Orwell

In one of his essays, Christopher Hitchens quotes from some notes that Orwell had written in preparation for an essay that Orwell was writing even as he was dying in 1949.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Within the last few decades, in countries like Britain and the United States, the literary intelligentsia has grown large enough to constitute a world in itself. One important result of this is that the opinions which a writer feels frightened of expressing are not those which are disapproved by society as a whole. To a great extent, what is still loosely thought of as heterodoxy has become orthodoxy. It is nonsense to pretend, for instance, that at this date there is something daring and original in proclaiming yourself an anarchist, an atheist, a pacifist, etc. The daring thing, or at any rate the unfashionable thing, is to believe in God or to approve of the capitalist system. In 1895, when Oscar Wilde was jailed, it must have needed very considerable moral courage to defend homosexuality. Today it would need no courage at all: today the equivalent action would be, perhaps, to defend antisemitism. But this example that I have chosen immediately reminds one of something else - namely, that one cannot judge the value of an opinion simply by the amount of courage that is required in holding it.

-- George Orwell

{Source: Christopher Hitchens, “Evelyn Waugh: The Permanent Adolescent” in Arguably}

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Sylvia

One of the big divisions in the study of Sylvia Plath is over who is more blameworthy in the tragedy of these personal lives: Sylvia or Ted Hughes?

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Perhaps inevitably, given the central and irredeemable moral horror of the poet’s suicide, the core struggle has taken the form of a Manichaean and disturbingly personal propaganda war. On the one side are the myriad supporters of Plath, who characterize her as a mentally frail woman-genius, cruelly deserted by her philandering Bluebeard-husband. (Hughes, it is true, had been unfaithful to Plath multiple times during their marriage, and late in 1962—just a few months before Plath’s suicide—had abandoned her and their two children for the young German-Jewish-Russian writer Assia Wevill. Wevill, whom he subsequently married, would also gas herself to death, in 1969.)

Ranged on the other side are the equally partisan supporters of Hughes—who cast him as a caring, much-abused spouse and father, indentured to misery for decades by the vicious and destructive acts of his lunatic, dead wife. Questions of blame—however crudely formed—have obsessed everyone involved for years. Which of them—Plath or Hughes—was more responsible for the tragic disasters they suffered? Who more the victim of their catastrophic coupling?

-- Terry Castle at The New York Review of Books

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

89. Rainy Day

It is raining hard now. We actually need the rain, but Kay was about to leave, so that her visit might be extended now. When she and Pop were at the door, I even offered my old long-length winter coat to help expedite matters, but when they opened the door, that storm was pouring down hard, and the door, alas, was shut again.

As Pop noted, the rain was an on-again, off-again thing, and about ten minutes later, I was happy to report that the rain had settled back down to a pleasant drizzle, and we were off to the races again. It always takes her awhile to get moving though, and the rain started coming down harder again, and I dreaded that we would never see that truck of hers back out of the driveway, but then she was gone.

And then it was just a nice, cozy rainy day. With one problem. Ash had not made it back in yet. However, when the rain stopped completely at around noon, she finally returns to join our little tribe, and the day is almost perfect: bookish and reflective, cool and cozy, all day.

Daily Fun

( Read more... )