The Crystal Spirit: A Study of George Orwell

by George Woodcock

The Crystal Spirit is a revealing look at the great writer and political thinker George Orwell, whose visionary work gave us the great anti-utopias of twentieth-century literature. A close friend and colleague during the last decade of that remarkable writer’s life, Woodcock was uniquely qualified to delve into the complex personal history of the man. Interwoven with Woodcock’s own memories, the letters Orwell wrote to him and the published and unpublished recollections of other people who knew him, all against the political and literary background of Orwell’s work, this groundbreaking intellectual biography is a general critique that brilliantly traces the evolution of an original writer in his most productive years. First published in 1966, it was awarded Canada’s highest literary prize, the Governor General’s Award for Literary Merit.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Politics, Autobiography

249 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

Woodcock was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, but moved with his parents to England at an early age, attending Sir William Borlase's Grammar School in Marlow and Morley College. Though his family was quite poor, Woodcock had the opportunity to go to Oxford University on a partial scholarship; however, he turned down the chance because he would have had to become a member of the clergy.Instead, he took a job as a clerk at the Great Western Railway and it was there that he first became interested in anarchism (specifically libertarian socialism). He was to remain an anarchist for the rest of his life, writing several books on the subject.

It was during these years that he met several prominent literary figures, including T. S. Eliot and Aldous Huxley and became good friends with George Orwell despite ideological disagreements. Woodcock later wrote The Crystal Spirit (1966), a critical study of Orwell and his work which won a Governor General's Award.

Woodcock spent World War II working on a farm, as a conscientious objector. At Camp Angel in Oregon, a camp for conscientious objectors, he was a founder of the Untide Press, which sought to bring poetry to the public in an inexpensive but attractive format. Following the war, he returned to Canada, eventually settling in Vancouver, British Columbia. In 1955, he took a post in the English department of the University of British Columbia, where he stayed until the 1970s. Around this time he started to write more prolifically, producing several travel books and collections of poetry, as well as the works on anarchism for which he is best known.

Towards the end of his life, Woodcock became increasingly interested in what he saw as the plight of Tibetans. He travelled to India, studied Buddhism, became friends with the Dalai Lama and established the Tibetan Refugee Aid Society. He and his wife Inge also established Canada India Village Aid, which sponsors self-help projects in rural India. Both organizations exemplify Woodcock's ideal of voluntary cooperation between peoples across national boundaries.

George and Inge also established a program to support professional Canadian writers. The Woodcock Fund, which began in 1989, provides financial assistance to writers in mid-book-project who face an unforeseen financial need that threatens the completion of their book. The Fund is available to writers of fiction, creative non-fiction, plays, and poetry. The Woodcocks helped create an endowment for the program in excess of two million dollars. The Woodcock Fund program is administered by the Writers’ Trust of Canada and has distributed $887,273 to 180 Canadian writers, as of March 2012.

Reviews

[1.1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nearly a perfect book of criticism, accessible yet deep, written in prose that Orwell would commend, full of considerations and details that portray a conflicted and complex writer. It is all the better because Woodcock was briefly a friend of Orwell's in the later part of his life, which allows for good insights and quite interesting anecdotes. The closing chapter has a bit of a rushed, breathless quality to it, suggesting that Woodcock didn't have a grand conclusion to make, but a book like this doesn't need a grand conclusion.

The book is structured effectively, naturally progressing through biographical considerations and into analyses of Orwell's written works (nearly all of them are mentioned, excepting the very early stuff which Woodcock excludes as 'unimportant'), and pertinent discussion of Orwell's changing political views. Since Woodcock is no slouch, this book also gives one a fairly good idea of Orwell's era, and the larger and smaller events which shaped his responses. Since Woodcock is honest, the internal contradictions are explored, and there is no fawning about Orwell - but time and again Woodcock insists on Orwell's fastidiousness and decency, without making apologies or equivocating.

A must-read for anyone who cares about Orwell, or good prose, or good fiction. It wouldn't hurt to have an appreciation for good, insightful criticism (certainly a waning art in our time), but I wouldn't consider it a necessity in order to appreciate this. Read it. It will make you a better person.

[Matthew Carr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really insightful study of Orwell's politics and work by the anarchist historian and critic George Woodcock. Woodcock became a friend of Orwell's, even though Orwell had earlier criticized him, and the last chapter on Orwell the writer is particularly good. In short, an essential port of call for anyone with any interest in Orwell.

[Varmint · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a strange thing to say about a biography. But I sort of felt like I was intruding. From Burma to Catalonia, Orwell spilled his life out in his writings. This book covers the gaps. I could have figured for myself that he had an unhappy childhood. And stories of his failed loves made me uneasy. I sort of wish I'd honored his desire to keep a few things private.

I realized I've talked more about my own discomfort than the actual book. Woodcock knew Orwell for the last few years of his life, And this is as close as we'll ever get to him. It's worth it for that.


In the past few years many new details have emerged. Including the files british intelligence kept on him. Would be interested to see what the biographers do with that.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Invaluable guide to Orwell’s political development by someone who actually knew him.

[Richard Parfitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Crystal Spirit is a memoir centred on literature, with a curious mix of personal recollection and close textual analysis. Although Woodcock structures his work around each of Orwell's major publications, he delves significantly into matters of biography and politics throughout.

From a literary point of view, the author provides enlightening and expansive comments on the various influences in Orwell's writing. Unusually for a book of this length, he is at pains to point out how poor he believed much of Orwell's work to be. In this, he is ably backed up by comments from the author himself. Orwell was deeply critical of his earliest work, and not much more charitable about his later masterpieces. Woodcock follows suit, seeking to explain the failure of books like A Clergyman's Daughter and Keep the Aspidistra Flying while also insisting that Nineteen Eighty-Four is similarly flawed. His belief that Orwell never wrote a truly complete novel is one echoed elsewhere, but one would be forgiven for questioning the validity of the definition if one of the century's most impactful novels is not, in fact, a novel.

On politics and personal experience, Woodcock makes a fair and robust case against the appropriation of Orwell by American conservatives. These points, which seem more obvious to a modern reader, were nevertheless live issues at the time of publication and Woodcock's clearsightedness is well conveyed. There are several jarring attempts to claim Orwell as a closet anarchist, but these are short-lived and should not detract from an otherwise engaging biography, told with the art of writing first and foremost in mind.

[Philippe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Une biographie de George Orwell par un de ses amis canadien George Woodcock. Toutes les œuvres d’Orwell sont analysées et commentées avec parfois des parallèles avec des auteurs des XIX et XXèmes siècles : romans, essais, articles, recensions. Ouvrage facile à lire et fort instructif.