Oxford: Orwell
Sunday May 11 marked the centenary of the birth of Britain's, perhaps even the world's, finest and treasured writer of the modern age - George Orwell. And now, nearly fifty-three years after his death, we still see no signs of the public and academic fascination with his work and his life being sated.
Orwell has been branded a purveyor of first-rate features, on which he based his formidable and enviable reputation as a non-fiction writer and critic. A journalist for much of his life he introduced groundbreaking adventures into English institutions, and examinations of the national psyche.
Though he entered into the establishment via the corridors of Eton, Orwell (né Eric Arthur Blair) turned his back on the Oxbridge experience. Unlike his namesake who has reached the apex of British Parliamentary politics, after a degree in law at St. John's, Orwell would find Oxford - and its "type" as he referred to it - alien and stuck in a bygone age. His views are documented in his fifth book, Coming Up For Air, where he parodies the "Oxfordy way", stretching the stereotype to the extreme. A caricature is drawn of "Old Porteous", whose home and lifestyle symbolise an archaic retreat from the horrors of modern, suburban grind - like Oxford itself.
Old Porteous is a classic and a figure of intrigue and fun for Orwell. According to the author, his sort had been fed a diet of "Latin, Greek and Cricket".
Moreover, he wears old Harris Tweed jackets, and old grey flannel bags. There is of course the ubiquitous pipe clenched between the teeth, as cigarettes are looked down upon as a by-product of modernity.
But how can one of the most foresighted and freethinking individuals of the twentieth century depict a great global institution of learning as so backward, obsolete and stunted? He was, and perhaps still is, the acceptable face of radicalism. Lest we forget in his (possibly) finest work Nineteen Eighty-Four, the chilling phrase of "Ignorance is Strength" emblazoned on the Ministry for Education. It was Orwell's life occupation to go in search of the truth, whether in political alignment with the Left; fighting and witnessing the horrors of civil war in Spain, or striving to write down his opinions. Surely Oxford, with its tradition of learning and truth-seeking should be a prized institution for Orwell?
Apparently not. One must not lose sight of his overriding concern. In his essay The English People published seven years before his death, Orwell was still grappling with the English's gormless awe with the notion of class distinctions, titles and privilege. Orwell wanted to end the class system and economic inequality that he saw before him. This prompted him to make a stinging attack on the education system, and he concluded that there was a "handful of "self-made men" and Labour politicians, those who control our destinies [who are] the product of about a dozen public schools and two universities". It can be easy to junk his opinion as sixty years out of date - but look at the expensively-educated Labour cabinet.
Despite all his intellectual debate and soul-searching overclass distinctions, Orwell still portrays Old Porteous as something of a national treasure - a dying breed. He even talks favourably of the "classy Oxford feeling of nothing mattering except books, poetry and Greek statues, and nothing worth mentioning having happened since the Goths sacked Rome".
Hopefully Porteous is a gross anachronism now, but he is still evidence of how Orwell crystallised the Oxford myth.
22nd May 2003