by Ong Sor Fern
The Straits Times [Singapore], 21 June 2003
My first encounter with George Orwell was in diluted form. I was about eight or nine when I watched what must have been a bowdlerised cartoon adaptation of Animal Farm on television.
I have practically no memory of it aside from the vaguest notions of its crude drawings.
But I do remember how impressed I was by the idea of rebellion. It must have been the first time I encountered the notion that one could choose not to do things one was told to do, that one could actually change the world around him by disagreeing with people in authority.
For a child, the idea of challenging parental authority is seductively terrifying. Which is why the cartoon left such an impression on me.
It was only much later that I read Orwell's actual text and came to a better appreciation of the nuances of his writing. The man had a gift for conveying complicated ideas simply, but without diluting the complexities of his message.
No simple task, if you ask me.
Animal Farm may read like a children's story, but its allegory resonates with undimmed urgency. To this day, the lines 'Four legs good, two legs bad' and 'Some animals are more equal than others' send shivers down my spine.
The mythic simplicity of this tale is still a draw today. Homegrown theatre company Wild Rice's production of Animal Farm had such a successful run in April last year, it is returning for a second run from Sept 3 to 21 at the Jubilee Hall.
Orwell's other classic, 1984, is chronologically outdated. But I am still engaged by its politics and social commentary.
Orwell may be offended by the comparison but, like Squealer in Animal Farm, he is a master propagandist. In fact, democracy probably had no better public relations officer than Orwell. Animal Farm and 1984 are great, prophetic and damning fables about the political beast of totalitarianism that cast such a shadow over much of the 20th century.
Now that we are in a new millennium, and approaching the centenary of Orwell's birthday - June 25, 1903 - it seems appropriate to take stock, no pun intended, of his literary legacy.
It is easy to dismiss him as an archaic relic of the Cold War. After all, the Soviet threat and communism which Orwell wrote so persuasively about have effectively collapsed.
His insights into the manipulation of information, once so powerfully disturbing, threaten to slip into cliche from simultaneous overuse and neglect. Concepts from 1984 - 'Big Brother is watching', doublethink and Newspeak - are now pop culture catchphrases.
Even his name has been co-opted into the common lexicon - Orwellian is a convenient shorthand description for his dystopian vision.
In a way, the ease with which his words and ideas have entered common usage is a measure of the keen accuracy of his insights.
To borrow from his own description of James Joyce, Orwell 'discovered an America which was under everybody's nose'. He saw where socialism was headed and how its ideals were distorted. His writing was propelled by the urgency of his personal and political beliefs. And this is where it becomes tricky for anyone trying to defend him.
Orwell himself was no saint. He was anti-Semitic and homophobic. He was sexist too: He proposed to his second wife Sonia Brownell by suggesting she learn to make dumplings. Some of his beliefs, born of a certain age and time, have inevitably dated.
Yet, at his best, Orwell wrote with unparalleled lucidity, compassion and moral conviction, championing the cause of humanity in the face of inhuman political systems.
It is easy to hold political convictions. But how many practised their beliefs in the way Orwell did? He spent years living and working among the poor in order to understand the wretched conditions they lived in. The results were books like Down And Out In Paris And London and The Road To Wigan Pier.
Orwell lived - and wrote - his belief that novelists should be engaged in the world around them. Because he was so deeply engaged in his world and, by extension, the common cause of humanity, his works keep me enthralled as a reader today.
This, more than the obvious historical parallels in Animal Farm and 1984, will ensure that his books will appeal to generations to come.
10 THINGS ABOUT GEORGE ORWELL
1. He was born Eric Arthur Blair on June 25, 1903 in the Indian village of Motihari.
2. He was sent to boarding school at eight, which he hated, as was revealed in his essay, Such, Such Were The Joys...
3. He skipped university to join the Indian Imperial Police and served in Burma for five years.
4. At 24, he settled into a cheap bedroom in London's Portobello Road. Too poor to afford heat, he had to thaw his fingers over a candle flame in order to hold a pen.
5. In 1936, he opened a shop in Wallington, Hertfordshire and married Eileen Maud O'Shaughnessy, an Oxford English honours graduate.
6. Along with his wife, he went to Spain in 1936 with the idea of reporting on the Civil War. He joined the militia of the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) and was wounded in the throat.
7. He had to flee Spain after Stalinists began hunting down POUM members. Orwell was deeply disillusioned and developed a lifelong hatred of communism.
8. Adopted a son in 1944 and his wife died a year later while undergoing a hysterectomy. 1945 also saw the publication of Animal Farm which made him famous and rich.
9. Began work on 1984 in 1946 when he was very ill with tuberculosis. The book was published in June, 1949. He married Sonia Brownell in October.
10. Died instantly, and alone, from a fatal hemorrhage on January 21, 1950. He is buried at the
Church of All Saints in Oxfordshire.
