George Orwell: A Life in Letters (81 page)

4
.
Professor J. B. Rhine, Director of the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University.

5
.
By Cecil Delisle Burns; Orwell lists it under March and annotates it, ‘Skimmed.’

6
.
Warwick Deeping (1877–1950), a prolific novelist who trained as a doctor. His most successful book was
Sorrell and Son
(1925), based on his work in the Royal Army Medical Corps during World War I. Orwell does not list which book he read. He expressed some scorn for ‘the Dells and Deepings’, although he admits in
Keep the Aspidistra Flying
, p. 34: ‘Even the Dells and Deepings do at least turn out their yearly acre of print.’

7
.
Arthur Stuart-Menteith Hutchinson (1879–1971), born in Uttar Pradesh, India; a prolific novelist whose
If Winter Comes
had earlier attracted Orwell’s attention; see ‘Good Bad Books’,
Tribune
, 2 November
1945 (XVII, 2780, p. 348).

8
.
Peter Cheyney (1896–1951), prolific author, chiefly of detective stories and thrillers, though he also published poems and lyrics. He served in World War I, rose to the rank of major, and in 1916 was severely wounded. Orwell had read his
Dark Hero
.

9
.
Orwell records reading
Jude the Obscure
and
Tess of the D’Urbevilles
in February 1949.

To Julian Symons*

4 February 1949

The Cotswold Sanatorium

Cranham

Dear Julian,

Thanks so much for your letter. Do send me a copy of your thriller.
¹
I’m sure I should enjoy it. I do nothing now except read anyway, and I’m rather an amateur of detective stories, although, as you know, I have old-fashioned tastes in them. I recently by the way read for the first time
The Postman always Rings Twice
²
—what an awful book. [
Arrangements for a proposed visit.
]

My new book is a Utopia in the form of a novel. I ballsed it up rather, partly owing to being so ill while I was writing it, but I think some of the ideas in it might interest you. We haven’t definitively fixed the title, but I think it will be called
Nineteen Eighty-four
. Tony says Malcolm Muggeridge has a novel coming out about the same time.
³

Please remember me to the family.

Yours

George

[XX, 3541, p. 35; typewritten]

1
.
Bland Beginning
;
read by Orwell in February 1949.

2
.
By James M. Cain, published in 1934; read by Orwell in January 1949.

3
.
Affairs of the Heart
(1949). It was the last book listed by Orwell as read in 19
49.

In her book
Eric and Us
, Jacintha Buddicom explains that after Orwell—to her then, Eric Blair—‘had slipped away without trace’ after his visit in 1927, they had no contact. Then, on 8 February 1949, she received a letter from her Aunt Lilian (with whom they had all stayed in 1927) to say that George Orwell was Eric Blair. She telephoned Martin Secker to find where Orwell was and wrote to him on 9 February. The following two letters arrived on 17 February enclosed in the same envelope. (See
Eric and Us
, pp.
143–45 and 146–58, and especially her letter of
4
May 1972 to her cousin on page 8 of this book.)

To Jacintha Buddicom*

14 February 1949

The Cotswold Sanatorium

Cranham

Dear Jacintha,

How nice to get your letter after all these years. I suppose it really must be
30 years since the winter holidays when I stayed with you at Shiplake, though I saw Prosper and Guinever a good deal later, in 1927, when I stayed with them at Ticklerton after coming back from Burma. After that I was living in various parts of the world and often in great difficulties about making a living, and I rather lost touch with a lot of old friends. I seem to remember Prosper got married about 1930. I am a widower. My wife died suddenly four years ago, leaving me with a little (adopted) son who was then not quite a year old. Most of the time since then Avril has been keeping house for me, and we have been living in Jura, in the Hebrides, or more properly the Western Isles. I think we are going in any case to keep on the house there, but with my health as it now is I imagine I shall have to spend at least the winters in some get-at-able place where there is a doctor. In any case Richard, my little boy, who will be 5 in May, will soon have to start going to school, which he can’t satisfactorily do on the island.

I have been having this dreary disease (T.B.) in an acute way since the autumn of 1947, but of course it has been hanging over me all my life, and actually I think I had my first go of it in early childhood. I spent the first half of 1948 in hospital, then went home much better after being treated with streptomycin, then began to feel ill again about September. I couldn’t go for treatment then because I had to finish off a beastly book which, owing to illness, I had been messing about with for eighteen months. So I didn’t get to this place till about the beginning of the year, by which time I was rather sorry for myself. I am trying now not to do any work at all, and shan’t start any for another month or two. All I do is read and do crossword puzzles. I am well looked after here and can keep quiet and warm and not worry about anything, which is about the only treatment that is any good in my opinion. Thank goodness Richard is extremely tough and healthy and is unlikely, I should think, ever to get this disease.

I have never been back to the Henley area, except once passing through the town in a car. I wonder what happened to that property your mother had which we used to hunt all over with those ‘saloon rifles,’
¹
and which seemed so enormous in those days. Do you remember our passion for R. Austin Freeman?
²
I have never really lost it, and I think I must have read his entire works except some of the very last ones. I think he only died quite recently, at a great age.

I hope to get out of here in the spring or summer, and if so I shall be in London or near London for a bit. In that case I’ll come and look you up if you would like it. Meanwhile if you’d care to write again and tell me some more news I’d be very pleased. I am afraid this is rather a poor letter, but I can’t write long letters at present because it tires me to sit up for long at a time.

Yours

Eric Blair

[XX, 3550, pp. 42–3; typewritten]

1
.
Small-bore rifles used in shooting galleries – at fairs, for example.

2
.
Richard Austin Freeman (1862–1943), author of many novels and short stories, particularly featuring the pathologist-detective John Thorndyke, the first of which, written after his enforced retirement as a physician and surgeon in what is now Ghana,
The Red Thumb Mark
(1907), established Freeman (and Thorndyke). His novels and stories were characterised by their scientific accuracy. In ‘Grandeur et décadence du roman policier anglais’ (‘The Detective Story’),
Fontaine
, 1944 (XV, 2357, pp. 309–20)), Orwell describes his
The Eye of Osiris
and
The Singing Bone
as ‘classics of English detective fiction’.

To Jacintha Buddicom*

[15 February] 1949

Cranham

Hail and Fare Well, my dear Jacintha,

You see I haven’t forgotten. I wrote to you yesterday but the letter isn’t posted yet, so I’ll go on to cheer this dismal day. It’s been a day when everything’s gone wrong. First there was a stupid accident to the book I was reading, which is now unreadable. After that the typewriter stuck & I’m too poorly to fix it. I’ve managed to borrow a substitute but it’s not much better. Ever since I got your letter I’ve been remembering. I can’t stop thinking about the young days with you & Guin & Prosper, & things put out of mind for 20 and 30 years. I am so wanting to see you. We must meet when I get out of this place, but the doctor says I’ll have to stay another 3 or 4 months.

I would like you to see Richard. He can’t read yet & is rather backward in talking, but he’s as keen on fishing as I was & loves working on the farm, where he’s really quite helpful. He has an enormous interest in machinery, which may be useful to him later on. When I was not much more than his age I always knew I wanted to write, but for the first ten years it was very hard to make a living. I had to take a lot of beastly jobs to earn enough to keep going & could only write in any spare time that was left, when I was too tired & had to destroy a dozen pages for one that was worth keeping. I tore up a whole novel once
¹
& wish I now hadn’t been so ruthless. Parts of it might have been worth re-writing, though it’s impossible to come back to something written in such a different world. But I’m rather sorry now. (“’An w’en I sor wot ’e’d bin an’ gorn an’ don, I sed coo lor, wot ’ave you bin an’ gorn an’ done?”
²
) I think it’s rather a good thing Richard is such an entirely practical child.

Are you fond of children? I think you must be. You were such a tender-hearted girl, always full of pity for the creatures we others shot & killed. But you were not so tender-hearted to me when you abandoned me to Burma with all hope denied. We are older now, & with this wretched illness the years will have taken more of a toll of me than of you. But I am well cared-for here & feel much better than I did when I got here last month. As soon as I can get back to London I do so want to meet you again.

As we always ended so that there should be no ending.

Farewell and Hail.

Eric

[XX, 3551, pp. 43–4; typewritten]

1
.
In the Introduction to the French edition of
Down and Out in Paris and London,
Orwell says he wrote two novels when living in Paris.

2
.
In
Eric & Us
Jacintha Buddicom refers to this ‘old favourite joke from
Punch
’ which they both enjoyed: a sailor had knocked over a bucket of tar onto a deck newly scrubbed for an admiral’s inspection. Another sailor gave this explanation to the petty officer in charge. She comments, ‘That old joke alone, together with the ever-constant beginning and ending, would hallmark that letter as Eric’ (p. 152).

Wiadomo
ś
ci
, a Polish émigré literary weekly published in London, sent a questionnaire on Joseph Conrad to several English writers asking them two questions:

‘First, what do you believe to be his permanent place and rank in English letters? When Conrad died, some critics were uncertain of his final position, and Virginia Woolf, in particular, doubted whether any of his later novels would survive. Today, on the occasion of a new edition of his collected writings, Mr Richard Curle wrote in
Time and Tide
that Conrad’s works now rank among the great classics of the English novel. Which of these views, in your opinion, is correct?

‘The other question to which we would like to have your answer, is whether you detect in Conrad’s work any oddity, exoticism and strangeness (of course, against the background of the English literary tradition), and if so, do you attribute it to his Polish origin?’

To [the Editor],
Wiadomo
ś
ci

25 February 1949

The Cotswold Sanatorium

Cranham

Dear Sir,

Many thanks for your letter dated the 22nd February. I cannot answer at great length, as I am ill in bed, but I am happy to give you my opinions for what they are worth.

[1.] I regard Conrad as one of the best writers of this century, and— supposing that one can count him as an English writer—one of the very few true novelists that England possesses. His reputation, which was somewhat eclipsed after his death, has risen again during the past ten years, and I have no doubt that the bulk of his work will survive. During his lifetime he suffered by being stamped as a writer of ‘sea stories,’ and books like
The Secret Agent
and
Under Western Eyes
went almost unnoticed. Actually Conrad only spent about a third of his life at sea, and he had only a sketchy knowledge of the Asiatic countries of which he wrote in
Lord Jim
,
Almayer’s Folly
, etc. What he did have, however, was a sort of grown-upness and political understanding which would have been almost impossible to a native English writer at that time. I consider that his best work belongs to what might be called his middle period, roughly between 1900 and 1914. This period includes
Nostromo, Chance
,
Victory
, the two mentioned above, and several outstanding short stories.

2. Yes, Conrad has definitely a slight exotic flavour to me. That is part of his attraction. In the earlier books, such as
Almayer’s Folly
, his English is sometimes definitely incorrect, though not in a way that matters. He used I believe to think in Polish and then translate his thought into French and finally into English, and one can sometimes follow the process back at least as far as French, for instance in his tendency to put the adjective after the noun. Conrad was one of those writers who in the present century civilized English literature and brought it back into contact with Europe, from which it had been almost severed for a hundred years. Most of the writers who did this were foreigners, or at any rate not quite English—Eliot and James (Americans), Joyce and Yeats (Irish), and Conrad himself, a transplanted Pole.