From: hjkhjkhd@hhhh.com
"Bayle" wrote in message
news:1176661886.677886.286630@n76g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
> On Apr 12, 3:21 pm, georgeorw...@email.com wrote:
>> On 11 avr, 15:08, "ROBBIE" wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> > wrote in message
>>
>> >news:1176324946.202554.50900@n76g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...>.
>> >Paradoxically,
>>
>> > postcolonial critics later rekindled an intense interest in his work,
>>
>> > >viewing it as both symptomatic and critical of imperialist attitudes."
>>
>> > ...which it obviously is, at least in the latter. Look at his The Man
>> > Who
>> > Would Be King - the unsustainability of the empire is all in there.
>>
>> > He knew the fruit-juice drinkers were after him in his own lifetime. He
>> > mentions the The (Manchester) Guardian being on his tail in Something
>> > of
>> > Myself. Which is quite funny.
>>
>> > I'll copy in more of Compton-Rickett's Kipling evaluation when I get
>> > time
>> > because it's a bloody sight better and believe it or not measured than
>> > anything above. I have the Ox - or Camb - Comp to Eng Lit - not much
>> > fun.
>>
>> > Meanwhile, as they say at the Oscars, let's just remind ourselves with
>> > an
>> > excerpt:
>>
>> > Then I became respectable, and returned
>> > to an Office where there were no Kings and
>> > no incidents except the daily manufacture of
>> > a newspaper. A newspaper office seems to
>> > attract every conceivable sort of person, to
>> > the prejudice of discipline. Zenana-mission
>> > ladies arrive, and beg that the Editor will instantly
>> > abandon all his duties to describe a
>> > Christian prize-giving in a back-slum of a
>> > perfectly inaccessible village; Colonels who
>> > have been overpassed for commands sit
>> > down and sketch the outline of a series of
>> > ten, twelve, or twenty-four leading articles
>> > on Seniority versus Selection; missionaries
>> > wish to know why they have not been permitted
>> > to escape from their regular vehicles
>> > of abuse and swear at a brother-missionary
>> > under special patronage of the editorial We;
>> > stranded theatrical companies troop up to explain
>> > that they cannot pay for their advertisements,
>> > but on their return from New
>> > Zealand or Tahiti will do so with interest;
>> > inventors of patent punkah-pulling machines,
>> > carriage couplings and unbreakable
>> > swords and axle-trees call with specifications
>> > in their pockets and hours at their disposal;
>> > tea-companies enter and elaborate their prospectuses
>> > with the office pens; secretaries of
>> > ball-committees clamor to have the glories
>> > of their last dance more fully expounded;
>> > strange ladies rustle in and say:-"I want a
>> > hundred lady's cards printed at once, please,"
>> > which is manifestly part of an Editor's duty;
>> > and every dissolute ruffian that ever tramped
>> > the Grand Trunk Road makes it his business
>> > to ask for employment as a proof-reader.
>> > And, all the time, the telephone-bell is ringing
>> > madly, and Kings are being killed on the
>> > Continent, and Empires are saying, "You're
>> > another," and Mister Gladstone is calling
>> > down brimstone upon the British Dominions,
>> > and the little black copy-boys are whining,
>> > "kaa-pi chayha-yeh" (copy wanted) like
>> > tired bees, and most of the paper is as blank
>> > as Modred's shield.
>>
>> > But that is the amusing part of the year.
>> > There are other six months wherein none
>> > ever come to call, and the thermometer
>> > walks inch by inch up to the top of the glass,
>> > and the office is darkened to just above reading
>> > light, and the press machines are red-hot
>> > of touch, and nobody writes anything but
>> > accounts of amusements in the Hill-stations
>> > or obituary notices. Then the telephone becomes
>> > a tinkling terror, because it tells you
>> > of the sudden deaths of men and women
>> > that you knew intimately, and the prickly-heat
>> > covers you as with a garment, and you
>> > sit down and write:-"A slight increase of
>> > sickness is reported from the Khuda Janta
>> > Khan District. The outbreak is purely sporadic
>> > in its nature, and, thanks to the energetic
>> > efforts of the District authorities, is now
>> > almost at an end. It is, however, with deep
>> > regret we record the death, etc."
>>
>> > C/O
>>
>> > ROBBIE
>>
>> And here are some choice words from Orwell:
>>
>> "The more I see the more I doubt whether people ever really make
>> aesthetic judgements at all. Everything is judged on political grounds
>> which are then given an aesthetic disguise. When, for instance, Eliot
>> can't see anything good in Shelley or anything bad in Kipling, the
>> real underlying reason must be that the one is a radical & the other a
>> conservative, of sorts. Yet evidently one does have aesthetic
>> reactions, especially as a lot of art & even literature is politically
>> neutral, & also certain unmistakeable standards do exist, e.g. Homer
>> is better than Edgar Wallace. Perhaps the way we should put it is: the
>> more one is aware of political bias the more one can be independent of
>> it, & the more one claims to be impartial the more one is biased."
>> -letter to Richard Rees, 28 July 1949
>>
>> B.
>
>
> I think there is some (much?) truth in what Orwell says.
For some types of people, definitely. But for the ordinary man? I don't
think so.
>
> The check then, is to find a work of art where you deplore the
> politics, but, nevertheless, your aesthetic judgement compells you to
> admire the work.
The films of Ken Loach - boneheadedly Marxist in philosophy, in assembly and
performance some of them are masterpieces. Some Godard. Week-End is great.
The traffic jam is brilliant. Evelyn 'The purpose of society is the creation
of a an aristocracy' Waugh's oeuvre (Brideshead, in his Waugh's 1959 revised
form is great, though it should disgust me).There's plenty of examples. I
don;t think you could call Shakespeare a lefty, but that hasn't put Comrade
Bridgame off, for example.
ROBBIE
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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