By Mursi Saad El-Din This month Britain celebrates the 108th anniversary of George Orwell, one of the most influential political writers of his time. Many see his books as prophetic. And to commemorate his contribution Penguin is re-jacketing his books. The BBC, for which he wrote World War II commentaries, is also showing a documentary about him. George Orwell was a nom de plume for Eric Arthur Blair, who was born in 1903 in Bengal. This is not the place to write about his rather adventurous life, which is reflected in his books, especially Down and Out in Paris and London, a record of his life in the slums of the two capitals. By immersing himself in the life of the poor, he wanted to expiate some of the guilt he felt, leading, as he had done, the life of an Indian Sahib. Going through Volume III of Simon Schama's book, A History of Britain: the Fate of Empire, 1776-2000, I was surprised to note how this historian repeatedly refers to Orwell's writing. In Chapter 8, entitled "Endurance", we are provided with facts about Orwell's school years at St Cypriants Prep School, then Eton. Memories of his school days emerge in expressions like "Such, such were the joys." Schama goes on to describe Orwell's career as a member of the Burma Police. Burma was, in more than one sense, "a paradigm of plunder." And Orwell is said to have "looked back with ironic gratitude to his time in the police because in that service, at least, the coercion on which imperial power was based was nakedly exposed." Orwell recorded that period in his early novel, Burmese Days, published in 1934. He was subsequently to write, "To hate imperialism, you have to be part of it." Schama compares Orwell's new life as a vagabond to that of others who had been down and out before him. At Eton he had read Jack London's chronicle of London's East End, People of the Abyss, published in 1905, and In the Darkest London by Ada Elizabeth Cheslerton, a Daily Express journalist who sold matches in Piccadilly, or polished the same doorknob for three hours to earn the right to sleep in a "spike," ie, a shelter for the homeless. Almost literally Orwell followed in the footsteps of London and Cheslerton. And Schama uses his description of the dirt in the spikes and the poverty of the tramps as a record of life in England in those times. It was due to Down and Out in Paris and London that the pen name George Orwell was invented. Orwell was the name of a river in Suffolk and Schama believes it likely that "Blair, who in any case loved the countryside with a fierce passion, wanted to identify with the physical nature of England." Apart from his novels, Orwell was a prolific journalist with numerous newspaper articles and reviews as well as serious literary criticism to his name. He also wrote a number of books about England, notably The Lion and the Unicorn, which combined patriotic sentiment with liberal socialism. It was in 1944 that Orwell finished Animal Farm, which is described as "a political fable based on the story of the Russian Revolution and its betrayal." At first it was difficult finding a publisher, but when it eventually came out in 1945 it made him famous and, for the first time, prosperous. Animal Farm was probably Orwell's finest work, "full of wit and fantasy. It also became popular as a children's book and was translated into many languages, including Arabic." Yet it has been overshadowed by Nineteen Eighty Four, a novel he wrote as a warning. And it will be for this portrayal of the kind of society he believed would evolve if human beings allowed the state to assume totalitarian power that he will be most dearly remembered. It is the latter novel, after all, that gave birth to the concept of Big Brother.
