George Orwell: A Life in Letters (9 page)

Recevez, cher Monsieur, l’expression de mes meillieurs sentiments.

Eric Blair (‘George Orwell’)

For Orwell’s notes the identical paginations of
Complete Works I
and the Penguin Twentieth-Century editions are given within square brackets after each reference.

Page 228 [170, line 7]: ‘…tum – a thing to make one shudder’ etc. In Hindustani
³
there are two words for ‘you’ – ‘ap’ and ‘tum.’ ‘Ap’ is the more respectful word. ‘Tum’ is only used between close friends or from a superior to an inferior. To say ‘tum’ is nearly the same thing as addressing someone by ‘tu’. An Englishman in India would therefore be very angry if a Hindu addressed him with ‘tum.’

Page 159 [118,
4 lines up]
and 240–241 [179, 6 lines up]: ‘Bahinchut’ etc. ‘Bahinchut’ is a Hindustani word that one should never address to a Hindu but which, unfortunately, one uses rather often. It is quite difficult to translate. ‘Bahin’ means ‘sister’ and ‘chut’ means the sexual organ. By saying ‘Bahinchut’ to a man, you are saying ‘I am very familiar with the sexual organs of your sister’ – in other words, I have slept with her. One would perhaps be able to translate ‘bahinchut’ as ‘brother-in-law.’ The English soldiers brought this word home from India in the form ‘barnshoot’, which has been accepted as quite an innocent word in England.

Pages 238–239 [178, lines 1
2–13]: ‘The current London adjective’ etc. This adjective is ‘fucking.’ ‘Fuck’ means ‘to fuck,’ and ‘fucking’ is the present participle.

Page 239, line 19 [178, lines 27–28]: ‘For example -----.’ The word is ‘fuck.’ The English no longer use this word in the sense of ‘fornicating,’ which was its original meaning, but simply as an expletive.

Page 239, line 23 [
178, line 31]: ‘Similarly with----.’ The word is ‘bugger’.

Page 239 line 25 [179, lines 1–2]: ‘One can think etc.’ These words are ‘fuck’ and ‘bugger.’ ‘Fuck’ which takes its origin from the Latin ‘futuo’ originally meant ‘to fornicate,’ but workers use it as a simple expletive in such expressions as ‘I will fuck the lot of them,’ ‘we’re fucked’ etc. etc. The word ‘bougre’ is the same as ‘bugger,’ both being derived from ‘Bulgare’ or ‘Bulgar,’ because in the sixteenth century the Bulgarians, or even the Cathars, were suspected of practising sins against nature. But although the Parisian workers sometimes use the word ‘bugger,’ they do not know, according to my observation, what it originally meant.

Page 256
[191, 4 lines up]: ‘The one bite law.’ According to the English law, if a dog bites two men, its owner is obliged to kill it. The first time the dog is forgiven. This is where the expression ‘one bite law’ comes from.

Page 259 [194, line 7]: ‘Bull shit’ is an expression which means bulls’ excrement. A man says to another ‘you are talking bull shit;’ in other words, ‘You are talking nonsense.’ It is a very impolite expression

[
LO
, pp. 8–13; X, 210A, p. 353; typewritten]

1
.
Burmese Days
was published in France by Nagel, Paris, as
Tragédie Birmane
on 31
August 1946. The translation was made by Guillot de Saix. Orwell was paid a royalty of £5 17s 9d on 29 September 1945.

2
.
André Malraux (1901–76). Novelist and leftist intellectual. He left Paris for Indochina and China when he was 21 and became involved with the revolutionary movements then stirring. Founding the Young Annam League, he later travelled to Afghanistan and Iran and returned to Indochina in 1
926. His experiences led to the novels
, Les Conquérants
(1928),
La Voie royale
(1930), and then, and most successfully,
La Condition humaine
(1933). He did not write an introduction for
Down and Out,
nor for
Burmese Days.
It was later suggested that he might write a preface to
Homage to Catalonia
but, despite his having served in Spain, did not do so, perhaps because he moved to the Right, later becoming Minister of Information and then of Culture in General de Gaulle’s government after the war. From 1928 he was a member of Gallimard’s Reading Committee and, from 1929, its Artistic Director.

3
.
Orwell had passed Indian Police examinations in Hindi, Burmese and Shaw-Karen.

To Leonard Moore*

14 November 1934

3 Warwick Mansions

Pond St

Hampstead NW3

Dear Mr Moore,

Many thanks for your letter—I hope you can read my handwriting—I have left my typewriter down in the shop.

I knew there would be trouble over that novel.
¹
However, I am anxious to get it published, as there are parts of it I was pleased with, & I dare say that if I had indicated to me the sort of changes that Mr Gollancz wants, I could manage it. I am willing to admit that the part about the school, which is what seems to have roused people’s incredulity, is overdrawn, but not nearly so much so as people think. In fact I was rather amused to see that they say ‘all that was done away with 30 or 40 years ago’ etc, as one always hears that any particularly crying abuse was ‘done away with 30 or 40 years ago.’ As to this part, it is possible that if Mr Gollancz agrees, a little ‘toning down’ might meet the bill. I dont° want to bother you with details about this, however.

As to the points about libel, swearwords etc., they are a very small matter & could be put right by a few strokes of the pen. The book does, however, contain an inherent fault of structure
²
which I will discuss with Mr Gollancz, & this could not be rectified in any way that I can think of. I was aware of it when I wrote the book, & imagined that it did not matter, because I did not intend it to be so realistic as people seem to think it is.

I wonder if you could be kind enough to arrange an interview for me with Mr Gollancz?
³
I should think it would take quite an hour to talk over the various points, if he can spare me that much time. I don’t particularly mind what day or time I see him, so long as I know a day beforehand so as to let them know at the shop.

I have seen one review of
Burmese Days
in the
Herald Tribune
. Rather a bad one, I am sorry to say—however, big headlines, which I suppose is what counts.

Yours sincerely

Eric A Blair

P.S. [at top of letter] If you should have occasion to ring up about the interview, my number is Hampstead 2153.
⁴

[X, 215, p. 358.; handwritten]

1
.
Orwell had sent the manuscript of
A Clergyman’s Daughter
to Moore on 3 October. Victor Gollancz must have read it quickly for on 9 November he wrote to Moore about his reservations. On 13 November Moore wrote to Gollancz to tell him that ‘in view of what you say I think you may like to know that when sending the manuscript to me the author pointed out that “in case the point should come up, the school described in chapter IV is totally imaginary, though of course I have drawn on my general knowledge of what goes on in schools of that type.”’ Moore must have sent Orwell details of this and other objections to the novel; this letter is Orwell’s response. For problems posed by
A Clergyman’s Daughter
, see III, Textual Note and Crick, pp. 256–8.

2
.
This may refer to Dorothy’s sudden loss of memory, which is implicitly a belated result of Warburton’s assault on her (p. 41), leading to her finding herself in the New Kent Road, London (Chapter 2). Rape was a taboo subject in the 1930s. The long section about the school where Dorothy taught would have caused Gollancz anxiety because he had published a fictional account of a school in Kensington in Rosalind Wade’s
Children Be Happy
which had led to a libel action. (See
26.4.32
, n. 3.)

3
.
Annotated in Moore’s office: ‘3.30 Geo Orwell,’ presumably for 19 November 1
934.

4
.
The telephone number of Booklovers’ Corner (see
20.11.34
, n. 1).

To Leonard Moore*

20 November 1934

Booklovers’ Corner

1 South End Road

Hampstead NW 3
¹

Dear Mr Moore,

Thanks for your letter. I had a talk with Gollancz yesterday, & we decided that it lay between cutting out or ‘toning down’ the part objected to. The former would be easier, but it would I think make the ending of the book too abrupt, so I am going to rewrite that chapter, which will take about a month. I told Gollancz I would send it to him direct.

I am glad M. Raimbault likes
Burmese Days
. No, I shouldn’t think it would be much use trying it elsewhere. I did, however, hear that Wishart (a publisher I had never heard of)
²
will publish books that other people are afraid of. No pressing°-cuttings yet from New York, I suppose?
³

Yours sincerely

Eric A Blair

[X, 216, p. 359; handwritten]

1
.
This is written on paper with a printed letterhead. It gives the telephone number (Hampstead 2153), and ‘Francis G. Westrope, Bookseller, &c.’ with a framed line drawing captioned ‘South End Green in 1833, now the Tram Terminus.’

2
.
Lawrence & Wishart is still active. Ernest Edward Wishart (1902–1987) founded the publishing house of Wishart & Co shortly after completing a degree in history and law at Cambridge. He published Nancy Cunard’s
Negro
and books by Geoffrey Gorer, Roy Campbell, E. M. Forster, Aldous Huxley and Bertrand Russell; from 1925 to 192
7 Wishart published
The Calendar of Modern Letters
, edited by Edgell Rickword. Despite his Marxist sympathies, Wishart refused to join the Communist Party. In 1935 he merged with Martin Lawrence. They published the complete works of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin.

3
.
Annotated in Moore’s office: ‘Some have crossed this letter.’

To R. N. Raimbault*

29 November 1934

3 Warwick Mansions

Hampstead NW [3]

Cher Monsieur Raimbault,

I would have replied earlier to your very kind letter, but I have had a terrible cold for a few days, thanks to the poor weather that we have had recently. The fog was sometimes so thick that you could not see from one side of the road to the other. Princess Marina,
¹
who has just arrived to marry Prince George, must have a very bad impression of the weather of her adopted country. But now, thankfully, it is a bit better, and I feel well enough to write letters.

I was, as you can believe, very flattered by your opinion of
Burmese Days
. Let’s hope that Mr Malraux will be of the same opinion. Regarding
La Vache Enragée
,
²
if Mr Francis Carco agrees to write an introduction, I shall, naturally, be extremely grateful. When you told me that you had translated William Faulkner’s books, I thought you must be ‘the nonpareil,’ among translators, as Shakespeare put it.
³
Personally, I cannot imagine a more difficult author for a foreigner to translate; but of course, his style, however complicated, is truly distinguished. It seems likely to me that after a century, or even fifty years, English and American will no longer be the same language
⁴
– which will be a shame because the Australians and Canadians etc. will probably prefer to follow the Americans.

Having thanked you for your letter, what I should like to do is ask if you would be interested in seeing an article on Mr Malraux which appeared two months ago in the
Adelphi
(a monthly journal to which I contribute now and again). I can send you a copy without any difficulty. Also, the other day whilst I was looking through my books I found by chance a collection,
Nursery Rhymes
, and the idea came to me that it might interest you, assuming you don’t already possess such a collection. Nursery Rhymes are usually total nonsense, but they are so well known in England that they are quoted almost unconsciously when writing and they have exerted a big influence on some modern poets such as Robert Graves and T. S. Eliot.
⁵
If you think that the book would interest you, I will be very happy to send it to you.

If you have occasion to write to me, my address will be as above. At the moment I am working in a bookshop. It is a job that suits me much better than teaching.
⁶

Veuillez agréer, Monsieur, l’expression de mes meilleurs sentiments.

Eric A Blair

[
LO,
pp.22–4
; X, 216B, p. 359; typewritten]

1
.
Princess Marina of Greece married Prince George, Duke of Kent, on 29 November 1934. She proved with the public a gracious and very popular member of the Royal Family.

2
.
The title of the French translation of
Down and Out.
(
See
22.12.35
, n. 2.)