Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays

by George Orwell, George Packer

George Orwell was first and foremost an essayist,producing throughout his life an extraordinary array of short nonfiction that reflected--and illuminated--the fraught times in which he lived. "As soon as he began to write something," comments George Packer in his foreword, "it was as natural for Orwell to propose, generalize, qualify, argue, judge--in short, to think--as it was for Yeats to versify or Dickens to invent."Facing Unpleasant Facts charts Orwell's development as a master of the narrative-essay form and unites such classics as "Shooting an Elephant" with lesser-known journalism and passages from his wartime diary. Whether detailing the horrors of Orwell's boyhood in an English boarding school or bringing to life the sights, sounds, and smells of the Spanish Civil War, these essays weave together the personal and the political in an unmistakable style that is at once plainspoken and brilliantly complex.

Contents:
The Spike
Clink
A Hanging
Shooting an Elephant
Bookshop Memories
Marrakech
My Country Right or Left
War-time Diary
England Your England
Dear Doktor Goebbels - Your British Friends Are Feeding Fine!
Looking Back on the Spanish War
As I Please, 1
As I Please, 2
As I Please, 3
As I Please, 16
Revenge Is Sour
The Case for the Open Fire
The Sporting Spirit
In Defence of English Cooking
A Nice Cup of Tea
The Moon Under Water
In Front of Your Nose
Some Thoughts on the Common Toad
A Good Word for the Vicar of Bray
Why I Write
How the Poor Die
Such, Such Were the Joys

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, History, Politics, Classics, Literature, Journalism

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Eric Arthur Blair was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to all totalitarianism (both fascism and stalinism), and support of democratic socialism.

Orwell is best known for his allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), although his works also encompass literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics, literature, language and culture.

Orwell's work remains influential in popular culture and in political culture, and the adjective "Orwellian"—describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices—is part of the English language, like many of his neologisms, such as "Big Brother", "Thought Police", "Room 101", "Newspeak", "memory hole", "doublethink", and "thoughtcrime". In 2008, The Times named Orwell the second-greatest British writer since 1945.

Reviews

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am well in awe of George Orwell. What can I say.

[Noah Goats · Rating 4 out of 5]

I intended to read this book over the course of a couple weeks. An essay here, an essay there, and in a while I'd be finished. But, as it turns out, it was hard to limit myself to one essay at a time.

One reason for this is Orwell's gift for first lines. 1984 has a famously creepy opening sentence (or, it USED to be creepy before most of the world adopted 24 hour clocks. That bit about the clocks striking 13 is actually one of his more harmless predictions to come true). But he outdoes 1984's first line twice in this collection. One of these essays opens with this: "As the corpse went past the flies left the restaurant table in a cloud and rushed after it, but they came back a few minutes later." Another begins, "As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me."

Now, how can I be expected to stop reading a book when I take a peek at the next essay and it starts with something like that? Impossible.

It's been a long time since I read any Orwell. I went through an Orwell phase in college and read all of his books (except for Keep the Aspidistra Flying which, for some reason, I refuse to believe is any good), and I was instantly reminded of what I liked about him. He's a great writer, and nearly all his major work is driven by his need to fight totalitarianism, inequality and injustice. In this collection he tackles imperialism, racism, fascism, communism, capitalism, war, and English cooking (which he patriotically defends). These essays have been well chosen to give the reader a taste of just about everything.

[Scott Rhee · Rating 5 out of 5]

George Orwell is perhaps best known as a novelist, but, truth be told, in his career as a writer, Orwell only published six novels. Granted, that “only” covers some amazingly unforgettable and important novels, like “1984” and “Animal Farm”, both of which have earned and surpassed their “modern classic” status.

Orwell was probably most prolific with his essays, a broad category that covered articles, reviews, and short memoirs that he had published in various literary publications throughout his lifetime.

George Packer, in 2008, compiled a selection of Orwell’s essays in two volumes. The first was a selection of critical essays entitled “All Art is Propaganda”, which consisted of various book reviews, movie reviews, and sharp political commentary.

The companion piece, “Facing Unpleasant Facts”, focuses on Orwell’s narrative essays, short works that had as their focus mainly entertainment, many of which were published elsewhere but also including a few that have never been published.

Some of the essays, like “The Spike”, were either used as the basis for, or excerpted from, some of Orwell’s longer works. “The Spike” refers to the slang term for “workhouse”, a place where the destitute and poor came to find jobs, shelter, and food. Orwell was, in his later 20s, living on the streets and struggling to find scraps of food. This experience would later be documented in his memoir, “Down and Out in Paris and London”.

Some essays came out of his experience as a military police officer in Burma, an experience that opened his eyes to the tyranny of British colonialism and imperialism and started him on his life-long path of democratic socialism.

“Shooting an Elephant”, perhaps his best-known essay (it is often found in just about every high school or college English Literature textbook), is an allegedly* true story of Orwell’s experience in which a rampaging elephant threatens a busy Burmese marketplace, and Orwell must fight his inner turmoil over killing a majestic beast versus the safety of the people in the village.

(*I say “allegedly” because there is, according to Packer, some doubt as to whether this event actually ever occurred or if it was embellished by Orwell’s imagination. No existing military documents or local news accounts can corroborate the incident. Not that it matters. It’s still a great essay.)

Some essays delve into the rarely-seen aspect of Orwell’s childhood and upbringing, such as the never-published “Such, Such Were the Joys”, which is an unflinching and disturbing look at the boys’ prep school that Orwell attended as a youth. It’s perhaps clear why the essay was unpublished, as it describes, often in graphic detail, some of the harsh bullying and violence perpetrated by older boys against the younger, including homosexual assault. Adults were rarely present, and when they were around, they were often dispassionate or indifferent to the boys’ suffering. They were more interested in sucking the money out of parents than providing a decent education.

Some essays are strictly informative. “A Nice Cup of Tea” is simply Orwell’s eleven rules for preparing a cup of tea. If you ever thought the seriousness with which the English put into teatime was a stereotype or exaggerated in any way, this essay will clear up that misconception. The English do take their teatime seriously. Very.

Every essay in “Facing Unpleasant Facts” is immensely enjoyable and showcases the economy of language, the range in tone and topic, and the sheer brilliance of Orwell.

[Jade · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not sure about US education, but in England (and France), one is (or was when I was at school) fed with George Orwell from an early age. I think I read Animal Farm about 6 times between the ages of 11 and 22, and it never felt like a chore. And it’s still completely relevant today, making it pretty timeless. But I really fell in love with George Orwell in my late teens, while studying British social history in a French university (I was born in England but grew up in France). I loved the professor, her focus on women in society was wonderful, refreshing, and super interesting. And she also introduced me to Orwell’s essays and his brilliant overviews of society and all it entails during his time.
In my opinion, Orwell’s brilliance lies in his ability to not only really see and evaluate the world around him, but also to be able to accurately record it in a way that is still interesting for everyone to read. His prose is smart, funny, and honest, and he never shied away from describing his own personal shortcomings and views. For example, in Shooting An Elephant, he readily confronts his own conflicted feelings on how he despises imperialism for all it stands for, but still can’t help despising the natives in Burma, because they hate him and what he stands for. He doesn’t pretend to be anyone other than who he is, and provides the reader with personal, and not always easy to digest, viewpoints.
This collection is really just Orwellian excellence, and I would recommend it to anyone, even those who have never read any of Orwell’s work before. While he was definitely a writer of his time, and a lot of his work contains descriptions and thoughts of the world of his time, most of these can be adapted to our world today. There are some racist and classist statements within some of the essays that will make you cringe (see Shooting An Elephant for example, as well as some of the comments in his war diaries), but he also never seemed to have any qualms about confronting his own take on some of those statements.
I had to laugh out loud during Bookshop Memories, not just because it is still so relevant today, but because of the mention of “The Mill on the Floss by T.S. Eliot”. I wonder if it was just a mistake, and reprint mistake, or deliberately added by the author to see if we were paying attention? I guess I will never know!
One highlight out of many: “Apparently nothing will ever teach these people that the other 99% of the population exist.” (From War-Time Diary). Some things never really change do they? Orwell’s observations in his journal are so interesting and important - and a good reminder for us all to record current events in our personal journals as they could be of use to our future generations when analyzing historical events.
All in all a great collection. Now I need to reread Homage to Catalonia.

[Victor Wu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Orwell is hands-down my favorite essayist and political writer. I find his prose style and overall world perspective (firmly left-liberal, but harshly dismissive of the naivete and detachment of certain elements of the left intelligentsia from reality, especially in the face of Nazi/Stalinist totalitarian threat) deeply resonant and still astonishingly relevant today. I think this one quote sums up his views well: "To survive you often have to fight, and to fight you have to dirty yourself. War is evil, and it is often the lesser evil." (p. 154). Especially recommend the essays "Shooting an Elephant," "My Country Right or Left," "Looking Back on the Spanish War," "In Front of Your Nose," and "Why I Write."

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love how Orwell infuses these personal and political essays with first-hand experience that gives such power to his journalism. I agree with editor George Packer that "Orwell's belief in the supremacy of sensory evidence restricted him as a novelist and critic."

But his individual voice shines in the flexible form of the essay. The pieces span his career, from witnessing "A Hanging" and "Shooting An Elephant" as a colonial policeman in Burma, to prescriptive slice-of-life pieces ("In Defence of English Cooking" and "A Nice Cup of Tea" to stating his raison d'etre in "Why I Write": "Good prose is like a window pane."

And he reflects on the power time and distance give the writer, in his end-of-life memoir of his schooldays, "Such, Such Were the Joys."
"At twenty I could have written the history of my schooldays with an accuracy which would be quite impossible now," Orwell writes. "But it can also happen that one's memories grow sharper after a long lapse of time, because one is looking at the past with frsh eyes and can isolate and, as it were, notice facts which previously existed undifferentiated among a mass of others."

[Ollie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I owe a debt of gratitude to George Orwell, because it’s his book that I picked up than 10 years ago that sparked my interest in reading. I don’t know why I picked 1984 but it stuck… hard. It might have been my strange attempt to learn more about history and politics but I was very proud of myself when I finished it even though I had no clue what 1984 and Animal Farm were really about.

Orwell, is of course known for these two books and generally as a novelist, but he was also a very prolific writer, and some of his many short non-fiction essays and columns have been curated here in Facing Unpleasant facts.

Just a few essays in and I really started wondering why Orwell isn’t more well known as an essayist, because these chapters are some of the most fun, informative, and engaging I’ve ever read. Orwell was himself kind of a working man having served in the army, faced poverty, and worked as a journalist, and his common language writing style is simple and easy to understand, while still containing a perfect flow.

The subjects of these essays range from serving in the Spanish Civil War, being force to shoot an elephant, spending time in a homeless shelter, defending English cooking, how to make a cup of tea, and his childhood in boarding school. Throughout these essays, his writing is witty, charming, and quite persuasive in the points they’re trying to make. Although I could have done without his war time diary which was a little tedious.

The only shame about Facing Unpleasant Facts is that it isn’t twice as long. It’s a revelation and highly recommended.

[Duy Nguyen · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a 3.5 for me. Some essays are masterful, some are so dull and without prior knowledge of the political parties in the UK circa WW2 they are hard to fully appreciate. I particularly enjoyed ones that almost seem like fiction, where Orwell's narratives really shine without losing track of his political viewpoints.

[Sam Muttdon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Orwell’s observations are at once simple and extraordinarily insightful. The majority of essays in this collection are written between 1935 and 1945 but are no less relevant today than when they were originally published. His ideas, however complex, are expressed so cogently to make them universally accessible, not a word is wasted. I could not recommend this any higher; a timeless collection of essays from a timeless writer.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Orwell's power as a journalist shines in these essays. He infuses his own experiences, politics and opinion, which proves to make each essay powerful and readable (biased or not). His experiences as a correspondent adds flavor and color that is often absent with other authors.

[Cristian N. · Rating 5 out of 5]

My admiration for Orwell is sincere and unlimited.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Orwell is always interesting, even in his essays that are less substantial. but fortunately a lot of what's included in this volume does indeed have weight. Orwell had a pretty clear-eyed view of human nature, particularly its darker or more shadowy side.

[Underconsumed Knowledge · Rating 4 out of 5]

A handful of Orwell essays (he was first and foremost an essayist) which remain incredibly pertinent today. My notes from reading below:

Calls out writers “to whom murder is at most a word.” and who “can swallow totalitarianism because they have no experience of anything except liberalism.” ”Ours was the one-eyed pacifism that is peculiar to sheltered countries with strong navies... in ‘enlightened’ circles. 1914-18 was written off as a meaningless slaughter, and even the men who had been slaughtered were held to be in some way to blame...” Thus, Orwell acknowledges the necessity of war, sometimes. "When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, I am going to produce a work of art.' I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention.” “...my ‘story’ ceased to be narcissistic in a crude way and became more and more a mere description of what I was doing and the things I saw.” “I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally.” Life is a double edged sword; Packer in introduction says it demands of readers to have a “grown-upness about life—that you accept its complexities, "its refusal to provide happy endings, without losing or surrendering the ability to judge.” “...the earth is still going round the sun, and neither the dictators nor the bureaucrats, deeply as they disapprove of the process, are able to prevent it.” “The child thinks of growing old as an almost obscene calamity, which for some mysterious reason will never happen to itself. All who have passed the age of thirty are joyless grotesques, endlessly fussing about things of no importance and staying alive without, so far as the child can see, having anything to live for.” In “Shooting an Elephant,” Orwell is “an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys... For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the ‘natives,’, and so in every crisis he has got to do what the ‘natives’ expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it. I had got to shoot the elephant.” “I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.” Points to the capacity for groups of humans to dehumanize one another, as they went through a hanging, had a drink together, with a man hanging nearby. “He is serving his country, which has the power to absolve him from evil. One cannot see the modern world as it is unless one recognizes the overwhelming strength of patriotism, national loyalty... as a positive force there is nothing to set beside it. Christianity and international Socialism are as weak as a straw in comparison with it. Hitler and Mussolini rose to power in their own countries very largely because they could grasp this fact and their opponents could not.” “Also, one must admit that the divisions between nation and nation are founded on real differences of outlook. Till recently it was thought proper to pretend that all human beings are very much alike, but in fact anyone able to use his eyes knows that the average of human behaviour differs enormously from country to country...” Orwell points out that some things the Nazis did could have happened only in Germany; Sowell says an event such as the Holocaust could have happened to any nation. “And above all, it is your civilization, it is you. However much you hate it or laugh at it, you will never be happy away from it for any length of time. The suet puddings and the red pillar-boxes have entered into your soul. Good or evil, it is yours, you belong to it, and this side the grave you will never get away from the marks that it has given you.” This echoes both Crime and Punishment as well as James Baldwin. On drifters who hang around in bookshops, “For all their big talk there is something moth-eaten and aimless about them.” They just wanted love, acceptance, someone to talk to, so they pretended to buy books, giving them “the illusion they were spending real money.” “Stamp-collectors are a strange silent fish-like reed, of all ages, but only of the male sex; women, apparently, fail to see the peculiar charm of gumming bits of coloured paper into albums.” “But the real reason why I should not like to be in the book trade for life is that while I was in it I lost my love books.” Orwell points to the love of a donkey who is abused by humans, but for a lack of social feeling for the brown man. “People with brown skins are next door to invisible. Anyone can be sorry for the donkey with its galled back, but it is generally owing to some kind of accident if one even notices the old woman under her load of sticks.” “Patriotism has nothing to do with conservatism. It is devotion to something that is changing but is felt to be mystically the same, like the devotion of the ex-White Bolshevik to Russia.” “I grew up in an atmosphere tinged with militarism, and afterwards I spent five boring years within the sound of bugles... I would sooner have had that kind of upbringing than be like the left-wing intellectuals who are so ‘enlightened’’ that they cannot understand the most ordinary emotions. It is exactly the people whose hearts have never leapt at the sight of a Union Jack who will flinch from revolution when the moment comes.” There is still “...a spiritual need for patriotism and the military virtues....” “Similarly such horrors as the Russian purges never surprised me, because I had always felt that-not exactly that, but something like that-was implicit in Bolshevik rule. I could feel it in their literature.” On the thin veneer that is society, he points out that during WWII, “...English people, ie. people of a kind who would be likely to loot shops, don't as a rule take a spontaneous interest in foreign politics...” on those who attacked Italian shopkeepers, and on these same people who he painted as not-at-all interested in the goings-on of the war. “Nevertheless, nothing is causeless, and even the fact that Englishmen have bad teeth can tell one something about the realities of English life.” Orwell was not afraid to ask why, when civilization is. “And like everything else [England] can change only in certain directions, which hup to a point can be foreseen... certain alternatives are possible and others not. A seed may grow or not grow, but at any rate a turnip seed never grows into a parsnip. It is therefore of the deepest important to try and determine what England is before guessing what part England can play in the huge events that are happening.” You cannot address problems without knowing what they are. Orwell was bought into the left-idea that “...economic liberty, the right to exploit others for profit...” is not good, but that we should have other liberties, to determine how we want to live our lives. “One thing one notices if one looks directly at the common people, especially in the big towns, is that they are not puritanical. They are inveterate gamblers, drink as much beer as their wages will permit, are devoted to bawdy jokes, and use probably the foulest language in the world.” The “hypocritical laws” try to “interfere with everybody but in practice allow everything to happen.” He also says they are “without definite religious belief, and have been so for centuries” at least in England; “And yet they have retained a deep tinge of Christian feeling, while almost forgetting the name of Christ. The power-worship which is the new religion of Europe, and which has infected the English intelligentsia, has never touched the common people”. "In England people are still hanged by the neck... punishments obscene as well as cruel, but there has never been any genuinely popular outcry against them. People accept them... almost as they accept the weather. They are part of ‘the law,’ which is assumed to be unalterable.” Mirroring comments in Wigan Pier about fidelity to authority. “An illusion can become a half-truth, a mask can alter the expression of a face. The familiar arguments to the effect that democracy is just the same as" or "just as bad as” totalitarianism never take account of this fact. All such arguments boil down to saying that half a loaf is the same as no bread. In England such concepts as justice, liberty and objective truth are still believed in. They may be illusions, but they are very powerful illusions. The belief in them influences conduct, national life is different because of them. In proof of which, look about you... The sword is still in the scabbard, and while it stays there corruption cannot go beyond a certain point. The English electoral system, for instance, is an all but open a fraud. In a dozen obvious ways it is gerrymandered in the interest of the moneyed class. But until some deep change has occurred in the public mind, it cannot become completely corrupt. You do not arrive at the polling booth to find men with revolvers telling you which way to vote, nor are the votes miscounted, nor is there any direct bribery... [The hanging judge] is a symbol of the strange mixture of reality and illusion, democracy and privilege, humbug and decency, the subtle network of compromises, by which the nation keeps itself in its familiar shape.” “It follows that British democracy is less of a fraud than it sometimes appears. A foreign observer sees only the huge inequality of wealth, the unfair electoral system, the governing-class control over the Press, the radio and education, and concludes that democracy is simply a polite name for dictatorship. But this ignores the considerable agreement that does unfortunately exist between the leaders and the led. However much one may hate to admit it, it is almost certain that between 1931 and 1940 the National Government represented the will of the mass of the people. It tolerated slums, unemployment and a cowardly foreign policy. Yes, but so did public opinion.” Of Chamberlain, “And public opinion was behind him all the while, in policies that were completely incompatible with one another.” “It is safe to let a paper like Peace News be sold, because it is certain that ninety-five per cent of the population will never want to read it. The nation is bound together by an invisible chain. At any normal time the ruling class will rob, mismanage, sabotage, lead us into the muck; but let popular opinion really make itself heart, let them get a tug from below that they cannot avoid feeling, and it is difficult for them not to respond.” The rulers are “tossed to and fro between their incomes and their principles”. “The mentality of the English left-wing intelligentsia can be studied in half a dozen weekly and monthly papers. The immediately striking thing about all these papers is their generally negative, querulous attitude, their complete lack at all times of any constructive suggestion. There is little in them except the irresponsible carping of people who have never been and never expect to be in a position of power. Another marked characteristic is the emotional shallowness of people who live in a world of ideas and have little contact with physical reality. Many intellectuals of the Left were flabbily pacifist up to 1935, shrieked for war against Germany in the years 1935-9, and then promptly cooled off when the war started. It is broadly though not precisely true that the people who were most "anti-Fascist" during the Spanish civil war are most defeatist now. And underlying this is the really important fact about so many of the English intelligentsia— their severance from the common culture of the country.” “In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution...” “Patriotism and intelligence will have to come together again.” Intellectuals cannot regard all “physical courage as barbarous.” “...if you taxed all large incomes out of existence, it still would not make much difference to the taxes the rest of us would have to pay... [but] This argument... leaves out of account the effect of envy on morale, on the ‘we-are-all-in-it-together' feeling which is absolutely necessary in time of war.” Thus, appearance trumps substance, in a strange way, due to this factor of human nature. This is the “people get angry” factor of Angrynomics.

[GEORGE MARQUES · Rating 5 out of 5]

Any anthology of texts, either fiction or non-fiction, are almost bound to be uneven, since any selection must conform with the editor's tastes, jugdement and idiossincrasies. This could also be true to this anthology of George Orwell's essays, which cover a broad range of themes (Spanish Civil War, Britain under the blitz, memories of school days, the proper ways to drink tea), of format (mostly short essays, but also fragments of a diary, newspaper columms, long text) and of tone (always analytical, balanced). In all of them Orwell proves himself to be a master of the genre. He knows how to convey facts and ideas in a very clear, objective and straighforward prose, never letting the reader out of his spell of reasoning.

One cannot always agree with Orwell opinions, and some of his themes look outdated (the future os Soviet Communism), but after reading any of his texts we get the feeling to have been engaged in conversation wih someone very intelligent, honest and respectful. Orwell's texts are, most of them at least, masterpieces on the art of the essay in the way to be argumentative and engage in a dialogue with the reader. They should be required reading for actual and aspiring journalists.

[Art · Rating 5 out of 5]

George Orwell ranks as my favorite writer of all time. I read “Animal Farm” and “Nineteen Eighty-Four” in school. Then, about thirty-five years ago, I read everything he wrote, including his essays, letters and journalism. His voice and clear, plain style influence me.

“A fear that facts could materialize or vanish on command lay at the heart of the totalitarian nightmare that preoccupied the last ten years of his life,” writes George Packer in the introduction.

Fast forward. The new administration coined the phrase “alternative facts.” Even the dictionary stood up and called that out. But that was so last month. The velocity of continuing double-talk and falsehoods make it seem like a long time ago. The “alternative facts” phrase and mindset it represents drove me and many others to revisit Orwell, driving “Nineteen Eighty-Four” up the bestseller lists.

Orwell mastered the essay form, with a couple dozen included in this anthology.

— Why I Write, summer 1946. Early on as a kid, Orwell writes, he knew that he had a facility for words and a power of facing unpleasant facts, the source of the subtitle of this collection. Every line Orwell wrote after the mid-thirties he wrote against totalitarianism. “Animal Farm” was the first book in which he tried "with full consciousness” to fuse artistic and political purpose.

— As I Please 16, March 1944. Orwell wrote about the bad English used in political pamphlets. “Clearly, people capable of using such phrases have ceased to remember that words have meanings,” he wrote. This essay became the germ of his more famous essay “Politics and the English Language,” of a year later, which appears in the twin volume.

— Shooting an Elephant, Autumn 1936. Orwell's perfect essay, it begins with personal experience and closes with a universal truth. This really has little to do with the elephant and everything to do with avoiding looking like a fool. An amusing essay for those of us suddenly thrust into an unbidden leadership position or situation with throngs who support us and push us forward.

You also may enjoy another essay in here, “Bookshop Memories.”

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a weird collection. It includes some of my favorite Orwell essays: "Such, Such Were the Joys," "Shooting and Elephant," and "Marrakech," and I'm also happy to have discovered "How the Poor Die," which I've never read before. But some of the essays did not belong under the heading of "narrative essays" at all. "A Nice Cup of Tea" or "The Moon Under Water" seem like lengthy, ranty facebook posts that people would click like on without bothering to finish.

I liked the concluding paragraph of "In Front of Your Nose," which reads

To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle. One thing that helps toward it is to keep a diary, or, at any rate, to keep some kind of record of one’s opinions about important events. Otherwise, when some particularly absurd belief is exploded by events, one may simply forget that one ever held it. Political predictions are usually wrong. But even when one makes a correct one, to discover why one was right can be very illuminating. In general, one is only right when either wish or fear coincides with reality. If one recognizes this, one cannot, of course, get rid of one’s subjective feelings, but one can to some extent insulate them from one’s thinking and make predictions cold-bloodedly, by the book of arithmetic. In private life most people are fairly realistic. When one is making out one’s weekly budget, two and two invariably make four. Politics, on the other hand, is a sort of sub-atomic or non-Euclidean word where it is quite easy for the part to be greater than the whole or for two objects to be in the same place simultaneously. Hence the contradictions and absurdities I have chronicled above, all finally traceable to a secret belief that one’s political opinions, unlike the weekly budget, will not have to be tested against solid reality.

I think Orwell did better than most in terms of holding himself accountable for his errors, but I do wish we could get his response to this statement from earlier in the essay, published in 1946: "Necessarily the figures are uncertain, but it is quite possible that in only seventy years our population will amount to about eleven millions, over half of whom will be Old Age Pensioners." Seventy years from 1946 was of course 2016, and at that time, the population of the UK was over 65 million, the population of England was over 55 million, and the population of the London area (depending on how it was defined) was between 10 and 18 million. I really would like to get his take on how woefully inadequate his projections were.

[E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

When this edition and its companion volume were first published in 2009, I checked them out of the Oklahoma City Public Library and read selections from them. Last year I finally purchased my own copy and began reading this one while I was on our recent vacation to Hawaii.

A few of these essays are as strong as the rest and there is a wide variation in style and length. Among some of the standouts:

"Shooting an Elephant" -- one of his classic works which reflects on the inherent problems in British colonialism.

"War Time Diary" -- an interesting window into London life during the Second World War.

"Looking Back on the Spanish War" -- from which I learned more about that major event and the failures of the democracies to understand what was happening and thereby confront Fascism.

"The Sporting Spirit" -- is a fun criticism of the modern cult of sport and the Olympica ideal that sport will bring international peace.

"How the Poor Die" -- a scary story about a stay in a French hospital for the poor.

"Such, Such Were the Joys" -- in which he tells about his school days. Even though we don't raise and educate our children in the same way that the British did a century ago, there is still good insight (and not just historical insight) in this story.

[Ava · Rating 4 out of 5]

The cover actually captures something important about the book. It's natural to see a book that's self-importantly titled "Facing Unpleasant Facts" and think, oh, get over yourself. Then you read the first couple of essays and find yourself going, "Yes, sir that's unpleasant . . . okay, yes, that too . . ." And as you read, the sense of obnoxious but faintly endearing (because so drippingly British) self-importance is always there, lingering in the background, behind some of the most wonderful quips and images you've ever read.

And then you get to the last essay and you think, well, anybody who could survive this kind of schooling deserves every last bit of self-importance they can muster.

[Jennifer Ozawa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Orwell was truly an interesting character. He was well traveled, articulate, and very politically engaged. I imagine that he was a bit much to live with, but as an author, he’s so much more that just his novels. In fact, I would tell friends to read his essays before his books since his political ideas influenced his novels in such a big way. One could really follow the evolution of his thoughts through his essays.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had only read Orwell's fiction, + Homage to Catalonia. This essay collection is the tits.

[Whitaker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really great book shows us how everything is great and worth to die for

[Marks54 · Rating 4 out of 5]

George Packer has edited a two volume collection of essays by George Orwell (Eric Blair). I have long been a fan of everything written by Orwell and his work remains relevant today. Not only do 1984 and Animal Farm remain timely and powerful, but his other novels (Burmese Days, Homage to Catalonia, etc.) are well worth reading to learn about the Great Depression, Interwar Britain and Europe, the decline of the British Empire, and the fight against fascism and totalitarianism.

The first volume here presents “narrative essays” which tell a story, report on some situation, or address specific questions. Orwell was a fabulous writer and it is fun to read these essays slowly and carefully to note his craft. The subject matter of these essays go all over the map of Orwell’s life and interests and combine longer essays with shorter almost journalistic accounts. Some have been overtaken by time or are matters of taste (time in a hospital or suggestions on how to make tea) but others give perspectives, such as on India or the fight against fascism, that Orwell developed to great effect in his other works.

My favorite turned out to be the last essay — “Such, Such Were the Joys” — perhaps Orwell’s last work which was originally published posthumously in 1952. This is his recollection, near the end of his life, of his experiences at an English boarding school, where he went at age 8 and stayed until he was 13 after which he went on to Eton. It is not a flattering portrait of boarding school life. While Orwell in other places notes that his focus on socialism and fighting totalitarianism developed later in his life, after reading this essay it struck me a plausible that his orientation towards resistance to arbitrary and mindless authority may have taken root while he suffered through boarding school. This essay is notable on multiple levels and well worth reading.

[Jerry Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Orwell is a tremendously important author and I greatly enjoy his writing both in short form essays, and in his longer novels and novellas. This is the second of his essay collections I have read, and I understand that this is the medium where he is, perhaps, held in the highest regard. I enjoy reading essay collections generally, although I am sometimes conflicted with them. Often a narrative I find compelling ends too soon, and sometimes I find they drag. One can always move on in the latter case of course.

There is a lot of interest here, but somehow I found this anthology somewhat less engaging that the previous volume I read. I am not quite sure why. I found his wartime diaries less interesting than I expected but I did very much enjoy the last few entries detailing his school experiences to which, for those of us coming up through the British school system, we can readily relate! Of course there are many others of interest here but I was somewhat disturbed by the antisemitism that reared its ugly head on a couple of occasions. I had not detected that in his other writings, but there is a chance I wasn't looking hard enough. It is hard to be a fan of a writer and then come across such a shameful element of bigotry, however casually expressed. The same thing happened to me with Dickens.

So, I will continue to read Orwell because, at his best, he has so much that is both perceptive and prescient to say. Obviously I don't see eye to eye with him when it comes to his anti-semitism, but I am certainly a democratic socialist and his take on the necessity of fighting fascism and desire for equity in society is something I also feel very strongly about. Everyone should read Orwell, above and beyond his two most famous works; 1984 and Animal Farm. Although you should read those too!

[Adam Bregman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Comparing this with Orwell's more commonly-found essay book, A Collection of Essays, both are essential reading, his essays are as substantial as his novels. The more famous ones, Shooting an Elephant, Such, Such were the Joys... and Looking Back at the Spanish War are in both collections. Some examples of his literary criticism are found in A Collection of Essays, which is more of a greatest hits. Facing Unpleasant Facts includes some of the odder late-period ones like In Defense of English Cooking and A Nice Cup of Tea (both enjoyable and not very Orwell-like), when he was a well-known writer and could perhaps get away with getting anything he wanted published. It also contains one of his earliest essays, The Spike, from 1931, where he makes one of his first stabs at embedding himself in a penniless existence, a subject that became a staple of his writing. Though it likely was not intended for publication, War-time Diary is a fascinating glimpse of Orwell's day to day life during the blitzkrieg in London. The perceptions in 1940 of how the war might go from Orwell and folks he spoke with is engrossing. How the Poor Die is rough reading, a first-person account of a brutal stay in a Paris hospital in 1929. I'm looking forward to getting the four volume collection, each with a different title, that delves deeper into Orwell's essays.

[Gregg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Orwell's title says so much. He never shied away from telling the truth as he saw it, even when it was politically inexpedient. It's hard for us to get our heads around this today, I suppose, but the publication of Animal Farm could not have been less convenient, given the Allies' reliance on Soviet power to defeat the Nazis, but Orwell would not have stomached the politics of convenience. He applies the same metric here with an even hand. Whether his target is Communism, English boarding schools, nonpolitical writers (i.e. those who take refuge in not taking a stand, like he charged Auden and Henry James with), and even those who are unwilling to take a good hard look at how the poor wind up bereft of all semblance of dignity when dying in a public hospital--in all of these essays, even the ones approaching the trite (like, who gives a damn about the quality of English tea?), Orwell lays bare the world as he sees it, and makes us see it ourselves as well.

He makes no political predictions in this book, but many of his observations in "England, Your England" and "Reflections on the Spanish Civil War" will give one pause who has been paying attention to the news these days. For that alone, he should continue to be read.

[stephanie suh · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is unlikely that essays can be at once entertaining and educative because they are often likely to be of lofty theme and comprised of complex sentence structures stuffed with plum vocabulary comprehensible to a few man of letters and their ilk. In this respect, Eric Arthur Blair, better preferably known as George Orwell, was indeed a master at writing an essay that dealt with the subject matters close to the human life in the manner of a journalist with heart. This book is a definitive anthology of Orwell's essays contributed to various magazines and newspaper that will invite the readers to the Orwellian world of reality as he saw and he liked.

Orwell was capable of perceiving the absurdities of reality and truths masqueraded by ornamented political euphemism to obfuscate the masses for unscrupulous intentions. Of all his essays, "Why I write" is a paragon of his fineness as a great essayist. In the essay, Orwell provides the readers with sage guidelines for a writer, one of which is a choice of the subject matter that should be determined by the age a writer lives in. Such advice links with Leo Tolstoy's view on great work of art to be closely related to the ethos of the time it is made. That is, a writer is unavoidably influenced by the ethos of the time he lives against his willful struggle to escape from solid reality. Orwell asserts that a writer should discipline his temperament lest he should be stuck at immature stage or depressive mood. A writer should think straight so that he can write clearly. This shows that Orwell's view on writing not as a platform for babbling about his egoistically driven existential dilemma of daily life, for consuming his energy into such self-induced woes and pains will kill the creative spirit in him, the very impulse to express himself as he truly is. To my delight, Orwell further expounds 4 motives for writing as follows:

(1) Sheer egoism: desire to be regarded as clever and much to be talked about. Writers are vain in the fact that they do want to be individuals, not compromising with the social conditions of reality. Writers can be egotistical and vain because of their eliest attitude toward the opinions of others and general opinions of the public, but are less interested in monetary reward.

(2) Aesthetic enthusiasm: desire to beautify arrangements of words in pleasing manner by using a plethora of flowery words and rhythmical rhymes.

(3) Historical impulse : desire to record historical facts of the time to pass the written records for the use of posterity.

(4) Political purpose: desire to direct the world in a specific direction in order to influence people's views on society in such direction as it should be

The readers may find all of the above rather anachronistic and incongruent in consideration of the time the essay was written (1946). However, what rings the bell is the universality of impulse to write as a sublime human act of expressing himself in connection with the time and society he lives in because as Aristotle put, "Man is a political animal." This collection of Orwell's poignant, honest, and witty essays will guide the readers into the mind garden of Orwell where moral obligation and the psychological facts are differentiated (=as pointed out in "Such, Such Were the Joys" and where there is a pleasant, family-friendly pub called "The Moon Under the Water" with a privilege to appreciate Orwell's unpretentious display of language facility and power of facing unpleasant facts in his own words.

[Cam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been recently enjoying re-reading Orwell, and it's true, as George Packer points out, that Orwell is an essayist before anything else.

On that note, I'd recommend reading Packer's introduction where his enthusiasm and respect for his subject shine through. Although, it may be best to read 2 or 3 of the shorter essays first.

Packer's clarity and insight are suitably Orwellian (in the positive sense of the word) showing us that Orwell is indeed an author worth stealing from, to retrofit Orwell's opening line on Charles Dickens.

If you are looking for a narrower list, I would recommend:
-Shooting an Elephant
-A Hanging
-Why I Write

Politics and the English language, Orwell's best-known essay and compiled in Packer's All Art is Propaganda, is also a must-read and can be found free online.

From there, take your pick based your preference of topic and length and enjoy the master in his element.

[Brad · Rating 4 out of 5]

George Orwell's essays are almost always in support of Social Democracy and against tyranny and Fascism. George Orwell tells the reader this in plain simple language. What sets Orwell apart from his like minded contemporaries is his essays are literary gems, readable and enjoyable. He doesn't come across as a schoolmaster or hot zealot. He's the chum that knows his turf and who shows you why he thinks the way he does. Orwell invites you into his world view. His essays, especially those condemning Fascism and illogical political dogmas, are relevant today as they were eighty years. anyone who wishes to be politically educated should read them. His writings are cogent, accessible, and perceptive. This book and its companion all "All Art is Propaganda" covers most of his political essays. This compilation contains some of his biographical material as well and reminisces on his schooling.

[Michael Staten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three and a half stars

I bought this to read "Why I Write," which was good and worth the price of the paperback. However, many of the essays stand out, and because he uses his personal experiences to set the stage for the points he wants to make, it takes on a hint of autobiography. It isn't; there is just a tiny trace of it.

Like everyone, I recommend "Shooting an Elephant" as a wrenching lesson on the situational limits of morality. It is the star of the collection. Close behind it are "A Hanging," which illustrates how easy it is for groups to dehumanize others, and "Marrakech," which addresses the need to exercise the muscle of truly seeing others.

Honorable mentions but still worth your time for their art and the lessons they impart are the "As I Please" articles, "Revenge is Sour," "The Case for the Open Fire," "Some Thoughts on the Common Toad," "Why I Write," "How the Poor Die," and "Such, Such Were the Joys."

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got interested in reading Orwell's essays directly after reading Thomas Ricks' dual biography of Churchill and Orwell. This volume was a great place to start -- it is astounding how relevant Orwell's political observations, based on his experiences during the Spanish Civil War and WWII, are to our own times (or maybe not so astounding given everyone's recent references to 1984....) Best of all, Orwell's writing is so clear and direct -- it's a master class on how to write an essay that remains completely accessible 70 years later. That said, I did skip a few of the selections where the topics seemed dated and not interesting. The last essay, and the longest, is a reminiscence of his early days in boarding school -- fascinating and disturbing. It feels like the stuff of many an English novel!