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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
George Orwell's wartime columns have much in common with today's blogs: They were often trivial and idiosyncratic, but bore within them the seeds of something greater.
Jul 21, 2003 | At the George Orwell centenary conference at Wellesley College in May, I began a short talk by quoting perhaps the most boring piece of writing by Orwell that I know:
"I like praising things, when there is anything to praise, and I would like here to write a few lines -- they have to be retrospective, unfortunately -- in praise of the Woolworth's Rose.
"In the good days when nothing in Woolworth's cost over sixpence, one of their best lines was their rose bushes. They were always very young plants, but they came into bloom in their second year, and I don't think I ever had one die on me. Their chief interest was that they were never, or very seldom, what they claimed to be on their labels. One that I bought for a Dorothy Perkins turned out to be a beautiful little white rose with a yellow heart, one of the finest ramblers I have ever seen. A polyantha rose labelled yellow turned out to be deep red. Another, bought for an Albertine, was like an Albertine, but more double, and gave astonishing masses of blossom. These roses had all the interest of a surprise packet, and there was always the chance that you might happen upon a new variety which you would have the right to name John Smithii or something of that kind."
At the conference, I was standing in for Andrew Sullivan, one of the more prominent pioneers of the Internet weblog. That, and the short notice -- two days -- may explain how I made the connection between Sullivan and Orwell, whom one could call a proto-blogger of sorts: Orwell specialized in much the same sort of running political and social commentary as Sullivan in a wartime Tribune column known as "As I Please."
Although not Orwell's invention -- Michael Shelden's biography tells us that Tribune editor Raymond Postgate called his own 1939 column "I Write As I Please" -- this phrase has seemed to me for a long time now the blogger's credo, for most bloggers are not of the level of Sullivan or Mickey Kaus but are bores and cranks and, one would think, only a bore could call his site "As I Please," with its suggestions of windy self-satisfaction, tedious opinions on everything, and the lack of a firm editorial or restraining hand.
The blogger assumes his every spittle is of the greatest import, for why else share the daily meanderings of his mind? In fairness it is a question we should ask Orwell. Does the blogger's rose-buying adventure, even if it is George Orwell doing the buying and beforehand the sniffing, merit our attention? The excerpt above ends with an anecdote about two roses Orwell planted in 1936 that cost him sixpence; now it is "a huge vigorous," and beautiful, bush: all for the price of ten cigarettes, or a pint and a half at the pub, or a week's subscription to the Daily Mail: one of Orwell's little lists. Are we so desperate for Orwell trivia and "sweepings," as E.M. Forster put it, in the same way we are for Shakespeare's or -- the other iconic mid-century writer -- Hemingway's?
The answer seems to be yes; certainly his biographers Crick, Shelden and Meyers seem to feel so. But what does that mean for readers of present-day bloggers? First we have to weed out those readers who claim no interest in literature or even language: a significant number, one would think, among politicos; and we can measure this by how badly written, ungrammatical, actually, many of these political weblogs are. (This includes the very amusing Mickey Kaus of Slate.) They will be happy with the news or spin of their favored blog the minute it comes out; others might wonder how these things will read months or years later. Will the blog prove as enduring as that 18th century invention, the essay?
Perhaps. First, let us consider just how "As I Please," or as it would now be, As_I_Please.com, anticipates the modern weblog. For one thing, there are the "links" (not clickable) to recently published articles and other small pieces of forgettable or perishable journalism. No. 23 "links" to a book where poetry snobs can test their knowledge, and probably embarrass themselves; No. 27 "links" to a passage from Herodotus about Babylonian wedding customs, inspired by something Orwell has read about 1940s personal ads. Andrew Sullivan frequently links to what he dubs offensive cartoons or photos; Orwell does the same in No. 41, to a photo of shaven-headed Parisian women accused of collaboration that was printed in the Star, he says, ten days before. And in No. 48, a reader sends in his own link, to a cheap Tory pamphlet he presumes, rightly, that Orwell will find offensive.
A blog is also a place to respond to attacks made elsewhere, and there is some of this too in "As I Please." Most blogs recommend books, or unrecommend them as the case may be, or focus on certain passages usually of nonsense. Orwell does this to Bernard Shaw, for instance. Sullivan waged a near-daily campaign against the Howell Raines New York Times for over a year, and much of "As I Please," while not focusing on any one paper as its target, is a relentless and unsettled eye on the London press. Most of all, in blogs, there is an interest in provoking and sometimes baiting readers, who then write in to (e-mail) the paper (the site) with their outbursts of indignation or scorn or disbelief or supplication.
