George Orwell: A Life in Letters (74 page)

2
.
Mahatma (Mohandas Karamchand) Gandhi (1869–
1948), a major figure in the struggle for Indian independence and a continuing force in Indian life after his death. He was fatally shot on 30 January 1948 by a Hindu fanatic. See Orwell’s ‘Reflections on Gandhi’,
Partisan Review
, January 1949, (XX, 3516, pp. 5–12).

To Gleb Struve*

21 April 1948

Hairmyres Hospital

East Kilbride

Dear Struve,

I’m awfully sorry to have to send this
¹
back, after such a long delay, having finally failed to find a home for it. But as you see by the above, I am in hospital (tuberculosis), & at the time of receiving your letter I wasn’t able to do very much. I am better now, & hope to get out of here some time during the summer, but of course the treatment of this disease is always a slow job.

I have arranged to review
We
for the
Times Lit. Supp
., when the English translation comes out.
²
Did you tell me that Zamyatin’s widow is still alive & in Paris? If so, & she can be contacted, it might be worth doing so, as there may be others of his books which some English publisher might be induced to take, if
We
is a success. You told me that his satire on England,
The Islanders
, had never been translated, & perhaps it might be suitable.
³

I hope you will forgive me for my failure to find an editor for Mandelstam’s sketches. There are so few magazines in England now.
Polemic
died of the usual disease, & the other possible one
Politics & Letters
, was no good.

You asked about my novel,
Burmese Days
. I think it is still in print as a Penguin, but there won’t be many copies left. It is being reprinted about the end of this year, as I am beginning a uniform edition, & that is second on the list. I
may
succeed in getting some of these books reprinted in the
USA
as well.

Yours sincerely

Geo. Orwell

P.S. This address will find me for some months, I’m afraid.

[XIX, 3387, pp. 323–4; handwritten]

1
.
Presumably the Mandelstam sketches mentioned later in the letter.

2
.
An English translation, by Gregory Zilboorg, was, in fact, published in New York by E. P. Dutton in 1924 and reprinted the following year.
Although Orwell knew of the
US
edition, he had not seen it. The French translation,
Nous autres
, which Orwell reviewed in
Tribune
, 4 January 1946 (see XVIII, 2841, pp. 13–
17), was published in Paris in 1929.

3
.
Yevgeny Zamyatin came to England in 1916 to supervise the building of Russian icebreakers in the northeast of England and Scotland. He wrote two amusing satires on English life,
The Islanders
, written in England in
1917, and
The Fisher of Men
, written in 1918 on his return to Russia. The first is set in Jesmond, near Newcastle upon Tyne and the second in Chiswick. A translation by Sophie Fuller and Julian Sacchi was published in 1984.

To John Middleton Murry*

28 April 1948

Hairmyres Hospital

East Kilbride

Dear Murry,

Thank you for your letter. I’m very sorry to hear the
Adelphi
is coming to an end.
¹
At any rate it’s had a long run for its money, longer than most magazines. I could do you a review, but I’m not keen on doing the Joad book. I looked at it recently, & it didn’t seem to me to be
about
anything. How about the third volume of Osbert Sitwell’s autobiography,
²
which has come out recently & which I think is very good in a way? You wouldn’t need to send a copy, as I have one already. It would be better to do more than 1000 words if you have the space. I note that you want the copy by May 15, but perhaps you could let me know whether you think this a suitable book.

[
Brief account of illness and Barnhill
] I would like to see what is going on [
at Barnhill
], also to see my little boy, whom I haven’t seen since Christmas for fear of infection. I get photographs of him, & he is evidently growing enormous.

Yours

Geo. Orwell

[XIX, 3390, pp. 326–7; handwritten]

1
.
It survived until 1955.

2
.
Orwell reviewed Sitwell’s
Great Morning
in the July–September 1948 issue of
The Adelphi
(see XIX, 3418, pp. 395–8).

To Dwight Macdonald*

2 May 1948

Hairmyres Hosp

East Kilbride

Dear Dwight,

Thanks so much for your letter, and prospectively for sending the books.
¹
Yes, I got
Politics
, as a matter of fact 2 copies, as you sent one to me direct here. It set me thinking again about Gandhi, whom I never met but whom I know a certain amount about. The funny thing is that though he was almost certainly used by the British for their own ends over a long period, I’m not certain that in the long run he failed. He was not able to stop the fight[ing] between Moslems and Hindus, but his major aim of getting the British out of India peacefully did finally come off. I personally would never have predicted this even five years ago, and I am not sure that a good deal of the credit should not go to Gandhi. Of course a Conservative government would never have got out without a fight, but the fact that a Labour government did so might indirectly be due to Gandhi’s influence. One might say that they only agreed to dominion status because they knew they couldn’t hold on to India much longer, but this doesn’t apply for instance to Burma, a country which was extremely profitable to us and easy enough to hold down. I think,
pace tua
, that Gandhi behaved abominably, or at any rate stupidly, in 1942 when he thought the Axis had won the war, but I think also that his prolonged effort to keep the Indian struggle on a decent plane may have gradually modified the British attitude.

Incidentally, this business of assassinating important individuals
²
is something one has to take account of. In the same number I see you note regretfully that Walter Reuther
³
has a bodyguard, but I also see that he has just been seriously wounded—the second attempt, I believe. I notice also that you speak more or less approvingly of the
Esprit
⁴
crowd. I don’t know if you know that some at any rate of these people are fellow travellers of a peculiarly slimy religious brand, like Macmurray
⁵
in England. Their line is that Communism and Christianity are compatible, and latterly that there is no choice except Communism or Fascism and one must therefore regretfully choose the former. But this is all right, because Communism will presently shed certain unfortunate characteristics such as bumping off its opponents, and if Socialists join up with the
CP
they can persuade it into better ways. It’s funny that when I met Mounier
⁶
for only about 10 minutes in 1945 I thought to myself, that man’s a fellow traveller. I can smell them. I believe Sartre has been latterly taking the same line.

I’m sorry Gollancz fell through.
⁷
I don’t know if it’s any use trying Warburg. He read the book and was impressed by it, but of course he is chronically short of paper and takes years to get a book out. The binding is the real trouble here. I must say I feel envious when I see American books now, their solidity and so on. The way British books are printed now makes one ashamed to be associated with them. I asked them to send you a copy of the first book in my uniform edition, coming out in a fortnight or so. I must say I wish I could have started this edition at a time when one could get hold of decent bindings. I feel that a uniform edition which in any case is a sign of approaching senility ought to be very chaste-looking in buckram covers. Have you got an agent over here, or an agent with connections here? It’s worth while I think.

Yes, I think Lanarkshire was where Owen
⁸
flourished. It’s rather an unpleasant industrial county with a lot of coal mines, and its chief ornament is Glasgow. Out here it’s quite pleasant though. I am longing to go out of doors, having barely done so for six months. They now let me up an hour a day and I think they would let me out a little if it were warmer. It’s been a horrible spring, however not so bad as last year.

I’m in sympathy with the Europe-America leaflet you sent,
⁹
but I don’t know if there’s anything I personally can do about it. Thanks for your query, but there is honestly not anything I want. We are well cared for here and people have been very kind about sending me food etc.

Yours

George

[XIX, 3392, pp. 328–90; typewritten]

1
.
Macdonald had written on 23 April 1
948 and he sent a parcel of books by separate mail. He mentions two of these in his letter: Joseph Wood Krutch,
Samuel Johnson
(1944) and T. Polner,
Tolstoy and His Wife
, translated by N. Wreden (1945). These, he wrote, ‘are two of the best modern biographies I know’, especially the first. He asked Orwell if he shared his ‘private enthusiasm for Dr. Johnson’. Orwell did not respond to this in his reply. Krutch (1893–1970) was drama critic to
The Nation
, 1924–51
.

2
.
Gandhi had been assassinated on 30 January 1948.

3
.
Walter Philip Reuther (1907–1970), President of the United Automobile Workers of America, 1946–70; President of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, 1
952–55. He was one of those instrumental in the merger of the CIO with the American Federation of Labor in 1955 and served as Vice-President of the AFL-CIO until, in disagreement with the President of the organisation, he took out the UAW. He had worked in a Soviet car factory for two years in the 1930s, but later was critical of the Soviets. He was killed when his plane crashed in fog.

4
.
Esprit
was a periodical launched in 1932 by Emmanuel Mounier (see n. 6)
‘to close the gap between communist and non-communist Frenchmen’. At the same time, Mounier inaugurated ‘the Personalist movement, a non-party philosophy between Marxism and Existentialism’ (J. F. Falvey,
The Penguin Companion to Literature
(1969), II, p. 553).

5
.
John Macmurray (1891–1976), Grote Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic, University of London, 1929–44; Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Edinburgh, 1944–58. His many books include
The Philosophy of Communism
(1
933) and
Constructive Democracy
(1943). In Orwell’s pamphlet collection is a copy of his Peace Aims Pamphlet,
Foundations of Economic Reconstruction
(1942).

6
.
Emmanuel Mounier (1905–1950), writer, literary critic, intellectual leader in the French Resistance, was a Roman Catholic and Marxist sympathiser and the founder of the journal
Esprit
.
He was influenced by Bergson and Péguy, and, with others, published
La Pensée de Charles Péguy
(1931), several books on Personalism, and some 170 articles. He advocated economic revolution, a new socialist system, respect for the individual, and an active Roman Catholic Church in order to implement ethical values appropriate to the age. He particularly addressed the needs of apathetic and disorientated post-war youth (J. F. Falvey, see n. 4).

7
.
Orwell had suggested to Gollancz that he publish Macdonald’s
Henry Wallace: The Man and the Myth.
Macdonald told Orwell that, though Gollancz was at first enthusiastic, he had written later saying he could not get the book out in time. Despite good reviews the book had sold only 3,500 copies in two months in the
USA
. However, Macdonald was having ‘a lot of fun’ speaking at colleges exposing Wallace’s ‘lies and demagogy, and the almost 100
% Commie entourage which writes his speeches’.

8
.
The text of Macdonald’s letter that has survived is a carbon copy. It contains no reference to Owen, so that may well have been in a postscript added only to the top copy. Robert Owen (1771–1858), born and died in Wales, a successful Lancashire cotton manufacturer, established the model industrial town of New Lanark in Scotland, with good living conditions for the employees complete with non-profitmaking shops.

9
.
A leaflet issued in connection with a proposed series of meetings – the first had by then been held – ‘on the Russian culture purge. Speakers: Nicolas Nabokov, Meyer Schapiro, Lionel Trilling, and myself. It was a success—about 400 people, $300 profit, and solid speeches.’