Saturday, September 05, 2020

Odd couple …

… Orwell in the Waugh-zone – The Orwell Society. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

As David Lebedoff (2008) stresses, Orwell and Waugh can appear polar opposites: Orwell the dedicated socialist and anti-Catholic who was prepared to live with tramps in order to expiate his guilt of having worked for the ‘racket’ of the British Empire as an Imperial Policeman in Burma (1922-1927) and who always hated bullying. Waugh, in contrast, the bully, the Catholic and dedicated social climber. Yet both came to see the 20th century in a similar way – imperilled by ideologues, lies, cultural decadence and assaults on tradition. Orwell, the atheist, deplored the decline of religious faith as much as Waugh the Catholic convert.

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