I second the Orwell references. I would add the captivating
comparison of the Paris and London underworlds, *Down and Out in Paris and
London*, about experiments Orwell did in 1933, with Hitler's advent in
Germany as a recurrent background echo. One can compare it with Hemingway's
*A Moveable Feast*, on the Paris of the 20s, which is more on the side of
literary anecdotes.
I would also recommend O's journalism very strongly, both Interwar
and WWII journalism and essays (the Complete Essays, Letters and Journalism
must be 5 volumes in Penguin Books). I come back to these volumes every
year just to try to improve my essay-style in English.
I have always been amazed by the intelligence and insights, of
Orwell, who was one the first left-wing consciences of the West to speak
out against the parallel threats of Stalinism and Fascism, especially after
his Spanish episode (different from Malraux's, and with less 'pose
romantique' than M, de Gaulle's minister-to-be). *1984* looks pale next to
*Animal Farm* and the major essays and travelogues of the 1930s. *Keep the
Aspidistra Flying* is not a good novel, but I second it as a first-rate
literary testimony, like O's first novel (unless I'm wrong about the
order), *A Clergyman's Daughter*, which is even inferior as a piece of
ficiton.
If you add to O's intelligence the stylistic qualities of his
prose, his essays could become the focus of an interdisciplinary and
Europe-wide survey course on the Interwar period, as seen by one of the
most intelligent Englishmen of his day.
Yours,
Luc
**********************TIME TRIETH TRUTH********************
Luc Borot <lb@alor.univ-montp3.fr> home 33-67 52 07 98
<lb@bred.univ-montp3.fr> fax 33-67 14 24 65
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Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches sur la Renaissance Anglaise
Universite Paul Valery --- Montpellier (France)