Dorian Lynskey at Literary Review:
Peck focuses on what Orwell got brilliantly right – about fascism, communism, imperialism, nationalism, the abuses of new technology and the lies people tell themselves without necessarily realising. But even when Orwell was proved wrong, which was often, he was wrong in a sincere and interesting way. To quote his disclaimer in Homage to Catalonia, ‘I warn everyone against my bias, and I warn everyone against my mistakes. Still, I have done my best to be honest.’
Truth-seeking was Orwell’s creed. As Colls writes, ‘all his life Orwell would charge his enemies not so much with evil but with fraud … All swindlers. All a racket. Down with rackets.’ He trusted things he had personally seen, heard or felt while wrinkling his nose at theory and rhetoric. This justifies Milan Kundera’s blunt claim, as seen in Peck’s film, that Orwell ‘hated politics’. He developed his own organic English socialism by pitting the cheerful solidity of the working classes against the dishonest contortions and sterile fads of the intellectuals.
more here.
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