Orwell as Warning, Witness, and Writer

For Christmas this year I was given a number of books including The Diaries of George Orwell, edited by Peter Davison with an introduction by Christopher Hitchens. (So many books, so little time!)

The book is not a complete compilation of Orwell's diaries. Rather, it extracts portions thematically from the various periods of his life beginning with 1931, 1936 (Road to Wigan Pier), domestic life, 1939 Morocco diaries, events leading up to the war, war diaries and relevant excerpts from Orwell's notebooks. 

Essentially this compilation offers an intimate, unguarded view of Orwell’s daily life and moral temperament. Spanning illness, wartime London, farming, and political anxiety, the entries reveal a mind attentive to ordinary detail and ethical consequence. Davison’s editing strives to preserve Orwell’s voice while situating it historically, deepening our understanding of how lived experience shaped his essays, novels, and enduring political conscience.

I've often said, "If a man is worth knowing at all, he's worth knowing well." In my opinion Eric Blair, whom the world knows as George Orwell, was such a man. For this reason I'm looking forward to taking deeper look at the interior life of this keen observer of the world he lived in.

In the meantime, here are links to nine essays (blog posts) that I've written about this influential author.

George Orwell's "How the Poor Die": Exploring Themes of Inequality, Neglect and Other Grim Realities

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2024/09/george-orwells-how-poor-die-exploring.html

George Orwell on Wells, Hitler and "Patriotism vs. the World State"

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2021/07/george-orwell-on-wells-hitler-and.html

Orwell on Media Mischief

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2021/11/orwell-on-media-mischief.html

Orwell's Homage to Catalonia Is Instructive on Many Levels, Plus a Good Read

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2021/08/orwells-homage-to-catalonia-is.html

George Orwell on Wells, Hitler and "Patriotism vs. the World State"

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2021/07/george-orwell-on-wells-hitler-and.html

Did you Know George Orwell Took a Stand Against Paperbacks?

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2019/11/flashback-friday-did-you-know-george.html

Public Introspection: George Orwell's Why I Write

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2016/08/public-introspection-george-orwells-why.html

Shooting an Elephant

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2011/05/shooting-elephant.html

Excerpts from Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2023/09/excerpts-from-orwells-road-to-wigan-pier.html

Other noteworthy journals and diaries I have read include Thomas Mann and Andre Gide

Nietzsche's and Mann's Divergent Views on Wagner

Richard Wagner (Public doain)

I recently finished reading the diaries of Thomas Mann for a second time now. The first was perhapes 30 years ago. (I'd have to serach my own diaries to find the precise year) When I read this volume back then it was a library book. Earlier this summer I found it on the free books discard shelf, a real steal.

The diary entries cover only a portion of Mann's life and career. In part one we read entries from 1918 to 1921. The diary then jumps ahead to 1933 and covers the six year preceding the start of World War II.

A bit of personal trivia: The first entry is September 11, which happens to be my birthday.

There are a number of interesting details here beyond the historical context of these two periods in his life. Throughout Mann records what he is reading--Tolstoy, Cervantes, Proust, etc. He also makes note of what times he goes to bed (nearly always after reading a while), what time he wakens (usually 8 a.m.) and what medicines he is taking. He records whom he is corresponding with, and what writing project or projects he is working on.

There are numerous entries devoted to Richard Wagner, whom he writes about and goes on a lecture tour to discuss. What interested me is how divergent his views on Wagner were from Friedrich Nietzche's.

For both Thomas Mann and Friedrich Nietzsche the German composer Richard Wagner was a towering figure in 19th-century European culture. While both thinkers engaged deeply with Wagner’s music and philosophy, their perspectives reflecteddifferent relationships to his legacy and their own evolving philosophies.

* * *

In his early years Nietzsche had been a passionate Wagner enthusiast. Later, however, he became one of Wagner’s most severe critics, devoting a whole book to the guy, The Case of Wagner (1888).

Initially, Nietzsche was captivated by Wagner’s music, seeing in it a revolutionary spirit that resonated with his own philosophical ideals of breaking away from the constraints of bourgeois morality. Nietzsche admired Wagner’s grand operatic visions, particularly the blending of myth, music, and drama to create what Wagner termed the Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art). Nietzsche saw in Wagner’s early operas, like The Ring of the Nibelung, a reflection of the Dionysian spirit—a celebration of primal, life-affirming forces that Nietzsche explored in his first major work, The Birth of Tragedy (1872).

Friedrich Nietzsche

However, Nietzsche’s view of Wagner dramatically shifted as he began to see Wagner as embodying the very decadence and cultural decline that he despised. Ironically, when I read The Case of Wagner I was flying to "Sin City" on a business trip and back. There is probably no greater symbol of empty decadence than Las Vegas. The book itself is a scathing, personal attack on an artist he once revered.*

By way of contrast Mann admired Wagner and was influenced by his synthesis of music and mythology. Mann appreciated the way Wagner blended Germanic legends with profound philosophical ideas. He saw Wagner's genius and admired his innovations. In his essay The Sorrows and Grandeur of Richard Wagner (1933), Mann grappled with the duality of Wagner’s genius: the grandeur of his artistic vision alongside his troubling associations with German nationalism and proto-fascist ideas. Mann recognized Wagner's flaws while still appreciating his art.  Mann was concerned that Wagner's work could be exploited by reactionary forces, a hunch that turned out to be right in the 30's.

  

The key difference between Nietzsche and Mann’s views on Wagner lies in the depth of their disillusionment. Nietzsche’s break with Wagner was total and deeply personal, stemming from philosophical disillusionment with Wagner’s later works. Mann, while critical of Wagner’s political and moral implications, maintained a more balanced view, appreciating his artistic genius while recognizing his dangerous cultural influence.  

As you reflect on your lifetime of interests and passions, what have been your greatest disillusionments? What did you learn from these experiences?

Three Seeds from the Diaries of Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy at 20 in 1848.

Beautiful sunny day here. Re-connected with a friend over coffee. Shared stories from the past couple years of our life journeys. Feeling laid back, reflective.

My recent months of reading Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn brought me back in touch with Tolstoy, the pre-eminent literary light of the previous century. An aim of Solzhenitsyn's was to become the Tolstoy of Russian literature for the 20th century.

Because I've never read War and Peace and get stymied each time I threaten to begin it, I decided to watch one of the movies based on the classic, which I am in the middle of, despite it being a poor substitute. And even though the movie is but a shadow of the book, I see glimmers of Solzhenitsyn's massive story The Red Wheel, which begins with August 1914.

What follows here are three excerpts from the diaries of Leo Tolstoy.

* * * *
OUR PLACE IN THE GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS
How good it is to remember one's insignificance: that of a man among billions of men, of an animal amid billions of animals; and one's abode, the earth, a little grain of sand in comparison with Sirius and others, and one's life span in comparison with billions on billions of ages. There is only one significance, you are a worker. The assignment is inscribed in your reason and heart and expressed clearly and comprehensibly by the best among the beings similar to you. The reward for doing the assignment is immediately within you. But what the significance of the assignment is or of its completion, that you are not given to know, nor do you need to know it. It is good enough as it is. What else could you desire?

* * * *

Tolstoy in 1897

A MID-LIFE CRISIS
Today or tomorrow sickness and death will come (they had come already) to those I love or to me; nothing will remain but stench and worms. Sooner or later my affairs, whatever they may be, will be forgotten, and I shall not exist. Then why go on making any effort? . . . How can man fail to see this? And how go on living? That is what is surprising! One can only live while one is intoxicated with life; as soon as one is sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere fraud and a stupid fraud! That is precisely what it is: there is nothing either amusing or witty about it, it is simply cruel and stupid.

* * * *
IMPORTANT QUESTIONS
My question … was the simplest of questions, lying in the soul of every man from the foolish child to the wisest elder: it was a question without an answer to which one cannot live, as I had found by experience. It was: “What will come of what I am doing today or shall do tomorrow? What will come of my whole life?” Differently expressed, the question is: “Why should I live, why wish for anything, or do anything?” It can also be expressed thus: “Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy?”

* * * *
Related Link
Tolstoy Asks Us To Address One Question: How Should We Then Live

9-11 Remembrance

“The eastern sky is clear, but fierce looking clouds threaten us from the west. It may not be a pretty day.” ~ Journal entry, Sept. 11, 2001

I thought it might make an interesting blog entry to look back at my journal to see what I wrote that tragic morning when the towers fell. The note above was penned a little over two hours before the first plane hit. I’ve not looked back on this entry till now, and it’s uncanny what a prescient note is sounded in these words.

The events of 9-11 remind us that we live in a broken world. As Robert Burns once observed, “Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.”

Rather than post more words, let’s pause for a moment of silence and remembrance.

Woody Allen

Reading portions of Woody Allen’s book Side Effects & reflecting on his movies. Allen addresses and incorporates the serious questions of life & meaning, and while making humor/jokes, etc. Although some find it irreverent, is he not, at least, raising the questions? The “heavy question” or “profound thought” is a regular feature of his humor, as are his countless references to classic literature.

Perhaps this is the only way modern man can toy with these ideas. Allen, then, is the genius who has managed, more successfully than many preachers, to confront modern man with a true sense of his situation. Why am I here? Why do we do the things we do?
August 1, 1993

A few Woody Allen quotes to give a taste of his flavor:

"Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it."

"If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank."

"Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons."

"I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown."

"It is impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carry a tune."

"There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?"

"I'm not afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens."

"I don't believe in the after life, although I am bringing a change of underwear."

Predictability and Determinism

"Radio talk show host Larry King was taking calls about God yesterday. He could not accept the notion that God knows the future, yet does not control us. That is, if God knows what I am going to do, how can I do otherwise? Like most people, Mr. King stumbles where Reason fails. The idea of Mystery is lost to modern man. Everything, supposedly, should make sense, should be explainable."
May 6, 1993

It's interesting to stumble upon this journal note this a.m. because last Friday evening in our philosophy club we gave attention to this very discussion. We have been listening to a series of lectures called The Great Ideas of Philosophy, and this month's lecture was on Augustine. Augustine injected an intellectual vigor back into the early church. Noting that although God cannot be perceived or achieved via Reason, the notion of God is not inconsistent with Reason or unreasonable.

At one point, the matter which Larry King struggled with was addressed. Dr. Robinson, the lecturerer, illustrated how it is possible for predictability to not be determinism. In other words, God can know the future without making it happen.

The reality is, that if the will were not free, we'd have a new dilemma: how can I be accountable for what I do?

It is fascinating to wrestle with these issues. Occassionally they result in some spirited debates. The quest for truth and meaning are worthy pursuits. Ultimately, we are seeking a basis for hope, a hope that is real and does not disappoint us.

"Squeezing life to wring out from it all I can take from each day."
May 18, 1993

And There Shall Be Wars

At age 79 my father-in-law Bud Wagner called me on the phone and said, "I'd like you to help me buy a computer." That night we went out and did just that. He taught himself how to use it and proceeded to finish a project that he'd carried in his heart for most of a lifetime.

At age 80, Wagner completed his first book, based on his diaries from World War Two. Wagner was the second Minnesotan drafted into the war. Cook, machine gunner and company agent, Wagner had the privilege of being on the first convoy to make its way across the Atlantic for the European theater. And the good fortune of having survived the duration of the war without becoming a casualty in North Africa and Italy, which included beachheads at Anzio and Salerno.

The book, And There Shall Be Wars, is a truly powerful account of this man's experience and worthy of being included in the annals of military history.

Wagner had several motivations for writing the book. "I wanted to put my diary in a concise journal form for the family," Wagner said. "I've kept a diary out of habit since I was a young kid. During the war nobody else did it and I wanted to have it as part of my life experience." Diary writing was rare not only because few soldiers did it, but also because the army had rules against it. When citing the value of diaries Wagner fondly quotes the Chinese proverb, "The faintest ink is stronger than the strongest memory."

A primary theme for this blog is journal writing. That is, I have been sifting thought my personal journals and bringing to light excerpts that might lead to some thought provoking discussion, or insights of value. Bud Wagner's book is similar in design. He kept a journal during the war, but his book is more. Having spent decades researching that siginifcant period of history, his journal notes include commentary amplifying the entries, with additional historical facts collated to make this book especially valuable.

For more information on this book, and to see what others have said.

To purchase a copy of And There Shall Be Wars, send an email to ennyman3@gmail.com