Hitchens, Christopher Orwell's Victory ISBN 13: 9780713995848

Orwell's Victory - Softcover

9780713995848: Orwell's Victory
View all copies of this ISBN edition:
 
 
'Thomas Carlyle wrote of his CROMWELL that he had had to drag him out from under a mound of dead dogs and offal before being able to set him up as a figure worthy of biography. This is not a biography, but I sometimes feel as if George Orwell requires extricating from under a pile of saccharine tablets and moist hankies...' There can be few writers in the world today with a better claim to have inherited Orwell's role than Christopher Hitchens with his unique ability to spot bullshit and enrage those in power. WHY ORWELL MATTERS is a spectacularly written, aggressive, brilliant defence of one of the handful of modern writers whose view of the world has become if anything even more essential in the half century since his death.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:
There can be few literary reputations that have become quite so battered in recent years as that of George Orwell, the subject of Christopher Hitchens' short and spiky Orwell's Victory. Feminists, socialists, conservatives, post-modernists and critics of empire have all lined up to take pot-shots at Orwell's "common-sense" style, his sometimes maverick politics, and above all his patrician world-view. Hitchens, a prolific writer and provocative political journalist himself, best known for his downsizing of the reputation of Mother Teresa, Henry Kissinger and Bill Clinton--successfully salvages Orwell from the backlash of posterity.

In a chatty and occasionally tangential account, he recreates the contexts and situations that influenced Orwell's most well-known work: privileged Eton, imperial Burma, the kitchens of Paris and the terraced streets of Lancashire, war-torn Spain, and London in the blitz. Throughout he judges Orwell in the light of the difficult contemporary questions he addressed--what Orwell called the "power of facing" unpleasant facts--rather than the ideological fashions of future generations. Some of Orwell's critics, notably Raymond Williams and Claude Simon, leave this book with the integrity of their own work in tatters. Hitchens is particularly good on Orwell's journalism, and deft at unpicking the deeper meanings of Animal Farm and 1984 . He doesn't really delve into Orwell's personal life, wherein lies the source of some of the posthumous contempt. But overall two reputations emerge intact from this little book: those of Orwell the voice of courageous sanity, and Hitchens, the arch-controversialist. --Miles Taylor

Review:
'Thomas Carlyle wrote of his Cromwell that he had had to drag him out from under a mound of dead dogs and offal before being able to set him up as a figure worthy of biography. This is not a biography, but I sometimes feel as if George Orwell requires extricating from under a pile of saccharine tablets and moist hankies...'

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

  • PublisherAllen Lane
  • Publication date2002
  • ISBN 10 071399584X
  • ISBN 13 9780713995848
  • BindingPaperback
  • Number of pages160
  • Rating

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780141005355: Orwell's Victory

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  ISBN 13:  9780141005355
Publisher: Penguin, 2003
Softcover

Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace

Stock Image

Hitchens, Christopher
Published by Allen Lane (2002)
ISBN 10: 071399584X ISBN 13: 9780713995848
New Paperback Quantity: 2
Seller:
Save With Sam
(North Miami, FL, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Brand New!. Seller Inventory # VIB071399584X

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 68.28
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Hitchens, Christopher
Published by Allen Lane (2002)
ISBN 10: 071399584X ISBN 13: 9780713995848
New Paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
Wizard Books
(Long Beach, CA, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New. Seller Inventory # Wizard071399584X

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 80.98
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: £ 2.75
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Hitchens, Christopher
Published by Allen Lane (2002)
ISBN 10: 071399584X ISBN 13: 9780713995848
New Paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
GoldBooks
(Austin, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # think071399584X

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 80.49
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: £ 3.34
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Hitchens, Christopher
Published by Allen Lane (2002)
ISBN 10: 071399584X ISBN 13: 9780713995848
New Paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
GoldenWavesOfBooks
(Fayetteville, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_071399584X

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 82.17
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: £ 3.14
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds