Job Discussion Forums

[doner]

He was never homeless, never unemployed unless by choice and never worked at any menial jobs. In fact when he was out of work he would go home to his parents in Southwold which was and still is a lovely area. Having lived in a unfashionable part of Jubail I would prefer to live in his nice hotel in Paris. BTW he went to Paris only because of the great exchange rate-he lived on the hog

[With Malice Toward None]

I liked Orwell most when I was in undergraduate college, I especially remember his terrible disillusionment with the system, with himself. At that time I read an account of when he was called in to shoot down a 'rogue' elephant and his experience of sharing the animal's agony when it collapsed finally.. I would like to believe he was an honest person.

[johnslat]

Dear WMTN,

Despite doner's "debunking," I believe you could do an awful lot worse than to respect and admire Orwell.
In my opinion, he was a more honest man than most of us are, and regarding him as a model to emulate would serve many of us (doner excepted, of course) well.

Here's another quote from the citation above; the article is entitled "Down and Out in Paris: Orwell's Fact or Fiction?"

http://www.orwell.ru/a_life/Richard_Erickson/english/e_ofo

"When I first read �Down and Out in Paris and London� I thought it was all true. Even now, I know it was true enough."

Regards,
John

[doner]

Two things he was not honest about were his background and his sexuality. Read his short story about a visit he made to a coal mine and tell me he was not gay. His descriptions of the taut buttocks and narrow waists of the stripped to the waist miners is chilling.

[johnslat]

Dear doner,

If he was gay, so what? Some of my best friends . . . . .". And back in his day, being open about one's "deviant sexuality" (as it was then termed) wasn't as socially acceptable (by a LONG shot) as it is today,

Regards,
John

[doner]

he was married to a woman.

[johnslat]

Dear doner,

Well, apparently your opinion that he was gay is, like the other opinions you've listed here, entirely unsupported by evidence.
Can you cite any reputable sources?

"Of Orwell's opposition to homosexuality, Hitchens says: "only one of his inherited prejudices � the shudder generated by homosexuality � appears to have resisted the process of self-mastery" (p. 9). Here Hitchens conveys to the reader two surmises which are not corroborated by any recorded utterance of Orwell, and which I believe to be false: that Orwell disapproved of homosexuality because it revolted him physically, and that Orwell made an unsuccessful effort to subdue this gut response.

Orwell harbored no unreasoning, visceral horror of homosexuality and he did not strive to overcome his disapproval of it. The evidence suggests that, if anything, he was less inclined to any such shuddering than most heterosexuals. His descriptions of his encounters with homosexuality are always cool, dispassionate, even sympathetic. His disapproval of homosexuality was rooted in his convictions. He was intellectually and morally opposed to it.

Compare Orwell's opposition to homosexuality with his opposition to inequalities of wealth and income. Both of these standpoints involve an element of moral disapproval, but both are reasoned and thoughtful, both draw upon an elaborate theoretical structure conveyed by an ideological tradition �� in the first case, fin-de-si��le preoccupation with degeneracy, in the second, socialism. How apposite would it be to dismiss Orwell's income-equalitarianism, one of the foundations of his socialism, by saying that it was an involuntary shudder, that he could not rid himself of an inherited, unreflective prejudice?

Orwell's anti-homosexual position (definitely not "homophobia," which would suggest irrational fear) flowed naturally from beliefs and values about which he was quite forthcoming, though he never provided a systematic exposition. Orwell held that modern machinery and urbanization were inhuman and degrading. City life was rootless, alienating, and demoralizing. Although there was no going back to the organic rural community which had been shattered by the industrial revolution, any more than there was any going back to religious faith, both losses were sad and wrenching � in this respect, Orwell's outlook is akin to that of Mr. and Mrs. Leavis. Industrial and scientific progress could not be stopped without unacceptable consequences, but were essentially malign."

http://libertyunbound.com/archive/2003_05/steele-orwell.html

Actually, he was married twice:

How Sonia and George Met:
"Sonia had first encountered Orwell at dinner with Cyril [Connolly] during her initial stint at Horizon in 1940 or 1941. By the time she met him again after the war, he was a widower struggling with incipient tuberculosis and the care of an adopted infant son."
Hilary Spurling. The Girl From the Fiction Department: A Portrait of Sonia Orwell. 2002. pg. 65.
Wedding Date and Info:
Sonia and George were married on October 13, 1949 at his bedside at the University College Hospital. Rev. Brain the vicar of St. Pancras officiated. Two months later, George died.
"Visitors to his sickbed that autumn all agreed that Sonia (like Julia) brought warmth and comfort to the last months of her lover's life."
Hilary Spurling. The Girl From the Fiction Department: A Portrait of Sonia Orwell. 2002. pg. 96.

http://marriage.about.com/od/thearts/p/orwellgsonia.htm

[With Malice Toward None]

My readings on sexuality tell me it's normal for everyone to experience some same-sex feeling sometime, surprisingly, perhaps, in the later years of life. The same deviant(?) behaviour extends to extra-marital relations/encounters, too. Would you deny Michaelangelo and Da Vinci appreciated the male human physique and if they did , could've crafted the wonders that you see in Paris museums?

[doner]

I gave a source-read his short story about a visit to a coal mine. So what if he was married twice?

[With Malice Toward None]

Doner, what's the use in being an iconoclast?
I am beginning to fear that you have an axe to grind.

[johnslat]

Dear WMTN.

Personally I couldn't care less what Orwell's (or anyone else's) sexual preferences were.

If a man/woman has integrity, is true to his/her beliefs, and is compassionate, loving, generous, and loyal (to mention a few,) then who or what they sleep with is, I'd say, totally irrelevant.

I don't think Orwell WAS gay, but it wouldn't matter one whit to me if he had been.

Regards,
John

[doner]

What is the use in perpetuating the myth of Orwell having shared the sufferings of the characters in his book when he lived the high life and experienced nothing of the down and out.

[johnslat]

Dear doner,

OK, we get it - you don't like Orwell. Sorry, some of us do. And you can post until doomsday about it, but you won't change my mind - and I doubt you'll change anyone else's either.

Regards,
John

[doner]

I like his work but not the dishonesty. Read the short story. Also read the latest biography which I read in Saudi and left there=it came out 3 or 4 years ago.

[johnslat]

Dear doner,

I've read all of Orwell's work. Moreover, in case you missed it, I don't care one iota whether he was gay, straight, bi or asexual (though I do wonder why you seem to care.)

Regards,
John