Orwell why i write online

I found reading to be very boring. It felt like watching a movie with subtitles, only without the movie, and much slower. And with the advent of video games I truly had everything my solitary heart desired. The few books I had at that time turned yellow, collected dust and eventually got sold for twenty francs. Fast forward to the internet, with its chat rooms and forums devoted to games and the dominance of the English language in those settings. At a certain point I spent more time on the Internet discussing game strategies rather than playing the games themselves, as I also started commenting on the personal stories and the societal comments people invariably shared on these things.

It is now, also through remembering some emails and letters I sent, I realise that it was mainly the writing in itself that I enjoyed, especially in English.

All I needed was something worthwhile to write about. Another fast forward to much later to when I finally started reading, also in English. Murakami's "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" proved to be the perfect present and as I read and finished that one I couldn't wait to start another book and then another and then another.

Forget about slow. Forget about "where are the pictures? Finally the movies I always wanted were playing in my mind as I sped through the pages.

But after a couple of books a sad realisation gripped me as I asked myself: " What was the Murakami book about again? Something about a well and melanoma? Clearly I had forgotten. I've always been someone who got through life more on the basis of an understanding in the moment rather than a remembering of the past.

There are a lot of things to be said for traveling light and taking nothing with you on your travels, but I figured I preferred to try and collect some souvenirs at least. Hence the idea to write reviews.

So that's the narrative. But Orwell also comes up with a list of motives, especially when it comes to writing in order to be read, which clearly apply to my case: Sheer egoism "The desire to seem clever.

The immediate feedback-system on Goodreads coupled with its exceedingly generous community makes this motive a potentially overpowering one. Aesthetic enthusiasm "The desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed. Hope you got John McNee 's books in your libraries! I think I stressed that enough by now. In the case of reviewing it can also be the opposite of aesthetic enthusiasm, for cases where you would like to dissuade people from ever getting near a certain book.

Having seen some negative reviews, those can be pretty enthusiastic as well. Historical impulse "The desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for use of posterity. In essence to see for yourself what all the fuss is about and reach your own conclusions. Moreover the discussions on books and society that often ensue on this website are often very enriching to me and teach me in much the same way a history teacher would, so what the hell: Check!

Political purpose "The desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter people's idea of the kind of society they should strive after. So there we have it. A "why" that has been answered, if not fully, at least partially. A reason for writing that Orwell shortly touched upon as well is " for a living ". But I think only very few here get compensation in financial terms, not counting gifted books in return for reviews.

Unless you guys know something that I don't. In any case, in the end the most important reason lies in the amalgam of all those reasons enumerated above, an amalgam that I can only describe as: I love being here. Just kidding, that's not a reason, that's circular reasoning.

But I almost made you tear up, didn't I? It's true though. Mohamed Al. Author 1 book 4, followers. What is the urgency to write or what is the need to write anything at all? For, there must be some way to disburse these anxious ordeals; and what better way it could be than to write. We may say, arguably though, that an author, or any one for that matter, writes to express, to get away from the insanity which might take one over if one does not decide to flush out the thoughts boiling up in the head; one expresses the turmoil one feels in consciousness, though he may choose different ways to do it- sometimes words are simply used to render the tumult and turbulence he might be going through while sometimes words are deftly used to concoct an escapade which may indirectly covey his thoughts.

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.

For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. It may be said, though arguably again, that writing is a self-driven and ever evolving personal engagement but development of language is influenced and shaped by other authors one would have followed during early years; it stems from personal experience and the innate connection one bore to literature from early age.

The subject matter of an author will be determined by the age he lives in, his childhood; the kind of stories authors imagine in their childhood have reflected in their styles which they adopted over the years.

Orwell proposed that there are four main motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose- egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse and political purpose, though degree of these motives may vary from one author to another and even in one author their proportions may vary from time to time.

The desire to be talked about, to be remembered after death- which satisfies our ego- are quintessential to writers. Orwell said that serious writers are on the whole more vain and self- centered, though less interested in money.

So, if not money then what they entices them- is fame not a manifestation of ego? Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable but aesthetic motive is, what Orwell felt, very feeble in a lot of writers; perception of beauty in words and their arrangements is one of the prime motives to write. The other motive he talked about is historical importance — desire to see things as they are, to find out facts and store them up for the use of posterity. The role of history and historian has changed over the years, as philosopher and historian Foucault sought to critically examine the seemingly straight forward questions and the responses they had inspired.

He directed his most sustained skepticism toward those responses—among them, race, the unity of reason or the psyche, progress, and liberation—He directed his most sustained skepticism toward those responses—among them, race, the unity of reason or the psyche, progress, and liberation.

But those were ages of imperialism that probably that has affected the thought process of the intellectuals then. Orwell maintained that no book is genuinely free from political bias, the opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they abandon individual ambition- in many cases, indeed, they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all- and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Then came Hitler, the Spanish Civil War, etc. By the end of I had still failed to reach a firm decision.

I remember a little poem that I wrote at that date, expressing my dilemma:. A happy vicar I might have been Two hundred years ago, To preach upon eternal doom And watch my walnuts grow.

But born, alas, in an evil time, I missed that pleasant haven, For the hair has grown on my upper lip And the clergy are all clean-shaven. And later still the times were good, We were so easy to please, We rocked our troubled thoughts to sleep On the bosoms of the trees. All ignorant we dared to own The joys we now dissemble; The greenfinch on the apple bough Could make my enemies tremble. It is forbidden to dream again; We maim our joys or hide them; Horses are made of chromium steel And little fat men shall ride them.

I am the worm who never turned, The eunuch without a harem; Between the priest and the commissar I walk like Eugene Aram;. And the commissar is telling my fortune While the radio plays, But the priest has promised an Austin Seven, For Duggie always pays. Was Jones? Were you? The Spanish war and other events in turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood.

Every line of serious work that I have written since has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.

It seems to me nonsense, in a period like our own, to think that one can avoid writing of such subjects. Everyone writes of them in one guise or another. It is simply a question of which side one takes and what approach one follows. What I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to make political writing into an art. My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice. I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.

But I could not do the work of writing a book, or even a long magazine article, if it were not also an aesthetic experience. Anyone who cares to examine my work will see that even when it is downright propaganda it contains much that a full-time politician would consider irrelevant.

I am not able, and do not want, completely to abandon the world view that I acquired in childhood. So long as I remain alive and well I shall continue to feel strongly about prose style, to love the surface of the earth, and to take a pleasure in solid objects and scraps of useless information. It is no use trying to suppress that side of myself. The job is to reconcile my ingrained likes and dislikes with the essentially public, non-individual activities that this age forces on all of us.

It is not easy. It raises problems of construction and of language, and it raises in a new way the problem of truthfulness. Let me give just one example of the cruder kind of difficulty that arises. My book about the Spanish civil war, Homage to Catalonia , is of course a frankly political book, but in the main it is written with a certain detachment and regard for form. I did try very hard in it to tell the whole truth without violating my literary instincts.

But among other things it contains a long chapter, full of newspaper quotations and the like, defending the Trotskyists who were accused of plotting with Franco. Clearly such a chapter, which after a year or two would lose its interest for any ordinary reader, must ruin the book.

A critic whom I respect read me a lecture about it. If you are the copyright owner of this paper and no longer wish to have your work published on IvyPanda.

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