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fairchildone 's review for:
All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays
by George Orwell
My rating may be biased by never having read literary criticism before, but the book has merits far beyond looking through Orwell's eyes at fiction. Orwell's observations on present society and its players are incisive, honest, and rational. He cuts through poor arguments and puffery, but he doesn't do this just for the sake of showing off. Even when he thinks that a writer is saying something poorly or isn't really saying anything worth reading, he still asks why. It's difficult to describe, and I'm doing a poor job, but Orwell is one of the best observers of society that I've read. In some cases, his historical predictions have turned out to be wrong, but on the big ideas concerning how society works, he is incredibly sharp.
Note, there are a few essays in here that I thought more or less out of place compared with the rest--in the early parts of the book, the real gems are infrequent, but the essays in the back are almost universally excellent.
Note, there are a few essays in here that I thought more or less out of place compared with the rest--in the early parts of the book, the real gems are infrequent, but the essays in the back are almost universally excellent.