originally published 11/1/2001

Writer Jeffery Meyers notes that George Orwell “had amazing insight into what it was like to live in a totalitarian country.” Meyers, whose biography of Orwell is titled Orwell: Wintry Conscience of a Generation, sites Animal Farm and 1984 as prime examples of imaginative works that capture “important truths about modern tyranny.” One of those truths involves language, which, as seen in Animal Farm, explains Meyers, can be used as a weapon to betray the principles of a revolution. Meyers states that Orwell’s sensitivity to language influenced his idea of good writing. Good prose, he said, “should be like a window pane—it shouldn’t cloud the memory.”

10 minutes

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