The Ministry of Truth

Home > Other > The Ministry of Truth > Page 39
The Ministry of Truth Page 39

by Dorian Lynskey


  “swindles and perversions”—Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” Horizon, April 1946, CW XVII, 2815, p. 425.

  “orthodoxy, of whatever colour”—Ibid., p. 427.

  “there is some lie”—Orwell, “Why I Write,” CW XVIII, 3007, p. 319.

  “It is bound to be a failure”—Ibid., p. 320.

  “as shabby and dirty as ever”—Orwell, “London Letter,” Partisan Review, Summer 1946, CW XIII, 2990, p. 289.

  “miserable, hostile old bugger”—Wadhams, p. 181.

  “They are most annoying”—Orwell letter to David Astor, October 9, 1948, CW XIX, 3467, p. 450.

  “not worth a bomb”—Orwell letter to Tosco Fyvel, December 31, 1947, CW XIX, 3322, p. 241.

  “I have at last started”—Orwell letter to Humphrey Slater, September 26, 1946, CW XVIII, 3084, p. 408.

  “It just seemed depressingly lacking in hope”—Wadhams, p. 180.

  “one of those people”—Orwell, “Politics vs Literature: An Examination of Gulliver’s Travels,” CW XVIII, 3089, p. 418.

  “One ought to be able”—Orwell, “Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dalí,” June 1, 1944, CW XVI, 2481, pp. 237–38.

  “This book is on my side”—Orwell, “Writers and Leviathan,” CW XIX, 3364, p. 288.

  “picking out a single hidden truth”—Orwell, “Politics vs Literature,” CW XVIII, 3089, p. 418.

  “the brief Communist dictatorship”—H. G. Wells, “My Auto-Obituary,” Strand Magazine, vol. 1041, January 1943.

  “He was so big a figure”—Orwell, “The True Pattern of H. G. Wells,” Manchester Evening News, August 14, 1946, reprinted in The Lost Orwell, p. 139.

  “I told you so”—H. G. Wells, “Preface to the 1941 Edition,” The War in the Air (Penguin, 1941), p. 9.

  “In the United States there is more money”—Review of Spearhead, ed. James Laughlin, Times Literary Supplement, April 17, 1948, CW XIX, 3380, p. 316.

  “The Uncle Tom’s Cabin of our time”—Quoted in Rodden, The Politics of Literary Reputation, p. 44.

  “good bad book”—Orwell, “Good Bad Books,” Tribune, November 2, 1945, CW XVII, 2780, p. 348.

  Edmund Wilson—New Yorker, September 7, 1946.

  “the satire deals not”—New Republic, September 2, 1946.

  “No one is patriotic about taxes”—Orwell, War-time Diary, August 9, 1940, CW XII, 667, p. 229.

  “fairy gold”—Wadhams, p. 151.

  “Fairly much a leftist”—Allene Talmey, “Vogue Spotlight,” Vogue, September 15, 1946.

  “The Americans always go one better”—Orwell, CW IV, p. 262.

  “anti-American”—Connolly, The Evening Colonnade, p. 383.

  “It ought to be realised”—The English People, CW XVI, 2475, p. 220.

  “a truly remarkable book”—Review of Native Son by Richard Wright, etc., Tribune, April 26, 1940, CW XII, 616, p. 152.

  “The world of the American novelist”—Review of Sun on the Water by L. A. G. Strong, etc., Tribune, April 12, 1940, CW XII, 610, p. 143.

  “It is difficult to go anywhere”—Orwell, “As I Please,” Tribune, December 3, 1943, CW XVI, 2385, p. 13.

  “This anglophile”—Richard McLaughlin letter to Tribune, December 17, 1943, ibid., pp. 14 –15.

  “The Nazis, without admitting it”—Arendt, p. 451.

  “It is clear”—New Statesman and Nation, November 2, 1946, quoted in Kynaston, p. 134.

  “To be anti-American nowadays”—“In Defence of Comrade Zilliacus,” August–September(?) 1947, CW XIX, 3254, p. 181.

  “Americophobia”—Orwell, Review of The Nineteen-Twenties by Douglas Goldring, Observer, January 6, 1946, CW XVIII, 2843, p. 21.

  “I don’t, God knows”—Orwell letter to Gollancz, March 25, 1947, CW XIX, 3200, p. 90.

  “Everybody in England”—Kynaston, p. 191.

  “unendurable”—Orwell letter to Dwight Macdonald, April 15, 1947, CW XIX, 3215, p. 128.

  “to the north and east”—Orwell, CW IX, pp. 85–86.

  “I had the feeling that they had spoilt it”—Orwell to Mamaine Koestler, January 24, 1947, CW XIX, 3159, pp. 27–28.

  “He is too fond of apocalyptic visions”—Orwell, “Burnham’s View of the Contemporary World Struggle,” New Leader, March 29, 1947, CW XIX, 3204, p. 102.

  in a 1947 letter—Orwell letter to Dwight Macdonald, April 15, 1947, CW XIX, 3215, pp. 126–28.

  “a huge secret army”—Orwell, “Burnham’s View of the Contemporary World Struggle,” CW XIX, 3204, pp. 100–101.

  “a doctor treating”—Orwell, “Toward European Unity,” CW XIX, 3244, p. 163.

  “mental disease”—Orwell, “As I Please,” Tribune, November 29, 1945, CW XVIII, 3126, p. 504.

  “individual freedom”—Quoted in Scott Lucas, The Betrayal of Dissent: Beyond Orwell, Hitchens & the New American Century (London: Pluto, 2004), p. 27.

  “If one could somewhere”—Orwell, “Burnham’s View of the Contemporary World Struggle,” CW XIX, 3204, p. 103.

  “very dark”—Orwell, “Toward European Unity,” CW XIX, 3244, p. 167.

  “As time goes on”—Orwell, “As I Please,” January 17, 1947, CW XIX, 3153, p. 19.

  “a ghastly mess”—Orwell letter to Warburg, February 4, 1948, CW XIX, 3339, p. 264.

  “I don’t like talking about books”—Orwell letter to Warburg, May 31, 1947, CW XIX, 3232, p. 149.

  “rivetted from the start” and “would have taken”—“Mrs. Miranda Wood’s Memoir,” The Complete Works of George Orwell XX: Our Job Is to Make Life Worth Living 1949–1950 (Secker & Warburg, 2002), 3735, p. 301.

  “He almost seemed to enjoy it”—Coppard and Crick, p. 231.

  “like a fool”—Orwell letter to Tosco Fyvel, December 31, 1947, CW XIX, 3322, p. 240.

  “I really felt”—Orwell letter to Celia Kirwan (née Paget), May 27, 1948, CW XIX, 3405, p. 345.

  “with a peculiar feeling of happiness”—Orwell, “Notes from Orwell’s Last Literary Notebook,” CW XX, 3725, p. 203.

  “violently and not too old”—Orwell, “How the Poor Die,” Now, no. 6, November 1946, CW XVIII, 3104, p. 463.

  “probably forgotten”—Wadhams, p. 197.

  “because the body swells up”—Orwell, CW IX, p. 106.

  In hospital, Orwell tallied—“Things not foreseen in youth as part of middle age,” notebook entry circa May 1948, CW XIX, 3402, p. 340.

  “I suppose with all these drugs”—Orwell letter to Julian Symons, April 20, 1948, CW XIX, 3386, pp. 321–22.

  He wondered if there was some medical explanation—Orwell diary entry, March 30, 1948, CW XIX, 3374, p. 307.

  “impossible and undesirable”—Orwell, “Writers and Leviathan,” CW XIX, 3364, p. 292.

  “to push the question”—Ibid., p. 291.

  “Conclusion: must engage”—Orwell, Preparatory notes for “Writers and Leviathan,” 1948, CW XIX, 3365, p. 294.

  “Gissing’s novels”—Preparatory notes for “George Gissing,” 1948, CW XIX, 3407, p. 353.

  “a chronicler of vulgarity”—Orwell, “George Gissing,” May–June 1948(?), CW XIX, 3406, p. 352.

  “a world of force and fraud”—Orwell, “Such, Such Were the Joys,” CW XIX, 3409, p. 370.

  “irrational terrors”—Ibid., p. 383.

  “exactly like a fat”—Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four: The Facsimile, p. 223.

  “It was possible, therefore”—“Such, Such Were the Joys,” CW XIX, 3409, p. 359.

  “Whether he knew it or not”—New Yorker, January 28, 1956, reprinted in Meyers (ed.), p. 78.

  “totalitarians”—Hilary Spurling, The Girl from the Fiction Department: A Portrait of Sonia Orwell (Penguin, 2003), p. 68.

  “What surprised me mostly”—Interview transcript from Arena: George Orwell.

  “a book doesn’t exist”—Orwell letter to Julian Symons, January 2, 1948, CW XIX, 3325, p. 249.

  “It was a cold, blowy day”—Orwell, Nin
eteen Eighty-Four: The Facsimile, p. 3.

  “spontaneous demonstrations”—Orwell, CW IX, p. 24.

  “voluntary subscriptions”—Ibid., p. 59.

  “Christian Pacifists”—Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four: The Facsimile, p. 37.

  “Thus, the Party rejects”—Orwell, CW IX, p. 225.

  “a deliberate and sadistic” and “worth a cool million”—Fredric Warburg’s Report on Nineteen Eighty-Four, December 13, 1948, CW XIX, 3505, p. 480.

  “slightly underfed”—New York Times, January 5, 1948, quoted in Bew, p. 451.

  An opinion poll—Kynaston, p. 248.

  he had previously offered to write a piece for Tosco Fyvel—see Coppard and Crick, p. 216.

  “So far, in spite of the cries”—Orwell, “The Labour Government After Three Years,” Commentary, October 1948, CW XIX, 3461, p. 442.

  “caused more resentment”—Ibid., p. 439.

  “it is doubtful whether we can solve”—Orwell, “As I Please,” Tribune, November 15, 1946, CW XVIII, 3115, p. 483.

  While Orwell was living in Islington—see Paul Potts, To Keep a Promise (MacGibbon & Kee, 1970), p. 71.

  “The essence of being human”—Orwell, “Reflections on Gandhi,” Partisan Review, January 1949, CW XX, 3516, p. 8.

  Warburg thought so—See Warburg, p. 102.

  “Everything is flourishing”—Orwell letter to David Astor, December 21, 1948, CW XIX, 3510, p. 485.

  CHAPTER 9: THE CLOCKS STRIKE THIRTEEN

  “My new book”—Orwell letter to Julian Symons, February 4, 1949, CW XX, 3541, p. 35.

  Eileen wrote a poem—See Sally Coniam, “Orwell and the Origins of Nineteen Eighty-Four,” Times Literary Supplement, December 31, 1999.

  “it was never possible nowadays”—Orwell, CW IX, p. 9.

  “a beastly book”—Orwell letter to Jacintha Buddicom, February 14, 1949, CW XX, 3550, p. 42.

  “an awful book really”—Orwell letter to Celia Kirwan (née Paget), February 13, 1949, CW XX, 3549, p. 41.

  “a good idea ruined”—Orwell letter to Anthony Powell, November 15, 1948, CW XIX, 3488, p. 467.

  “I am not pleased”—Orwell letter to Warburg, October 22, 1948, CW XIX, 3477, p. 457.

  “an expensive hobby”—Orwell letter to George Woodcock, January 12, 1949, CW XX, 3521, p. 16.

  “it isn’t a book I would gamble on”—Orwell letter to Warburg, December 21, 1948, CW XIX, 3511, p. 486.

  “made me spew”—Orwell letter to Brenda Salkeld, August 1934, CW X, 204, p. 347.

  “was a good idea”—Orwell letter to Leonard Moore, 3 October 1934, CW X, 209, p. 351.

  “any life when viewed”—“Benefit of Clergy,” CW XVI, 2481, p. 234.

  “that I was idling”—Orwell, “Notes from Orwell’s Last literary Notebook,” CW XX, 3725, p. 204.

  “schoolboyish sensationalism”—Times Literary Supplement, June 10, 1949, reprinted in Meyers (ed.), p. 256.

  “This is amongst the most terrifying”—Fredric Warburg’s Report on Nineteen Eighty-Four, CW XIX, 3505, p. 479.

  “I cannot but think”—Ibid., p. 481.

  “Orwell has done what Wells never did” and “ought to be shot”—David Farrer’s Report on Nineteen Eighty-Four, December 15, 1948, CW XIX, 3506, p. 482.

  “as though it were a thriller”—Orwell letter to Roger Senhouse, December 26, 1948, CW XIX, 3513, p. 487.

  “We hope you might be interested”—Eugene Reynal letter to J. Edgar Hoover, April 22, 1949.

  “mucked about”—Orwell letter to Leonard Moore, March 17, 1949, CW XX, 3575, p. 67.

  Warburg estimated—See Warburg, p. 110.

  “No wonder everyone hates us so”—Orwell, Diary, April 17, 1949, CW XX, 2602, p. 92.

  “Don’t think I am making”—Orwell letter to Warburg, May 16, 1949, CW XX, 3626, p. 116.

  “exhausted Dickens disastrously”—Orwell, Review of Dickens: His Character, Comedy and Career by Hesketh Pearson, New York Times Book Review, May 15, 1949, CW XX, 3625, p. 115.

  “about as good a novelist”—Notes for “Evelyn Waugh,” 1949, CW XX, 3586, p. 79.

  “a sort of grown-upness”—Orwell letter to Wiadomsci, February 25, 1949, CW XX, 3553, p. 47.

  “They would get hold of five kilograms”—Ibid., p. 95.

  “a novel of character”—Fredric Warburg’s Report on His Visit to Orwell, June 14, 1949, CW XX, 3645, p. 132.

  “frightful cigarettes”—Daily Mirror, December 14, 1954.

  “an inexhaustible rocket fuel”—John Lehmann, quoted in Spurling, p. 53.

  “With a round Renoir face”—Stephen Spender, journal entry, December 24, 1980, in New Selected Journals 1939–1995, ed. Lara Feigel and John Sutherland with Natasha Spender (Faber & Faber, 2012), p. 586.

  “My own father had died”—Spurling, p. 27.

  “meanwhile take care”—Orwell letter to Sonia Brownell, April 12, 1947, CW XIX, 3212, p. 124.

  “so-called humanism”—Spurling, p. 77.

  “a bag of wind”—Orwell letter to Warburg, October 22, 1948, CW XIX, 3477, p. 457.

  “I’m good at spotting people”—Orwell, CW IX, p. 128.

  “her youth and prettiness”—Spurling, p. 93.

  “atmosphere of hockey-fields”—Orwell, CW IX, p. 12.

  “only a rebel”—Ibid., p. 163.

  “It was characteristic”—Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four: The Facsimile, p. 101.

  “ ‘Who cares?’ ”—Orwell, CW IX, p. 161.

  “The Nazis explained”—Randall Swingler, “The Right to Free Expression,” Polemic, no. 5, September-October 1946, CW XVIII, 3090, pp. 433–34.

  “The ideal subject”—Arendt, p. 622.

  “In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world”—Ibid., p. 500.

  “dual standard of thought”—Orwell, “The Last Man in Europe,” CW XV, 2377, p. 368.

  fifty thousand TV licences—Kynaston, p. 305.

  “some kind of mental instability”—Quoted in Gordon Bowker, George Orwell (Hachette Digital, 2003), p. 162.

  “I would like to reassure”—Joe Moran, Armchair Nation (Profile, 2013), p. 27.

  “The only person”—Arendt, p. 444.

  “asleep or awake”—Orwell, CW IX, p. 29.

  “infallible and all-powerful”—Ibid., p. 216.

  “His portrait is seen”—Crossman (ed.), p. 191.

  “the insoluble mystery,” etc.—Boris Souvarine, Stalin: A Critical Survey of Bolshevism, trans. C. L. R. James (Secker & Warburg, 1939), p. xiii.

  “The chief qualification”—Arendt, p. 456.

  “Does he exist” and “As long as you live”—Orwell, CW IX, p. 272.

  “Fantasmagoric effect”—Orwell, “The Last Man in Europe,” CW XV, 2377, p. 368.

  “Everything melted into mist”—Orwell, CW IX, p. 38.

  “faded away”—Ibid., p. 44.

  “in the place where there is no darkness” and “Winston did not know”—Ibid., p. 27.

  “predestined horror”—Ibid., p. 146.

  “impending death”—Ibid., p. 158.

  “the working-out of a process” and “The end was contained in the beginning”—Ibid., p. 166.

  “In this game that we’re playing”—Ibid., p. 142.

  “Don’t deceive yourself”—Ibid., p. 251.

  “He was the tormentor”—Ibid., p. 256.

  “a wave of admiration”—Ibid., p. 182.

  “priest of power”—Ibid., p. 276.

  “lifted clean”—Ibid., p. 172.

  “as though their two minds”—Ibid., p. 19.

  “writing the diary”—Ibid., p. 84.

  “There was no idea”—Ibid., p. 268.

  “how to discover”—Ibid., p. 201.

  “This drama that I have played out”—Ibid., p. 281.

  “A government based on terrorism”—Muggeridge, The Thirties, p. 208.

  “victory after victory”—Orwell, CW IX, p. 281.

  “in the long ru
n probably”—Orwell, “The Prevention of Literature,” CW XVII, 2792, p. 374.

  “We control matter”—Orwell, CW IX, p. 277.

  “How many fingers”—Ibid., p. 264.

  “a kind of arithmetic [sic] progression”—New Republic, March 16, 1953, reprinted in Meyers (ed.), p. 315.

  “The object of persecution”—Orwell, CW IX, p. 276.

  “The moral to be drawn”—Orwell’s Statement on Nineteen Eighty-Four, CW XX, 3636, p. 134.

  “Mankind was living”—London Times, June 8, 1949.

  “with cries of terror”—New York Times Book Review, July 31, 1949.

  “I read it with such cold shivers”—John Dos Passos letter to Orwell, October 8, 1949, CW XX, 3698, p. 194.

  Several booksellers told Warburg—See Muggeridge, Like It Was, p. 331.

  “too terrible a novel”—E. M. Forster, quoted in Warburg, p. 116.

  “a glorious book”—Arthur Koestler letter to Orwell, August 26, 1949, CW XX, 3681A, p. 328.

  “profoundly important”—Huxley letter to Orwell, October 21, 1949.

  “the novel which should stand”—Margaret Storm Jameson quoted in George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four With a Critical Introduction and Annotations by Bernard Crick (Clarendon University Press, 1984), p. 96.

  “Reading it in a Communist country”—Quoted in Publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four, CW XX, 3643, p. 129.

  “the type of state”—Hansard, HC Deb, July 21, 1949, vol. 467, col. 1623.

  “I thought Nineteen Eighty-Four was a frightful, miserable, defeatist book”—Wadhams, p. 205.

  “barely distinguishable”—Orwell, CW IX, p. 205.

  “Behind Stalin”—Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy, p. 61.

  “the totalitarian danger”—Frankfurter Rundschau, November 5, 1949, reprinted in Meyers (ed.), p. 281.

  “Orwell, actually”—New Leader, June 25, 1949, reprinted in Meyers (ed.), p. 264.

  “his book reinforces”—Life, July 4, 1949.

  “required reading”—Evening Standard, June 7, 1949.

  “sickness”—Masses and Mainstream, August 1949, reprinted in Meyers (ed.), p. 274.

  “cynical rot”—Ibid., p. 275.

  “filthy book”—Pravda, May 12, 1950, reprinted in Meyers (ed.), p. 282.

  “blank hopelessness”—Quoted in Publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four, CW XX, 3643, p. 128.

 

‹ Prev