From: edwardbelsky@worldnet.att.net   
      
    wrote in message   
   news:1172129949.153631.4800@p10g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...   
   >   
   > Q & A with George Orwell:   
   >   
   >   
   > B: Will you tell us about the Brookers, the people with whom you   
   > stayed for a while in Wigan?   
   > O: Of course (mind if I smoke?) Mrs Brooker was too ill to do anything   
   > except eat stupendous meals, and Mr Brooker was a dark, small-boned,   
   > sour, Irish-looking man, and astonishingly dirty. I don't think I ever   
   > once saw his hands clean. If he gave you a slice of bread-and-butter   
   > there was always a black thumb-print on it. At any hour of the day you   
   > were liable to meet Mr Brooker on the stairs, carrying a full chamber-   
   > pot which he gripped with his thumb well over the rim.   
   > The most dreadful thing about people like the Brookers is the way they   
   > say the same things over and over again. It gives you the feeling that   
   > they are not real people at all, but a kind of ghost.   
   > They kept a tripe shop -- flocculent stuff. They were the kind of   
   > people who run a business chiefly in order to have something to   
   > grumble about. The place was filthy: hanging from the ceiling there   
   > was a heavy glass chandelier on which the dust was so thick that it   
   > was like fur.   
   > Generally the crumbs from breakfast were still on the table at supper.   
   > I used to get to know individual crumbs by sight and watch their   
   > progress up and down the table from day to day. I never saw anyone   
   > brave the marmalade jar, which was an unspeakable mass of stickiness   
   > and dust. Last year's dead bluebottles were supine in the shop window   
   > (not good for trade!).   
   >   
   > B: Curious. How long do bugs stay in a house?   
   > O: Till. the. crack. of. doom.   
   >   
   > B: And, above all, what do you feel there is no need of?   
   > O: To have unemptied chamber-pots standing about in your living-room!   
   >   
   > B: Briefly then, can you tell us what it's like in a coal mine?   
   > O: The place is like hell.   
   >   
   > B: Could you please define 'hell'?   
   > O: heat, noise, confusion, darkness, foul air, and, (also above all)   
   > unbearably cramped space.   
   >   
   > B: I've always wondered what coal is used for, besides finding it in   
   > my stocking on Christmas mornings.   
   > O: Let me list them for you:   
   > For eating an ice   
   > In crossing the Atlantic   
   > When baking a loaf   
   > In writing a novel   
   > In all the arts of peace (if war breaks out it is needed all the   
   > more)   
   > In times of revolution (and in times of reaction)   
   > In order that Hitler may march the goose-step   
   > That the Pope may denounce Bolshevism   
   > That the cricket crowds may assemble at Lords   
   > That the poets may scratch one another's backs   
   >   
   > B: And pray tell, who might owe the decency of their lives to those   
   > poor drudges who work underground?   
   > O: I'll tell you who:   
   > you and I   
   > the editor of the Times Lit. Supp.   
   > the poets   
   > the Archbishop of Canterbury   
   > comrade X, author of Marxism for Infants   
   >   
   > B: All of us?   
   > O: Yes   
   >   
   > B: If coal could not be produced without pregnant women dragging it to   
   > and fro, should we let them?   
   > O: I fancy we should let them do it rather than deprive ourselves of   
   > coal.   
   >   
   > B: When did you realise what splendid men miners are?   
   > O: It is only when you see miners down the mine and naked that you   
   > realise what splendid men they are. Most of them are small (big men   
   > are at a disadvantage in that job) but nearly all of them have the   
   > most noble bodies; wide shoulders tapering to slender supple waists,   
   > and small pronounced buttocks and sinewy thighs, with not an ounce of   
   > waste flesh anywhere. In the hotter mines they wear only a pair of   
   > thin drawers, clogs and knee-pads...   
   >   
   > B: 'the splendour of their bodies' comes to mind.   
   > O: yes, very much.   
   >   
   > B: But, where are the monstrous men with chests like barrels and   
   > moustaches like the wings of eagles who strode across your child-   
   > hood's gaze twenty or thirty years ago?   
   > O: Buried, I suppose, in the Flanders mud. If the English physique has   
   > declined, this is no doubt partly due to the fact that the Great War   
   > carefully selected the million best men in England and slaughtered   
   > them, largely before they had had time to breed.   
   >   
   > B: That reminds me, did you ever habitually allow yourself to be   
   > dressed and undressed by a Burmese boy?   
   > O: Oh yes.   
   >   
   > B: And you...what were you like as a teen?   
   > O: When I was  fourteen or fifteen I was an odious little snob.   
   >   
   > B: Lawrence says that because you have been to a public school you are   
   > a eunuch.   
   > O: Well, what about it?   
   >   
   > B: Umm, moving on, where was the silliest and worst-delivered lecture   
   > you have ever heard or ever expect to hear?   
   > O: Actually it was in Sheffield - I was taken to a public hall to   
   > listen to a lecture by a clergyman.   
   >   
   > B: Did your feet carry you out, seemingly of their own accord, before   
   > it was half-way through??   
   > O: Yes indeed, how did you know?   
   >   
   > B: Well, I've read your book. By the way, who is the master in a   
   > middle-class home?   
   > O: The woman, or the baby.   
   >   
   > B: Mr. Orwell, let's get to the big question. What is a human being?   
   > O: Odd question, but, primarily a bag for putting food into - the   
   > other functions and faculties may be more godlike, but in point of   
   > time they come afterwards.   
   >   
   > B: True. And who are the laziest people in Europe?   
   > O: The English!   
   >   
   > B: What sums up the normal English attitude towards the Latin races?   
   > O: ha-ha - olives, vines, and vices.   
   >   
   > B: Besides always telling the truth, you are known for predicting the   
   > future. So, what will life be like in the 'Utopian future', in two   
   > hundred years from now?   
   > O: There won't be a coal fire in the grate, only some kind of   
   > invisible heater. The furniture will be made of rubber, glass, and   
   > steel. If there are still such things as evening papers there will   
   > certainly be no racing news in them, for gambling will be meaningless   
   > in a world where there is no poverty and the horse will have vanished   
   > from the face of the earth. Dogs, too, will have been suppressed on   
   > grounds of hygiene. And there won't be so many children, either, if   
   > the birth-controllers have their way.   
   >   
   > B: What is your view on hanging?   
   > O: I watched a man hanged once; it seemed to me worse than a thousand   
   > murders. I never went into a jail without feeling (most visitors to   
   > jails feel the same) that my place was on the other side of the bars.   
   > I thought then -- I think now, for that matter -- that the worst   
   > criminal who ever walked is morally superior to a hanging judge.   
   >   
   > B: Is it true that the middle-class person who is an ardent Socialist   
   > at twenty-five is a sniffish Conservative at thirty-five?   
   > O: One can observe on every side that dreary phenomenon.   
   >   
   > B: What sort of person is drawn to Socialism?   
   > O: One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words 'Socialism'   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)