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George Orwell
A tribute
In the essay “Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dali,” George Orwell writes one of the best opening passages I’ve ever read:
“Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.”
Yes, I said to myself when I first read that passage, it’s true.
What He Does
He shows me things about myself, things that are not always flattering:
“All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy” (from “Why I Write”).
How He Can Do It
He can show me those things because he has looked carefully at himself, then written clearly:
“I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts” (from “Why I Write”).
He teaches me to face those facts:
“Two things can be very much alike and yet abysmally different. Heaven and hell are in the same place” (from “Charles Dickens”).
When I read that passage, I realized that my perception of a place influences my experience of it. For example, I think of how I would perceive and experience the slums of Calcutta. Then…
