Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative EssaysEssays by the author of 1984 on topics from “remembrances of working in a bookshop [to] recollections of fighting in the Spanish Civil War” (Publishers Weekly). George Orwell was first and foremost an essayist, producing throughout his life an extraordinary array of short nonfiction that reflected—and illuminated—the fraught times in which he lived. “As soon as he began to write something,” comments George Packer in his foreword, “it was as natural for Orwell to propose, generalize, qualify, argue, judge—in short, to think—as it was for Yeats to versify or Dickens to invent.” Facing Unpleasant Facts charts Orwell’s development as a master of the narrative-essay form and unites such classics as “Shooting an Elephant” with lesser-known journalism and passages from his wartime diary. Whether detailing the horrors of Orwell’s boyhood in an English boarding school or bringing to life the sights, sounds, and smells of the Spanish Civil War, these essays weave together the personal and the political in an unmistakable style that is at once plainspoken and brilliantly complex. “Best known for his late-career classics Animal Farm and 1984, George Orwell—who used his given name, Eric Blair, in the earliest pieces of this collection aimed at the aficionado as well as the general reader—was above all a polemicist of the first rank. Organized chronologically, from 1931 through the late 1940s, these in-your-face writings showcase the power of this literary form.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 46
Page xx
... happened which in a roundabout way was enlightening,” Orwell (now publishing under his pseudonym) writes after two pages of prelude. “It was a tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real ...
... happened which in a roundabout way was enlightening,” Orwell (now publishing under his pseudonym) writes after two pages of prelude. “It was a tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real ...
Page xxi
... happened. Orwell's biographers haven't been able to prove them either factual or false, although Emma Larkin, in her book Finding George Orwell in Burma, comes close to establishing the existence of something like this incident. Does it ...
... happened. Orwell's biographers haven't been able to prove them either factual or false, although Emma Larkin, in her book Finding George Orwell in Burma, comes close to establishing the existence of something like this incident. Does it ...
Page xxiv
... happened—don't ask me what it means. Orwell's essays are the opposite —transparent and accountable. He is both character and narrator, and in the distance that comes with looking back at his own experience in the past tense he manages ...
... happened—don't ask me what it means. Orwell's essays are the opposite —transparent and accountable. He is both character and narrator, and in the distance that comes with looking back at his own experience in the past tense he manages ...
Page 11
... happened, so am not certain of any dates, but it all happened a week or ten days before Xmas 1931. I started out on Saturday afternoon with four or five shillings, and went out to the Mile End Road, because my plan was to get drunk and ...
... happened, so am not certain of any dates, but it all happened a week or ten days before Xmas 1931. I started out on Saturday afternoon with four or five shillings, and went out to the Mile End Road, because my plan was to get drunk and ...
Page 17
... happening, but it sounded as though he were chained to the wall. At about ten they gave us each a mug of tea—this, it appeared, not provided by the authorities but by the police court missionaries—and shortly afterwards shepherded us ...
... happening, but it sounded as though he were chained to the wall. At about ten they gave us each a mug of tea—this, it appeared, not provided by the authorities but by the police court missionaries—and shortly afterwards shepherded us ...
Contents
1 | |
11 | |
23 | |
29 | |
38 | |
Marrakech | 44 |
My Country Right or Left | 52 |
War time Diary | 59 |
Revenge Is Sour | 184 |
The Case for the Open Fire | 189 |
The Sporting Spirit | 193 |
In Defence of English Cooking | 198 |
A Nice Cup of Tea | 201 |
The Moon Under Water | 205 |
In Front of Your Nose | 209 |
Some Thoughts on the Common Toad | 214 |
England Your England | 109 |
Dear Doktor Goebbels Your British Friends are Feeding Fine | 139 |
Looking Back on the Spanish War | 143 |
As I Please 1 | 167 |
As I Please 2 | 172 |
As I Please 3 | 175 |
As I Please 16 | 180 |
A Good Word for the Vicar of Bray | 219 |
Why I Write | 224 |
How the Poor Die | 232 |
Such Such Were the Joys | 245 |
Notes | 296 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
actually American army believe bombs bread Britain British Burmese Days cell child Cyprian’s Cyril Connolly Daily Worker doubt early elephant England English essays eyes face fact Fascist feeling fight fire Flip France Fredric Warburg French German hand happened Hitler Homage to Catalonia Home Guard intelligentsia Italian Jews killed kind knew labour later less live London look man’s memory merely Moon Under Water morning Nazis never newspaper night one’s Orwell Orwell’s papers party patriotism perhaps Pétain political prison probably raids remember rifle round Russian Sambo seemed shoot Shooting an Elephant shot side simply soldiers sort Spain Spanish Spanish civil war spike stories talk thing thought tion took Tramp Major turned Vicar of Bray whole words writing