Volume 48, Number 5 · March 29, 2001
The Last Puritan
By John Bayley
Orwell: Wintry Conscience of a Generation
Jeffrey Meyers
Norton, 380 pp., $29.95
In Anthony Powell's Memoirs, which contain a great many shrewd and perceptive observations about writers of the memoirist's time, there is a little anecdote which, trivial as Powell admits it to be, sheds a great deal of light on George Orwell's complex character. Powell had left the room to fetch a book. Returning he found Orwell assiduously examining the pictures on the wall. Inside the baby's cot was an enormous jackknife. Orwell looked embarrassed and said he had given it to the child to play with.
Review, 3754 words
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