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Why I Write (1946) by George Orwell & the 4 Questions Every Writer Should Ask

One can sense the sheer joy words must have given Orwell when he describes his history with reading and writing, and it makes this reader all the more glad that such poetry can live in the hearts of men and women.

cg fewstonWhy I Write by George Orwell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Why I Write (1946) by George Orwell (1903-1950) is actually a collection of four short essays: “Why I Write” (1946); “The Lion and the Unicorn” (1940); “A Hanging” (1931); and “Politics of the English Language” (1946). The collection amounts to 120 pages and can be read in an afternoon or over four evenings. The title, however, is a bit deceptive and consists of very little of why Orwell writes, but one can directly gleam that from his extended discourse on Socialism that he writes for political motives.

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The first section of the book is “Why I Write” and it’s only 10 pages long, but one can get a deeper insight into Orwell’s history as a writer.

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George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair), British Novelist (1903-1950)

“From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six,” writes Orwell, “I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer. Between the ages of about seventeen and twenty-four I tried to abandon this idea, but I did so with the consciousness that I was outraging my true nature and that sooner or later I should have to settle down and write books… I had the lonely child’s habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginary persons, and I think from the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued. I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts, and I felt that this created a sort of private world in which I could get my own back for my failure in everyday life” (p 1).

Most writers can relate to childhood stories. When I was a small child, I would sit in my mother’s lap as my father drove us across the long, empty Texas landscapes and listen to her make up such wonderful stories that included talking telephone poles and a purple polka-dotted elephant that could move at the speed of light and zip from tree to tree. I honestly believe I saw that nameless elephant at least three times in my life. Twice was when I was a child and once when I told the same story to my daughter.

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Most writers can also relate to feeling undervalued and the lonely hours of isolation that comes so naturally to a writer. When I was in Grade 5, I was placed in isolation for fighting (okay, I had a thing for boxing and Rocky films). To be frank, much of this isolation over that year developed my desire for autonomous academic work that I still carry on today.

Back then the isolation room was my principal’s supply closet next to the secretary. I would do the entire day’s work in two or three hours, do some reading (I read Hatchet by Gary Paulsen and loved it), take a small nap before lunch, have my lunch served to me, and then continue reading until I had to go home in the afternoon, and never once did I have to bother with the anxieties and frustrations that go along with school life. I enjoyed this time to myself and it felt less like punishment and more like a reward. This is probably why I got into so many fights as a boy. But one day the secretary forgot to bring me lunch. It was a Friday and the school always served hamburgers for lunch and I was so looking forward to it. Around two o’clock the secretary came in and was upset that she forgot. None so more than I, one might argue. She pleaded to allow me to have her go to McDonald’s and bring me a Happy Meal. I’m a stubborn man at times and even then as a young boy I refused. After all, it was the principle of the issue. She should never have forgotten. But at times now that I am in my mid-thirties I sit alone, reading and writing, enjoying myself, and still feel that cold realization creep down my spine and think that someone has forgotten me yet again.

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Like Orwell, I discovered the pleasure of reading Paradise Lost, although I did not do it until my early years in college.

“When I was about sixteen,” writes Orwell, “I suddenly discovered the joy of mere words, i.e., the sounds and associations of words. The lines from Paradise Lost,

So hee with difficulty and labour hard
Moved on: with difficulty and labour hee

“Which do not now seem to me so very wonderful, sent shivers down my backbone; and the spelling of ‘hee’ for ‘he’ was an added pleasure” (p 3).

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If one has never read either Paradise Lost (1667) or Paradise Regained (1671), I highly recommend doing so. Both by John Milton are such a pleasure to the mind and ear.

One can sense the sheer joy words must have given Orwell when he describes his history with reading and writing, and it makes this reader all the more glad that such poetry can live in the hearts of men and women.

By the end of the essay Orwell gives his four major reasons (pgs 4-5) as to why he writes, and he explains that these reasons are also shared by most other writers:

1) Sheer Egoism
2) Aesthetic Enthusiasm
3) Historical Impulse
4) Political Purpose

I will leave you to agree or disagree with Orwell’s assessment to the motivations of writers, but I do tend to agree with most of his comments on the subject. Moving on.

“The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius” is 84 pages long and broken into three parts: Part I: England Your England; and Part II: Shopkeepers at War; and, Part III: The English Revolution. I do not share the taste for political discourse as Orwell does, but if you are interested in Socialism and the shaping of English politics and also Economic Inequality (which is a hot topic in the United States these days) then by all means take the time and read this essay. Orwell is very enlightening and I did enjoy his comments on how he would recommend reshaping an economy since he claims Capitalism has failed England. And to think that this essay was first published in 1940 and America is just now realizing the problems with Capitalism is impressive.

cg fewston
George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair), British Novelist (1903-1950)

“A Hanging” is approximately six pages long and is basically creative non-fiction, and involves Orwell’s account of witnessing an execution by hanging. I have read this piece in other formats over the course of ten years (this being the first time in print-book format) and the ending still haunts me as much as it did on the first reading. This short account of an execution inspired me to describe two important historical executions in the first and last chapters of my fourth novel.

The last piece in the series is “Politics and the English Language” and is roughly 18 pages. As a writer this essay interested me the most and I continually pick up new tidbits of advice from Orwell upon each new reading. For example:

“Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influences of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible” (p 102).

Orwell explains how one can go about reversing the process of bastardizing the English language:

“A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus:

What am I trying to say?

What words will express it?

What image or idiom will make it clearer?

Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

“And he will probably ask himself two more:

Could I put it more shortly?

Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

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“But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you—even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent—and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connexion between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear” (p 113).

This last statement is referring to Orwell’s belief of how politicians use obfuscation in language to intentionally mislead audiences/voters or disguise true intent from the public.

Orwell adds to this argument:

“A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance towards turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself” (p 114).

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A man who does not think for himself is a dangerous man. He is dangerous in the same way a driver-less car is dangerous as it speeds down the highway directly toward a group of school children. Charlie Chaplin said it best in The Great Dictator (1940) – one of my favorite movies (full speech in text and video can be found directly after this post):

“Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men—machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have a love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural.”

Orwell concludes his ideas by arguing that “if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better” (p 116).

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George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair), British Novelist (1903-1950)

But this never-ending cycle of change in language is, regardless, fundamental and necessary for a society ever changing and evolving within itself.

Either way, Orwell makes some key points on what writers can do to improve not only their writing ability but also their speaking and thinking abilities as well.

For so many more reasons that I cannot even name here in this somewhat brief space, Why I Write is a very strong recommend.

Charlie Chaplin’s famous speech from The Great Dictator (1940)

“I’m sorry but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible; Jew, Gentile, black men, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls; has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge as made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in man; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all.

“Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say “Do not despair.” The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers! Don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder! Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men—machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have a love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural.

“Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it’s written “the kingdom of God is within man”, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power.

“Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill their promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.

“Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!”

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cg fewston

CG FEWSTON

cg fewston

The American novelist CG FEWSTON has been a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy in Rome (Italy), a Visiting Fellow at Hong Kong’s CityU, & he’s a been member of the Hemingway Society, Americans for the Arts, PEN America, Club Med, & the Royal Society of Literature. He’s also a been Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) based in London. He’s the author of several short stories and novels. His works include A Fathers Son (2005), The New America: A Collection (2007), The Mystics Smile ~ A Play in 3 Acts (2007), Vanity of Vanities (2011), A Time to Love in Tehran (2015), Little Hometown, America (2020); A Time to Forget in East Berlin (2022), and Conquergood & the Center of the Intelligible Mystery of Being (2023).

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He has a B.A. in English, an M.Ed. in Higher Education Leadership (honors), an M.A. in Literature (honors), and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing & Fiction. He was born in Texas in 1979.

cg fewston
cg fewston

Conquergood & the Center of the Intelligible Mystery of Being is a captivating new dystopian science fiction novel by CG Fewston, an author already making a name for himself with his thought-provoking work. Set in the year 2183, Conquergood is set in a world where one company, Korporation, reigns supreme and has obtained world peace, through oppression... The world-building in the novel is remarkable. Fewston has created a believable and authentic post-apocalyptic society with technological wonders and thought-provoking societal issues. The relevance of the themes to the state of the world today adds an extra wrinkle and makes the story even more compelling.”

cg fewston
cg fewston

“A spellbinding tale of love and espionage set under the looming shadow of the Berlin Wall in 1975… A mesmerising read full of charged eroticism.”

Ian Skewis, Associate Editor for Bloodhound Books, & author of best-selling novel A Murder of Crows (2017)  

“An engrossing story of clandestine espionage… a testament to the lifestyle encountered in East Berlin at the height of the Cold War.”

“There is no better way for readers interested in Germany’s history and the dilemma and cultures of the two Berlins to absorb this information than in a novel such as this, which captures the microcosm of two individuals’ love, relationship, and options and expands them against the blossoming dilemmas of a nation divided.”

~ D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

A Time to Forget in East Berlin is a dream-like interlude of love and passion in the paranoid and violent life of a Cold War spy. The meticulous research is evident on every page, and Fewston’s elegant prose, reminiscent of novels from a bygone era, enhances the sensation that this is a book firmly rooted in another time.”

~ Matthew Harffy, prolific writer & best-selling historical fiction author of the “Bernicia Chronicles” series

“Vivid, nuanced, and poetic…” “Fewston avoids familiar plot elements of espionage fiction, and he is excellent when it comes to emotional precision and form while crafting his varied cast of characters.” “There’s a lot to absorb in this book of hefty psychological and philosophical observations and insights, but the reader who stays committed will be greatly rewarded.”

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GOLD Winner in the 2020 Human Relations Indie Book Awards for Contemporary Realistic Fiction

FINALIST in the SOUTHWEST REGIONAL FICTION category of the 14th Annual National Indie Excellence 2020 Awards (NIEA)

“Readers of The Catcher in the Rye and similar stories will relish the astute, critical inspection of life that makes Little Hometown, America a compelling snapshot of contemporary American life and culture.”

“Fewston employs a literary device called a ‘frame narrative’ which may be less familiar to some, but allows for a picture-in-picture result (to use a photographic term). Snapshots of stories appear as parts of other stories, with the introductory story serving as a backdrop for a series of shorter stories that lead readers into each, dovetailing and connecting in intricate ways.”

~ D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

“The American novelist CG FEWSTON tells a satisfying tale, bolstered by psychology and far-ranging philosophy, calling upon Joseph Campbell, J. D. Salinger, the King James Bible, and Othello.”

“In this way, the author lends intellectual heft to a family story, exploring the ‘purity’ of art, the ‘corrupting’ influences of publishing, the solitary artist, and the messy interconnectedness of human relationships.”

“Fewston’s lyrical, nostalgia-steeped story is told from the perspective of a 40-year-old man gazing back on events from his 1980s Texas childhood…. the narrator movingly conveys and interprets the greater meanings behind childhood memories.”

“The novel’s focus on formative childhood moments is familiar… the narrator’s lived experiences come across as wholly personal, deeply felt, and visceral.”

cg fewston
cg fewston

American Novelist CG FEWSTON

 

cg fewston

This is my good friend, Nicolasa (Nico) Murillo, CRC, who is a professional chef & a wellness mentor. I’ve known her since childhood & I’m honored to share her story with you. In life, we all have ups & downs, some far more extreme than others. Much like in Canada, in America, the legalization of marijuana has become a national movement, which includes safe & legal access to cannabis (marijuana) for therapeutic use & research for all.

“This is a wellness movement,” Nico explains. The wellness movement is focused on three specific areas: information, encouragement, & accountability.

In these stressful & unprecedented times, it makes good sense to promote & encourage the state or condition of being in good physical & mental health.

To learn more you can visit: Americans For Safe Access & Texans for Safe Access, ASA (if you are in Texas).

The mission of Americans for Safe Access (ASA) is to ensure safe and legal access to cannabis (marijuana) for therapeutic use and research.

Link: https://www.safeaccessnow.org/

TEXANS FOR SAFE ACCESS ~ share the mission of their national organization, Americans for Safe Access (ASA), which is to ensure safe and legal access to cannabis (marijuana) for therapeutic use and research, for all Texans.

Link: https://txsafeaccess.org/about-1

Stay safe & stay happy. God bless.

 

Nico Murillo Bio ~ Americans & Texans for Safe Access ~ Medical Cannabis

 

 

cg fewston

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