George Orwell's Top 3 Books

Political fiction, to my understanding, reached its peak with this grim-looking but determined character. A writer who hid behind the pseudonym of George Orwell to leave us anthological works with large doses of political and social criticism.

And yes, as you hear, George Orwell is just a pseudonym for signing novels. The character himself was really called Eric Arthur Blair, a fact that is not always remembered among the particularities of this author who lived through the most turbulent years of Europe, the first half of a 20th century flooded with blood.

Here is a complete volume with the best of George Orwell…

George Orwell Essential Library

From science fiction to fable, any genre or narrative style can be suitable to convey a critical notion about politics, power, war. The narrative for Orwell seems like one more extension of his active social positioning. Good old George or Eric, whatever you want to call him now, would be a constant headache for every political objective that stood between eyebrows, from the foreign government of their own country and its increasingly outdated colonizing imperialism to the economic powers. in the midst of a process of social engulfment, and without forgetting the nascent fascisms of half Europe.

So reading Orwell never leaves you indifferent. Explicit or implicit criticism invites meditation on our evolution as a civilization. They share this honor of political criticism as much Huxley as bradbury. Three fundamental pillars for viewing the world as a dystopia, the disaster of our civilization.

3 Recommended Novels by George Orwell

1984

When I read this novel, in that process of boiling of ideas typical of early youth, I was amazed by Orwell's capacity for synthesis to present to us that ideal of an annulled society (ideal for consumerism, capital and the most spurious interests, of course).

Ministries to direct emotions, slogans to clarify thought..., Language reaching its highest level of rhetoric to first achieve the emptying of concepts, nothingness and the subsequent filling to the taste and interest of high politics at the service of uniformity. The desired single thought achieved with semantic lobotomy.

Summary: London, 1984: Winston Smith decides to rebel against a totalitarian government that controls each of the movements of its citizens and punishes even those who commit crimes with their thoughts. Aware of the dire consequences that dissent can bring, Winston joins the ambiguous Brotherhood through leader O''Brien.

Gradually, however, our protagonist realizes that neither the Brotherhood nor O''Brien are what they appear to be, and that rebellion, after all, may be an unattainable goal. For its magnificent analysis of power and the relationships and dependencies it creates in individuals, 1984 is one of the most disturbing and engaging novels of this century.

1984. The graphic novel

Rebelion on the farm

Ohhh, communist pigs, what a subtle metaphor. he he. Forgive me the humorous license. I loved this book, but I can't help but imagine George's disenchantment with Russian communism. He, like many others, considered Lenin's postulates to be the ideal of society. But someone lost Lenin's speech or Stalin ended up throwing it down the toilet.

In this book George Orwell, I understand that with atrocious disappointment he ends up explaining in a fable way the trick of communism put into practice. The ideas, good, implemented and taken to the extreme. The license in the acts, based on the fact that those are the "good" ideas. Everything else is tendered because, deep down, the end justifies the means ...

Summary: The fable as a tool to compose a satirical novel about communism. Farm animals have a clear hierarchy based on indisputable axioms. Pigs are the most responsible for the customs and routines of a farm.

The metaphor behind the fable gave much to talk about its reflection in different political systems of the time. The simplification of this personalization of animals exposes all the pitfalls of authoritarian political systems. If your reading is only looking for entertainment, you can also read under that fabulous structure.

Rebelion on the farm

Tribute to Catalonia

And while we're at it, I complete this ranking with a history of the Spanish civil war. Perhaps he wrote the tribute with a certain British humor, because what Orwell experienced on the front as a brigadier and that he ended up transferring to this book is devastating.

Communism confronted with Marxism and without a common enemy to be able to half-fight. Unreason reached that extreme. The Spanish war conflict as a germ for fascism and totalitarianism that would come later...

Summary: Tribute to Catalonia is undoubtedly one of the most important books of the XNUMXth century, admired by authors of all ages and conditions, from Connolly or Trilling to Javier Cercas, Antony Beevor or Mario Vargas Llosa, who arrived in Barcelona in the sixties with this work under his arm.

A key text on the war in Spain, which served as a dress rehearsal for World War II, and which includes the personal experience of George Orwell. The British author arrived in a Barcelona in full revolutionary effervescence in December 1936 and in less than a year had to flee from the implacable Soviet machinery for having been part of the POUM militias.

The honesty and courage with which Orwell narrates what he saw and lived make him the moral writer par excellence. Tribute to Catalonia is a powerful manifesto by man and against abstractions that inevitably end up leading to terror.

Tribute to Catalonia
5/5 - (11 votes)

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