George Orwell Misses The Mark
By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK George Orwell is among my favorite writers, top five maybe. His clear and unadorned writing style is one reason. You seldom have to read his sentences a second time to grasp their meaning. I also admire his decency and sense of fair play, which comes through in spite of his left-wing views. That said, there are times when his socialist leanings cloud his judgment. His essay “Boys’ Weeklies,” written for the British magazine Horizon in 1940, is a case in point. It could have been written by what Orwell used to call a “parlour Bolshie,” one of the trendy leftists he spent much of his professional life denouncing for their disdain for the ordinary people of…Continue Reading