HOMAGE TO CATALONIA REVISITED.

HOMAGE TO CATALONIA REVISITED. This is a very interesting attack by an admirer of Orwell (Anthony Daniels) on HOMAGE TO CATALONIA (link via Arts and Letters Daily). I can think of three ways one could look at the harsh facts about the anti-Fascist forces in Orwell’s book. First, one could see them as being examples of Orwell’s ruthless honesty, showing that Orwell was not willing to skew the facts so to support his thesis. As Daniels says, Orwell was far less inclined than others to disguise uncomfortable facts. Second, you could say that the review is a successful deconstruction of HOMAGE TO CATALONIA, showing that yet again an author, when cleverly assessed by a deconstructionist critic, has wound up saying the opposite of what he thought he was saying. Or, third, you could say that Orwell points out these flaws in the socialistic future to emphasize what he was saying: despite the ugly facts about achieving socialism, socialism is worth it, and by a great deal. I favor this third interpretation. Interestingly, the review adopts the same approach; it essentially argues that Orwell is great enough to outweigh the serious objections to HOMAGE TO CATALONIA. I agree. I acknowledge the force of Daniels’s points, but I still think HOMAGE TO CATALONIA is a wonderful book.