Zitate von George Orwell
(= Eric Arthur Blair, 25.06.1903 Motihari/Indien - 21.01.1950
London)
Politics and the English Language (1946)
Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent, and our language--so the argument runs--must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.
Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely.
It (the English language) becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step towards political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.
The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestoes, White Papers and the speeches of under-secretaries do, of course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid, home-made turn of speech. When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases--bestial atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder--one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker's spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance towards turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favorable to political conformity.
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.
But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better. The debased language that I have been discussing is in some ways very convenient.
What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way about.
I think the following rules will cover most cases:
(i) Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous.
Political language - and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists - is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable. and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
1984 (written 1948, first published 1949)
Aus dem 1. Teil, 5. Kapitel:
'How is the Dictionary getting on?' said Winston, raising
his voice to overcome the noise.
'Slowly,' said Syme. 'I'm on the adjectives. It's
fascinating.'
He had brightened up immediately at the mention of
Newspeak. He pushed his pannikin aside, took up his hunk of
bread in one delicate hand and his cheese in the other, and
leaned across the table so as to be able to speak without
shouting.
'The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition,' he said.
'We're getting the language into its final shape -- the shape
it's going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we've
finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all
over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is
inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We're destroying
words -- scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We're
cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition
won't contain a single word that will become obsolete before
the year 2050.'
He bit hungrily into his bread and swallowed a couple of
mouthfuls, then continued speaking, with a sort of pedant's
passion. His thin dark face had become animated, his eyes had
lost their mocking expression and grown almost dreamy.
'It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of
course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but
there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It
isn't only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After
all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the
opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in
itself. Take "good", for instance. If you have a word like
"good", what need is there for a word like "bad"? "Ungood" will
do just as well -- better, because it's an exact opposite,
which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger
version of "good", what sense is there in having a whole string
of vague useless words like "excellent" and "splendid" and all
the rest of them? "Plusgood" covers the meaning, or "
doubleplusgood" if you want something stronger still. Of course
we use those forms already. but in the final version of
Newspeak there'll be nothing else. In the end the whole notion
of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words -- in
reality, only one word. Don't you see the beauty of that,
Winston? It was B.B.'s idea originally, of course,' he added as
an afterthought.
A sort of vapid eagerness flitted across Winston's face at
the mention of Big Brother. Nevertheless Syme immediately
detected a certain lack of enthusiasm.
'You haven't a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston,' he
said almost sadly. 'Even when you write it you're still
thinking in Oldspeak. I've read some of those pieces that you
write in The Times occasionally. They're good
enough, but they're translations. In your heart you'd prefer to
stick to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless
shades of meaning. You don't grasp the beauty of the
destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only
language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every
year?'
Winston did know that, of course. He smiled,
sympathetically he hoped, not trusting himself to speak. Syme
bit off another fragment of the dark-coloured bread, chewed it
briefly, and went on:
'Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow
the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime
literally impossible, because there will be no words in which
to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be
expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly
defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and
forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we're not far from
that point. But the process will still be continuing long after
you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the
range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of
course, there's no reason or excuse for committing
thoughtcrime. It's merely a question of self-discipline,
reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need even
for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is
perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak,' he added
with a sort of mystical satisfaction. 'Has it ever occurred to
you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a
single human being will be alive who could understand such a
conversation as we are having now?'
'Except-' began Winston doubtfully, and he stopped.
It had been on the tip of his tongue to say 'Except the
proles,' but he checked himself, not feeling fully certain that
this remark was not in some way unorthodox. Syme, however, had
divined what he was about to say.
'The proles are not human beings,' he said carelessly. '
By 2050 earlier, probably -- all real knowledge of Oldspeak
will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will
have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron --
they'll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed
into something different, but actually changed into something
contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of
the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could
you have a slogan like "freedom is slavery" when the concept of
freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will
be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we
understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking -- not needing
to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.'
One of these days, thought Winston with sudden deep
conviction, Syme will be vaporized. He is too intelligent. He
sees too clearly and speaks too plainly. The Party does not
like such people. One day he will disappear. It is written in
his face.
Aus dem 3. Teil, 2. Kapitel:
He was strapped into a chair surrounded by dials, under
dazzling lights. A man in a white coat was reading the dials.
There was a tramp of heavy boots outside. The door clanged
open. The waxed-faced officer marched in, followed by two
guards.
'Room 101,' said the officer.
The man in the white coat did not turn round. He did not
look at Winston either; he was looking only at the dials.
He was rolling down a mighty corridor, a kilometre wide,
full of glorious, golden light, roaring with laughter and
shouting out confessions at the top of his voice. He was
confessing everything, even the things he had succeeded in
holding back under the torture. He was relating the entire
history of his life to an audience who knew it already. With
him were the guards, the other questioners, the men in white
coats, O'Brien, Julia, Mr Charrington, all rolling down the
corridor together and shouting with laughter. Some dreadful
thing which had lain embedded in the future had somehow been
skipped over and had not happened. Everything was all right,
there was no more pain, the last detail of his life was laid
bare, understood, forgiven.
He was starting up from the plank bed in the half-
certainty that he had heard O'Brien's voice. All through his
interrogation, although he had never seen him, he had had the
feeling that O'Brien was at his elbow, just out of sight. It
was O'Brien who was directing everything. It was he who set the
guards on to Winston and who prevented them from killing him.
It was he who decided when Winston should scream with pain,
when he should have a respite, when he should be fed, when he
should sleep, when the drugs should be pumped into his arm. It
was he who asked the questions and suggested the answers. He
was the tormentor, he was the protector, he was the inquisitor,
he was the friend. And once -- Winston could not remember
whether it was in drugged sleep, or in normal sleep, or even in
a moment of wakefulness -- a voice murmured in his ear: 'Don't
worry, Winston; you are in my keeping. For seven years I have
watched over you. Now the turning-point has come. I shall save
you, I shall make you perfect.' He was not sure whether it was
O'Brien's voice; but it was the same voice that had said to
him, 'We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness,'
in that other dream, seven years ago.
He did not remember any ending to his interrogation. There
was a period of blackness and then the cell, or room, in which
he now was had gradually materialized round him. He was almost
flat on his back, and unable to move. His body was held down at
every essential point. Even the back of his head was gripped in
some manner. O'Brien was looking down at him gravely and rather
sadly. His face, seen from below, looked coarse and worn, with
pouches under the eyes and tired lines from nose to chin. He
was older than Winston had thought him; he was perhaps
forty-eight or fifty. Under his hand there was a dial with a
lever on top and figures running round the face.
'I told you,' said O'Brien, 'that if we met again it would
be here.'
'Yes,' said Winston.
Without any warning except a slight movement of O'Brien's
hand, a wave of pain flooded his body. It was a frightening
pain, because he could not see what was happening, and he had
the feeling that some mortal injury was being done to him. He
did not know whether the thing was really happening, or whether
the effect was electrically produced ; but his body was being
wrenched out of shape, the joints were being slowly torn apart.
Although the pain had brought the sweat out on his forehead,
the worst of all was the fear that his backbone was about to
snap. He set his teeth and breathed hard through his nose,
trying to keep silent as long as possible.
'You are afraid,' said O'Brien, watching his face, 'that
in another moment something is going to break. Your especial
fear is that it will be your backbone. You have a vivid mental
picture of the vertebrae snapping apart and the spinal fluid
dripping out of them. That is what you are thinking, is it not,
Winston?'
Winston did not answer. O'Brien drew back the lever on the
dial. The wave of pain receded almost as quickly as it had
come.
'That was forty,' said O'Brien. 'You can see that the
numbers on this dial run up to a hundred. Will you please
remember, throughout our conversation, that I have it in my
power to inflict pain on you at any moment and to whatever
degree I choose? If you tell me any lies, or attempt to
prevaricate in any way, or even fall below your usual level of
intelligence, you will cry out with pain, instantly. Do you
understand that?'
'Yes,' said Winston.
O'Brien's manner became less severe. He resettled his
spectacles thoughtfully, and took a pace or two up and down.
When he spoke his voice was gentle and patient. He had the air
of a doctor, a teacher, even a priest, anxious to explain and
persuade rather than to punish.
'I am taking trouble with you, Winston,' he said, 'because
you are worth trouble. You know perfectly well what is the
matter with you. You have known it for years, though you have
fought against the knowledge. You are mentally deranged. You
suffer from a defective memory. You are unable to remember real
events and you persuade yourself that you remember other events
which never happened. Fortunately it is curable. You have never
cured yourself of it, because you did not choose to. There was
a small effort of the will that you were not ready to make.
Even now, I am well aware, you are clinging to your disease
under the impression that it is a virtue. Now we will take an
example. At this moment, which power is Oceania at war with?'
'When I was arrested, Oceania was at war with Eastasia.
'With Eastasia. Good. And Oceania has always been at war
with Eastasia, has it not?'
Winston drew in his breath. He opened his mouth to speak
and then did not speak. He could not take his eyes away from
the dial.
'The truth, please, Winston. Your truth. Tell me
what you think you remember.'
'I remember that until only a week before I was arrested,
we were not at war with Eastasia at all. We were in alliance
with them. The war was against Eurasia. That had lasted for
four years. Before that -- '
O'Brien stopped him with a movement of the hand.
'Another example,' he said. 'Some years ago you had a very
serious delusion indeed. You believed that three men, three
onetime Party members named Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford men
who were executed for treachery and sabotage after making the
fullest possible confession -- were not guilty of the crimes
they were charged with. You believed that you had seen
unmistakable documentary evidence proving that their
confessions were false. There was a certain photograph about
which you had a hallucination. You believed that you had
actually held it in your hands. It was a photograph something
like this.'
An oblong slip of newspaper had appeared between O'Brien's
fingers. For perhaps five seconds it was within the angle of
Winston's vision. It was a photograph, and there was no
question of its identity. It was the photograph. It was
another copy of the photograph of Jones, Aaronson, and
Rutherford at the party function in New York, which he had
chanced upon eleven years ago and promptly destroyed. For only
an instant it was before his eyes, then it was out of sight
again. But he had seen it, unquestionably he had seen it! He
made a desperate, agonizing effort to wrench the top half of
his body free. It was impossible to move so much as a
centimetre in any direction. For the moment he had even
forgotten the dial. All he wanted was to hold the photograph in
his fingers again, or at least to see it.
'It exists!' he cried.
'No,' said O'Brien.
He stepped across the room. There was a memory hole in the
opposite wall. O'Brien lifted the grating. Unseen, the frail
slip of paper was whirling away on the current of warm air; it
was vanishing in a flash of flame. O'Brien turned away from the
wall.
'Ashes,' he said. 'Not even identifiable ashes. Dust. It
does not exist. It never existed.'
'But it did exist! It does exist! It exists in memory. I
remember it. You remember it.'
'I do not remember it,' said O'Brien.
Winston's heart sank. That was doublethink. He had a
feeling of deadly helplessness. If he could have been certain
that O'Brien was lying, it would not have seemed to matter. But
it was perfectly possible that O'Brien had really forgotten the
photograph. And if so, then already he would have forgotten his
denial of remembering it, and forgotten the act of forgetting.
How could one be sure that it was simple trickery? Perhaps that
lunatic dislocation in the mind could really happen: that was
the thought that defeated him.
O'Brien was looking down at him speculatively. More than
ever he had the air of a teacher taking pains with a wayward
but promising child.
'There is a Party slogan dealing with the control of the
past,' he said. 'Repeat it, if you please.'
"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls
the present controls the past," repeated Winston obediently.
"Who controls the present controls the past," said
O'Brien, nodding his head with slow approval. 'Is it your
opinion, Winston, that the past has real existence?'
Again the feeling of helplessness descended upon Winston.
His eyes flitted towards the dial. He not only did not know
whether 'yes' or 'no' was the answer that would save him from
pain; he did not even know which answer he believed to be the
true one.
O'Brien smiled faintly. 'You are no metaphysician,
Winston,' he said. 'Until this moment you had never considered
what is meant by existence. I will put it more precisely. Does
the past exist concretely, in space? Is there somewhere or
other a place, a world of solid objects, where the past is
still happening?'
'No.'
'Then where does the past exist, if at all?'
'In records. It is written down.'
'In records. And- ?'
'In the mind. In human memories.
'In memory. Very well, then. We, the Party, control all
records, and we control all memories. Then we control the past,
do we not?'
'But how can you stop people remembering things?' cried
Winston again momentarily forgetting the dial. 'It is
involuntary. It is outside oneself. How can you control memory?
You have not controlled mine!'
O'Brien's manner grew stern again. He laid his hand on the
dial.
'On the contrary,' he said, 'you have not
controlled it. That is what has brought you here. You are here
because you have failed in humility, in self- discipline. You
would not make the act of submission which is the price of
sanity. You preferred to be a lunatic, a minority of one. Only
the disciplined mind can see reality, Winston. You believe that
reality is something objective, external, existing in its own
right. You also believe that the nature of reality is
self-evident. When you delude yourself into thinking that you
see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same
thing as you. But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not
external. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.
Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any
case soon perishes: only in the mind of the Party, which is
collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be the
truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except
by looking through the eyes of the Party. That is the fact that
you have got to relearn, Winston. It needs an act of self-
destruction, an effort of the will. You must humble yourself
before you can become sane.'
He paused for a few moments, as though to allow what he
had been saying to sink in.
'Do you remember,' he went on, ' writing in your diary,
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four"?'
'Yes,' said Winston.
O'Brien held up his left hand, its back towards Winston,
with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended.
'How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?
'Four.'
'And if the party says that it is not four but five --
then how many?'
'Four.'
The word ended in a gasp of pain. The needle of the dial
had shot up to fifty-five. The sweat had sprung out all over
Winston's body. The air tore into his lungs and issued again in
deep groans which even by clenching his teeth he could not
stop. O'Brien watched him, the four fingers still extended. He
drew back the lever. This time the pain was only slightly
eased.
'How many fingers, Winston?'
'Four.'
The needle went up to sixty.
'How many fingers, Winston?'
'Four! Four! What else can I say? Four!'
The needle must have risen again, but he did not look at
it. The heavy, stern face and the four fingers filled his
vision. The fingers stood up before his eyes like pillars,
enormous, blurry, and seeming to vibrate, but unmistakably
four.
'How many fingers, Winston?'
'Four! Stop it, stop it! How can you go on? Four! Four!'
'How many fingers, Winston?'
'Five! Five! Five!'
'No, Winston, that is no use. You are lying. You still
think there are four. How many fingers, please?'
'Four! five! Four! Anything you like. Only stop it, stop
the pain!
Abruptly he was sitting up with O'Brien's arm round his
shoulders. He had perhaps lost consciousness for a few seconds.
The bonds that had held his body down were loosened. He felt
very cold, he was shaking uncontrollably, his teeth were
chattering, the tears were rolling down his cheeks. For a
moment he clung to O'Brien like a baby, curiously comforted by
the heavy arm round his shoulders. He had the feeling that
O'Brien was his protector, that the pain was something that
came from outside, from some other source, and that it was
O'Brien who would save him from it.
'You are a slow learner, Winston,' said O'Brien gently.
'How can I help it?' he blubbered. 'How can I help seeing
what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.
Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes
they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You
must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.'
He laid Winston down on the bed. The grip of his limbs
tightened again, but the pain had ebbed away and the trembling
had stopped, leaving him merely weak and cold. O'Brien motioned
with his head to the man in the white coat, who had stood
immobile throughout the proceedings. The man in the white coat
bent down and looked closely into Winston's eyes, felt his
pulse, laid an ear against his chest, tapped here and there,
then he nodded to O'Brien.
'Again,' said O'Brien.
The pain flowed into Winston's body. The needle must be at
seventy, seventy-five. He had shut his eyes this time. He knew
that the fingers were still there, and still four. All that
mattered was somehow to stay alive until the spasm was over. He
had ceased to notice whether he was crying out or not. The pain
lessened again. He opened his eyes. O'Brien had drawn back the
lever.
'How many fingers, Winston?'
'Four. I suppose there are four. I would see five if I
could. I am trying to see five.'
'Which do you wish: to persuade me that you see five, or
really to see them?'
'Really to see them.'
'Again,' said O'Brien.
Perhaps the needle was eighty -- ninety. Winston could not
intermittently remember why the pain was happening. Behind his
screwed-up eyelids a forest of fingers seemed to be moving in a
sort of dance, weaving in and out, disappearing behind one
another and reappearing again. He was trying to count them, he
could not remember why. He knew only that it was impossible to
count them, and that this was somehow due to the mysterious
identity between five and four. The pain died down again. When
he opened his eyes it was to find that he was still seeing the
same thing. Innumerable fingers, like moving trees, were still
streaming past in either direction, crossing and recrossing. He
shut his eyes again.
'How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?'
'I don't know. I don't know. You will kill me if you do
that again. Four, five, six -- in all honesty I don't know.'
'Better,' said O'Brien.
...
'Does Big Brother exist?'
'Of course he exists. The Party exists. Big Brother is the
embodiment of the Party.'
'Does he exist in the same way as I exist?
'You do not exist,' said O'Brien.
Once again the sense of helplessness assailed him. He
knew, or he could imagine, the arguments which proved his own
nonexistence; but they were nonsense, they were only a play on
words. Did not the statement, 'You do not exist', contain a
logical absurdity? But what use was it to say so? His mind
shrivelled as he thought of the unanswerable, mad arguments
with which O'Brien would demolish him.
'I think I exist,' he said wearily. 'I am conscious of my
own identity. I was born and I shall die. I have arms and legs.
I occupy a particular point in space. No other solid object can
occupy the same point simultaneously. In that sense, does Big
Brother exist?'
'It is of no importance. He exists.'
'Will Big Brother ever die?'
'Of course not. How could he die? Next question.'
'Does the Brotherhood exist?'
'That, Winston, you will never know. If we choose to set
you free when we have finished with you, and if you live to be
ninety years old, still you will never learn whether the answer
to that question is Yes or No. As long as you live it will be
an unsolved riddle in your mind.'
Aus dem 3. Teil, 4. Kapitel:
He accepted everything. The past was alterable. The past
never had been altered.
...
Anything could be true. The so-called laws of Nature were
nonsense. The law of gravity was nonsense. 'If I wished,'
O'Brien had said, 'I could float off this floor like a soap
bubble.' Winston worked it out. 'If he thinks he floats
off the floor, and if I simultaneously think I see him
do it, then the thing happens.' Suddenly, like a lump of
submerged wreckage breaking the surface of water, the thought
burst into his mind: 'It doesn't really happen. We imagine it.
It is hallucination.' He pushed the thought under instantly.
The fallacy was obvious. It presupposed that somewhere or
other, outside oneself, there was a 'real' world where 'real'
things happened. But how could there be such a world? What
knowledge have we of anything, save through our own minds? All
happenings are in the mind. Whatever happens in all minds,
truly happens.
Aus dem 3. Teil, 6. (letztes) Kapitel:
He was back in the Ministry of Love, with everything forgiven,
his soul white as snow. He was in the public dock, confessing
everything, implicating everybody. He was walking down the
white-tiled corridor, with the feeling of walking in sunlight,
and an armed guard at his back. The longhoped-for bullet was
entering his brain.
He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken
him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark
moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn,
self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears
trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right,
everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won
the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.
Die neue "definitive" Gesamtausgabe von George Orwells Werken wurde 1998 vorgelegt: George Orwell: The Complete Works. Ed. by Peter Davison. Secker & Warburg, London 1998. 20 vols, £ 750.-.
Anlässlich von George Orwells 50. Todestag, der am 21. Januar 2000 begangen wurde, legt der Diogenes-Verlag Werke des Autors in deutscher Übersetzung sowie Michael Sheldens Orwell-Biographie neu auf.
Rüdiger Görner hat diese Gesamtausgabe in der NZZ vom 25.03.00 rezensiert:
Orwells Welt - Zur neuen Gesamtausgabe seiner Werke
Orwell war einer der ersten Medienkritiker in der modernen Literatur. Der Jargon, die Phrasen und ein Bewusstsein, das sich nur noch an den Balkenüberschriften gewisser Boulevard-Zeitungen orientiert - Orwell hatte diese Tendenzen, gerade weil er als selbstkritischer Journalist sein Medium durchschaute, als «newspeak» entlarvt. Er kannte sie genau, die parteipolitischen Worthülsenhersteller, die fröhliches Gedankenrecycling betreiben und mürbe Parolen dadurch zu liften verstehen, dass sie ihnen einfach das magische Wort «new» voranstellen.
Zu Recht erhebt diese Werkausgabe den Anspruch, «definitiv» zu sein - und das nicht nur wegen ihrer überzeugenden editorischen Prinzipien, sondern auch in dem Sinne, dass sie eine differenziertere Bewertung George Orwells «definiert» und ermöglicht. Eine solche Bewertung kann nun nicht mehr länger umhin, die ideologieskeptische Seite dieses Schriftstellers noch stärker in den Vordergrund zu rücken.
Richard Rorty widmete ein Kapitel
George Orwell: "The last intellectual in Europe: Orwell on cruelty",
In: Richard Rorty: Contingency, irony, and solidarity. Cambridge, Cambridge
UP 1989
Charles'
George Orwell Links: The homepage of Orwell homepages. Online and
without ads since 1995 (eine ausgezeichnete Sammlung von Texten und Verbindungen).
George
Orwell Archive at the UCL Library - Manuscripts & Rare Books Room
The George Orwell Archive is the most comprehensive body of research
material relating to the author George Orwell (Eric Blair) (1903-1950)
anywhere.
George
Orwell Resources (University of Oklahoma)
Mauthner-Gesellschaft
über GEORGE ORWELLs Grammatik der Neusprache
Orwell Today
Political
Writings of George Orwell - A page by Patrick Farley
George
Orwell by the Spartacus Schoolnet (UK)
George Orwell
- eine interessant aufgemachte Seite aus Wien
(dort auch eine kurze 100th birthday media coverage!)
George Orwell
- A Russian Site in Russian
1984
online at The Literature Network
A
selection of online Texts by Orwell at the Gutenberg Project Australia
George
Orwell Centenary Conference May 1-3 2003
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