John Rodden of Texas university at Austin writes regularly on Orwell related subjects and will be writing for our Essay section in 2009.

Gordon Bowker has speculated about “the biography that Orwell never wrote.” A measure of Gordon’s stimulating essay is that it provokes numerous conjectures on the part of the reader. I second Peter Davison’s observation about Gordon’s contribution: “What is more important than dreaming up what might have been is whether an essay prompts the reader to think and so leads him or her forward.”

In that spirit, on finishing Gordon Bowker’s essay, I immediately posed the following thought experiment: Let us assume that Orwell never would have written his autobiography. His onetime housekeeper Susan Watson claims that Orwell told her that only he could write his life story accurately—and that he would never do it. If we grant this proposition, then the related question—which places Orwell in his familiar position of book reviewer—might arise: What might Orwell have said about the lives of him written by his biographers?

Drawing on the valuable insights and choice Orwell quotations in Gordon Bowker’s essay, let me in turn venture to speculate about “the biographical review Orwell never wrote.”

First it must be acknowledged that Orwell had a low opinion of biography as a genre. Gordon believes that Orwell was “certainly not antagonistic to the genre, as some have suggested.” Antagonistic? No. But he was quite wary about the potential abuse of the genre. As I have noted elsewhere, Richard Rees, who served as Orwell’s literary executor along with Sonia Orwell, told biographer Peter Stansky that Orwell’s request
reflected a fear that he might be written up as “extravagantly or luridly.” In part, Orwell was reacting against the rise of muckraking, tendentious “biografiction.” Lytton Strachey’s anti-heroic Eminent Victorians (1918) and the popularity of Freud among intellectuals had given rise in the 1920s and ’30s to what Virginia Woolf initially heralded as “The New Biography” and what detractors soon termed “Stracheyism.” Less gifted followers of Strachey soon gave biography a bad name among many serious writers.

Back to my thought experiment. As Bowker points out, Orwell once wrote that “the qualities needed for a biographer are piety and wit.” Probably D.J. Taylor’s Orwell: The Life (2003) is the wittiest. It is certainly the quirkiest and most amusing, with excurses devoted to idiosyncratic topics ranging from Orwell’s distinctive facial and vocal features to his obsession with rats and alleged paranoia. Taylor’s biography may be
a bit short on piety, but it is so in all the ways that Orwell is likely to have approved. Orwell never advocated “piety” before the biographical subject. Rather, he insisted on respect for the biographer’s craft, which demands that the writer maintain literary and intellectual integrity when narrating and evaluating a life. These tasks should be guided by the available historical evidence and imbued with a balance of the sympathetic and critical imaginations.

Above all, as Bowker notes, Orwell preferred “the analytical, interpretative method” of biography, which he praised in Lewis Mumford’s Herman Melville, published in 1934. Orwell also valued what Bowker refers to as the “empirical method” yet did not “believe in all circumstances” that it “alone should be relied upon.” Given these commitments, Orwell would have been gratified by the pioneering first complete biography of him written by Bernard Crick, George Orwell: A Life (1980), which includes a lengthy introduction by Crick defending what Crick called his “biography of externality,” a quasi-Brechtian approach governed by respect for the factual, the quotidian, the datum.

Yet I suspect that Orwell would have wished that Crick—a political scientist who has always sought to integrate social science, political philosophy, and cultural criticism—had written a biography that had risked more of the “analytical” and “interpretative.” As Bowker notes, Orwell remarked about Leon Trotsky’s biography of Stalin that some “inherently probable” historical claims (such as Trotsky’s view that Stalin ordered the murder of Lenin) were permissible to advance even if near-impossible to prove conclusively. On that view, Orwell might have preferred that Crick had ventured a bit further beyond the available historical evidence and advanced some conclusions, however tentative, about Orwell’s own personal history—even if Crick lacked sufficient evidence to prove them definitively (such as the long-standing scholarly ruminations about whether or not Orwell ever shot an elephant, attended a hanging, and so on).

By the same criteria, I believe, Orwell would have admired the work of Michael Shelden’s Orwell: The Authorized Biography (1991) for its judicious exercise of sympathetic imagination combined with the “analytical, interpretative method.” But here, I think, Orwell might have wished for a larger measure of factual detail, precisely the kind of empirical approach that Crick’s biography outstandingly represents—and perhaps a bit less speculation without firmer evidence to support it.

What about the other Orwell biographies? Bowker goes on to observe that Orwell’s view of biography was “refreshingly free of theoretical dogma,” and Bowker notes that it is rather unlikely that Orwell would have had much patience with what might be termed “Marxist biography.” Undoubtedly true. So it seems likely that he would have found the Marxist—some invidious critics have called it “neo-Stalinist”—biography of him by Scott Lucas, Orwell (2003), objectionable (even apart from the fact that Lucas displays virtually unremitting hostility, bereft of any human sympathy, for his biographical subject).

Last but not least, Orwell would have probably disapproved of “psychobiography,” as Bowker observes, whether approached via Freud, Jung, Adler, or any more contemporary school of psychotherapy. Would he have therefore harbored reservations about the otherwise excellent biography written by Bowker himself, Inside George Orwell (2003), which exhibits a sensitive balance between the “empirical method” and the “analytical, interpretative method”? Might he also have voiced similar concerns about Jeffrey Meyers’ Orwell: Wintry Conscience of His Generation (2003), which relentlessly probes Orwell’s psychology, drawing heavily on psychoanalytic concepts that undergird judgments about Orwell’s “masochism” and “death wish”?

Such assessments—and such language—would have probably elicited a sharp (if defensive) response from Orwell. Or perhaps just his sardonic, deep-throated (tubercular?) laughter. Both responses are conceivable from him.

And yet: One pauses here, because it is also the case that Orwell was always very interested in the psychology of creativity and authorship. Furthermore, his first wife, Eileen Blair, studied Jungian psychology at London University and obtained a Master’s degree in the field. Bowker and Meyers are not the kind of “biografiends” that Orwell castigated (the coinage owes to James Joyce) who engage in “psycho-autopsies.”

So it’s also possible that Orwell would have regarded the scholarly snooping into his private life by Bowker and Meyers, if at times excessive or too intrusive, nonetheless justified and illuminating in the main. If that is correct, then he might have wished that the two-volume biography by Peter Stansky and William Abrahams, The Unknown Orwell (1972) and Orwell: The Transformation (1979), possessed a deeper psychological understanding of the development of Blair into Orwell. Both volumes of their biography skillfully integrate the empirical, analytical, and interpretative methods. But they lack much psychological depth. Of course, Stansky and Abrahams labored under two large difficulties. They were the first scholars to attempt a biography of Orwell. Moreover, they were hobbled by the decision of Orwell’s widow, Sonia, to refuse all rights to quote from his published or unpublished work. His insistence on no biography in his will notwithstanding, Orwell himself might have granted them such permission. After all, his literary executor, Richard Rees, had suggested to young Peter Stansky that the Americans undertake the biography. Stansky and Abrahams had originally planned merely to write about the involvement of Orwell and other British writers in the Spanish Civil War.

I have discussed the history of Orwell biography in my first book, The Politics of Literary Reputation: The Making and Claiming of “St. George” Orwell (1989), which takes the story of his “afterlife” up until the close of the 1980s—that is, before the appearance of the biographies by Shelden, Meyers, Bowker, D.J. Taylor, and Lucas (and before the second, revised 1992 edition of Bernard Crick’s biography). Let me close by alluding to my 1989 study in response to Douglas Kerr’s thoughtful reply to Bowker’s essay. Kerr writes: “Gordon Bowker’s enjoyable essay reminds us of Orwell’s request that his biography should not be written. Are such requests ever heeded, I wonder?”

In a word: No. My answer today is no different from my conclusion of two decades ago about the lessons of Orwell biography. Fame makes biographical treatment inevitable. The only question is when, not if.

The history of Orwell biography points to important issues beyond Orwell’s own case, raising not only legal but also cultural, ethical, and professional questions about the writing of biography in the post-Stracheyan age. Probably the legal right to personal privacy (and personal property) should have prior claim when disputes between author/executor and scholar/biographer arise….The case of Orwell suggests why and how, when a figure achieves a certain stature, the writing of his or her biography can only be delayed by restrictive measures, not prevented. Biographical treatment reflects, not just builds, reputation; a “FAMOUS WRITER” will eventually receive either a good or poor biography, not avoid one.

John Rodden

We received the following letter from Professor Peter Davison last week, and wanted to share his enthusiasm with all our readers:

I have been delighted with the response to my contribution to the Orwell Forum. It is just over fifty years since my first (non-literary) book was published. It was composed on a battered portable Royal typewriter and was probably not read by more than 3-400 people. Response was far from immediate, something to which I have become accustomed in the years since. It might be months, even a year or even two, before someone says, ‘Oh, I read your article in So-and-So and thought . . . ’. To have such a wide and rapid reaction is a novel and, frankly, rather exciting experience. So, first my gratitude to those who have read and especially those who have responded.

I thought it might be helpful to offer my reactions to some of the points raised. I will concentrate on three things: Orwell and Buddhism; some explanation of how I came to select the particular passage from St Paul with a little more on how that MAY link with Orwell; and a response to the writer who referred to the Moss Side area of Manchester. Some of this will inevitably depend on my personal experience and I am reluctant to do that because it introduces in a rather dangerous way the personal into the critical, something I have always attempt to avoid. What I have to offer is at best conjectural and at worse a confession of bafflement.

I think my short answer to Professor Kerr is that he is absolutely right to distinguish between the pacific in Buddhism and the nationalism (understandable at the time of the Raj and today in Tibet) of a minority of young men. Did Orwell have much interest or understanding of Buddhism? There is very little to go on but what there is might, at the risk of my being too conjectural, suggest that he was not wholly ignorant of Buddhist belief and practice. A colleague of Orwell’s in Burma, Roger Beadon, later recalled that Orwell ‘had been attending services in Burmese churches . . . [and] would often talk with Burmese priests in what Beadon claimed was “very high-flown Burmese”’ (Remembering Orwell, ed. Stephen Wadhams, 1984, p. 24). Orwell, of course, spoke not only Burmese but Hindi and Shaw-Karen, partly to attract the 1,000 rupee bonus paid for passing examinations in such languages. On 1 October 1944 Orwell reviewed in The Observer six books concerned with Burma. The review is devoted almost entirely to one book, Wingate’s Raiders, but there are five lines on a pamphlet by G.Appleton, Buddhism in Burma. Perhaps it is worth reproducing what Orwell says in full: ‘Buddhism in Burma, which gives the appearance of having been written by a Christian missionary, is less useful [than two other pamphlets mentioned] from the point of view of the average reader, as it concentrates on the doctrinal side of Buddhism and does not say enough about the extremely important political and social activities of the Burmese priesthood (Complete Works, XVI, 416). Clearly Orwell is concerned here about the political and social activities of the priesthood, but he must have learned something of Buddhist doctrine.

Two years earlier, on 13 September 1942, Orwell reviewed Captain H.R. Robinson’s A Modern de Quincey in The Observer (CW, XIV, 34-5). Robinson had been an officer in the Indian Army but was axed in 1923. As Orwell writes, he ‘settled down for a couple of years in Mandalay’, devoted himself to smoking opium, had a brief interlude as a Buddhist monk, tried unsuccessfully to float a gold mine, and run a car-hiring business, before unsuccessfully attempting suicide, causing him to go blind. He would later, as Gerry Adams in his second edition of Robinson’s book (published in Bangkok, 2004) states, successfully commit suicide in 1965 after his return to England (p. xvii). It seems very likely that Orwell knew Robinson in Mandalay (where Orwell served from 27 November 1922 to 9 November 1923 and from 17 December 1923 to 25 January 1924). In his autobiography, Robinson describes how he was helped by two friends whom he calls ‘The Padre’ and ‘The Poet’ (Adams, p. 44). Whether the Poet was Orwell is highly conjectural but as Adams suggests, he may well have been – Orwell was then writing poetry and had hopes of being a poet. However, what is of relevance here is whether he discussed Buddhism with Robinson who spent some time as a monk and describes how he went to their afternoon lectures (Adams, p. 72). Given Orwell’s inquiring mind, whether he was the Poet or not, and given the details of Burmese life in Burmese Days, I find it hard to believe that Orwell did not familiarise himself with the tenets of Buddhism. Orwell closes his review with the significant lines, ‘Those who knew Captain Robinson in the old days will be glad to receive this evidence of his continued existence, and to see the photograph of him at the beginning of the book . . ’ (CW, XIV, 35). (Orwell also reviewed Maurice Collis’s Trials in Burma in The Listener,9 March 1938 (CW, XI, 125) but this does not bear on the issues here.)

Perhaps I can take Burgesski from The Hague and joeyref from Moss Side, Manchester together – not to take issue with them, which I have no wish to do, but to give a little context to how I guess Orwell wrote and how I have tried to interpret him. I would like to reiterate one thing I wrote: that Orwell ‘rejected Christian observance and did not believe in life after death’. Nevertheless, it seems to me consistent with that stance for him to have been influenced by teachings he had experienced earlier in life. It is dangerous to interpret Orwell or anyone else from one’s own experience but I shall risk that. My father died of TB in 1933 when I was just seven; I had seen him once in the past 18 months (and when I was editing that part of The Complete Works which dealt with Orwell’s anxieties that he might pass the dreaded TB to his son, Richard, I felt particularly for Orwell’s and Richard’s experience). My younger brother and I were sent away, I eventually to an institution that cared for boys in my circumstance until I was 15½ when I left to earn a living. We saw our mother for just a few days each year. One such time was Christmas. When I returned to school after Christmas I recall feeling very homesick and, I guess, impressionable. I remember only two sermons from my nine years at boarding school. In one a very short preacher started off with a string of swear words. That grabbed attention of all 400 boys. He went on, ‘That’s what I heard as I came into this chapel’ and after that I remember no more. The second sermon, and I think I heard it or something like to more than once, was on the passage from which I quoted (St Paul to the Romans, ch 12, vv 6-21). And it has stuck with me. I repeat, it is dangerous to transfer my response to Orwell’s but I do guess that, especially given his intimate knowledge of the Book of Common Prayer, it stuck in his mind too. The Commandments are one thing, but the sheer common sense for decent living in these verses is something that transcends particular religious beliefs. I particularly like, ‘Do not claim to be wiser than you are’.

‘joeyref’ doesn’t ‘see the connection between religion and morality or standards of behaviour’. Obviously I do and I think Orwell did whether or not one rejects, as did Orwell, particular religious observances. But let me widen this debate a little. I have heard what Moss Side is like. As it happens for five months I was billeted nearby in Chorlton-on-Medlock (I think near the junction of Oxford Road and Brunswick Street) in 1945 when serving in one of the small units – or fragments – of HMS Shrapnel dotted around the UK. Indeed, it was whilst there in May of that year that I met the girl who would become my wife – yes, add up the years! That area was certainly downbeat but there was nothing of the violence joeyref experiences and we read about. Neither I nor any of my colleagues were involved or suffered any fear or violence. My wife had had several months training at Cambridge before we met and she walked home in the blackout – oh, illuminated by criss-crossing searchlights – despite hundreds of servicemen, British and American especially, without any of the girls being harmed. Of course there was crime, looting after air-raids and black-marketeering especially (see Juliet Gardiner, Wartime Britain, 1939-1945, 2004, ch. 21), and people were on occasion attacked. A girl was murdered where I now live; the American serviceman was tried by an American court and hanged.

We hear a great deal today about people carrying guns and knives. But this is not new. Shortly after I left school I joined the Home Guard, first in the infantry before serving on an AA Rocket Battery close by where Iver station now is (ironically it was ‘Z’ Battery No. 101, a number that would become significant a few years later). Many of us, and many proper soldiers, would carry rifles and bayonets in public. I don’t recall mayhem on the streets, from the skies perhaps, but not on the streets or on Tube trains. How was it that those rifles and bayonets were not turned on the general populace – but now guns and knives are?

It is very difficult to know how reliable are the statistics we are fed. But the figures I have for murder in England and Wales in 1945 were 141 (population about 39 million) and in 1965, 165 (population 48 million). I am baffled why things have got so bad despite reassurances that they have actually got better and better. I can offer no answer. What I do know is that at nearly 82 I find much of life around me wholly unknown. When I saw those nominated for the BAFTA awards, I knew two names: Cranford (which had been a set reading book when I was 13) and Eileen Atkins. The rest were strangers – my fault doubtless. Secondly, I am astonished that so many people seem not to know who they are or where they came from. My family is a very ordinary one but my father’s family and my mother’s, wrote the stories of their lives for their children and these cover more than 200 years. We still have Apprentice Certificates going back to 1826 (for my great-grandfather as a shoemaker and stonemason in Alnwick – did he make stone clogs?) and each generation thereafter. What I have left of my father from 1933 is his fingerprints on his seaman’s passes to permit him to go ashore in USA and France when serving on convoys in the First World War. A great-uncle, Robert Davison, died of exhaustion aged less than 25 having worked himself to death as a Wesleyan minister, walking 200 miles a month, giving 25 sermons and visiting fifty families on the way, so earning a fulsome obituary in The Alnwick Journal, December 1875. I was familiar with this inheritance and taught to behave in a similar fashion. Doesn’t this happen any more?

Because I was away from home I suppose I resorted to reading more than may be common nowadays. I won’t bore those who have got this far with what I read and what influence I believe it had on me. Let me turn to one thing that expresses what I had thought was our common past but which I fear is no more. On my way back to school about 1934 my mother took me to take the train from Paddington station. She made a point (perhaps because she had served in the WAACS) of showing me ‘The Paddington Soldier’ midway down Platform 1. In case you don’t know him – this is he:

I did not learn his full significance until a few years ago. The memorial is by Captain Charles Sargeant Jagger, company commander of the 2nd Worcesters. As they came out of the line after the terrible Menin Road battle for Passchendaele the men were given their mail. Jagger saw one of his soldiers reading a letter from his mother, wearing a long, loosely-knitted scarf made for him by his aunt. If you look carefully you can see a stitch has been dropped. The soldier has no rifle (not even one reversed), no bayonet, no grenades as are commonly in many war memorials. Just a letter, a scarf, and a weary man. He stands there to shame the cynic and the indifferent – and the sabre-rattling. Jagger’s soldier, created by a great sculptor who was there and who records what he saw, begs us to remember him and the millions like him, just as he had been remembered by his mother and aunt. Does what Jagger memorialises mean anything to most of our tens of millions today? Do they visit Commonwealth War Graves? Would they rather watch the simulated violence of Grand Theft Auto IV than experience the genuine horror, and all it implies, of the rats gnawing at dead soldiers in All Quiet on the Western Front? If we care nothing for our nation’s and our families’ past we shall disintegrate, St Paul or no St Paul. But that is enough from me – except my grateful thanks to all respondents.

Peter Davison