ORWELL RECONSIDERED
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man could not be so interested in stressing the persuasive or emotive
elements in a thesis unless he belie'ved in it; and then it turns out
that Orwell doesn't. But it would be uncharitable to dwell too long
on Orwell's defects as a theoretical writer. For he in this matter is
the chief loser: even now it seems as likely as not that he will be
remembered for ideas that, even if he did propound them at some
length and with some vehemence, certainly aren't his. But this same
passion for the striking and strident detail, for anything that catches
the eye or plays on the nerves, is also Orwell's undoing as a descrip–
tive writer. There is much in
The Road to Wigan Pier
that must
be amongst the ineradicably painful memories of any sensitive
reader: the inferno of the miners at the hour when the "fillers"
are working the coal face; the old age pensioners driven from their
homes by the means tests and dying wretchedly in lodging-houses;
the newspaper canvassers keeping down their miserable jobs until
they are worn out by the helplessness of the work; the Brookers'
tripe shop, and the beetles, and Mrs. Brooker wiping her greasy
mouth on strips of newspaper. But the accumulation of these sharp,
stabbing pictures doesn't seem to add up to a vision of the whole:
what we are left with is a series of stills, mostly "close-ups," which
no one has animated. We learn from Orwell a great deal about
what, twenty-three years ago in Wigan or Sheffield, one would
have seen, or heard, or smelt, but what one gets singularly little
idea of is what it would have been like to have lived there.
Now I know that this-particularly this last sentence-sounds
,ike the usual kind of "literary criticism" that is bestowed in a bland
way on any genuine work of social protest. Moreover in this case
it isn't exactly criticism. For is it not part of Orwell's own thesis
that in a modern industrial society it is quite impossible for one
half of the community, even with the best will in the world, to
arrive at anything like a proper understanding of how "the other
haIr' lives? This has nothing to do with class-warfare or class hat–
red: it is simply a matter of
class-difference.
The two "halves"
live in such entirely different ways that language cannot bring them
together. It is as if there were certain things
in
life which are so
important in themselves and so far-reaching in their consequences
