Orwell - the man and his output

[Virgo76]

He goes on about fishing too much in Coming Up For Air.
1984 is the best. Truly brilliant.
FACT No filmed footage of Orwell is known to exist.

[Pavlov`s Dog`s Dad`s Dead]

FACT No filmed footage of Orwell is known to exist.

Wasn't there something about an older male sibling setting up concealed cine cameras?

[touchingcloth]

I mentioned Politics and the English Language in another thread recently. Read that, it's good.

[Pink Gregory]

Fairly sure I've Orwell-posted before, but I went through a period of reading his books, fiction and non-fiction.

Aspidistra is fascinating because sometimes you don't see him as an 'imaginative' writer, or someone who deals with the intensely personal in such a way, it's dripping with self-hatred but without being self-indulgent in it.

Wigan Pier, Down and Out and Catalonia are fantastic, morally indignant pieces of writing about their subjects, that sometimes betray his Empire-chauvinism which I think it's unwise to explain away as 'of its time' or repeat uncritically as Catalonia often is. 

The reputation of the imagery of Ninteen Eighty-Four (which should always be written as its full title) and Animal Farm sometimes causes his wit and prose to be understated in pursuit of appearing clever by understanding satire; I feel like reducing the parallels purely to Stalinism (which it was undoubtedly referencing) blunts it's satire when it can be read much more generally.  They're books that are easy to understand a certain way but that way can be reductive.

[Alternative Carpark]

FACT No filmed footage of Orwell is known to exist.

There is some (possibly newsreel in origin) film of the Eton Wall Game being played in 1921 where one of the teenage participants is known to be him but no-one knows which one it is.

It's on Youtube and can be viewed here.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSdlWtk1grI

There aren't any known existing audio recordings of him speaking either.

[Pranet]

I've got a vague memory of a documentary presented by DJ Taylor showing a cine film of a church fete or something similar with a tall man standing around in the background who looked a bit like him but it wasn't conclusive.

[Alternative Carpark]

I've got a vague memory of a documentary presented by DJ Taylor showing a cine film of a church fete or something similar with a tall man standing around in the background who looked a bit like him but it wasn't conclusive.

Yes, that's some film from Southwold in about the mid-1930s. DJ Taylor admitted it was inconclusive, and he has also commented that the man in the film is holding a cigarette-holder, not something Orwell is known to have been in the habit of using.