
Here is a fairly detailed biographical outline: http://pages.citenet.net/users/charles/col-04b.html
Here is a very nice personal info: http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~allport/chestnut/orwell.htm
Here is about his son: http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~allport/chestnut/onlyheir.htm
Orwells strongly disliked homosexuals (considered it a vice) and was very wary of Sionist movement of jews.
Finaly, on his deathbed, he supplied the government's secret anti-communist propaganda agency with a list of communists and communist symphatisers among literary and art people, in order to prevent them from getting a job in the goverment's anti-communist propaganda effort. Seems like he had honest motives. Either way, the list remained secret for very long time and was never abused by the british government in McCarthy's style. Nevertheless, some people were shocked when the list became (in 1996) known and the denounced Orwell as a Big Brother's snitch. (Personaly, I think he was right in his decision and most of people he pointed out were real communist sympathisers or even outright Moscow agents. Also, he reduced the number of names on the the daft of the list - preserved in his diary - to those he was fairly confident about) Here is about the controversy: http://pages.citenet.net/users/charles/col-dossier.html
Othervise, there was not a lot of dirt on Orwell, it seems. In his later years - after Spain - he became very disilusioned with a lack of honesty in the british left (and its thirst for power). He had allways this moralising streak and he was quite tough on himself - he was much in doubt about himself and in he lived in a quite bad poverty (he made most of his income later by writing scores of commisioned book reviews) for most of his life.