Books v. Cigarettes

1. Reading is a surprisingly affordable pastime compared to common vices.

Twenty-five pounds a year sounds quite a lot until you begin to measure it against other kinds of expenditure.

Cost comparison. Orwell calculates his annual reading expenses, including books and periodicals, to be around £25. He contrasts this with the cost of smoking and drinking, which for him amounts to nearly £40 a year on tobacco alone, and potentially close to £20 a year on tobacco and beer before the war.
Public spending. Despite being nearly 100% literate, the British public's expenditure on books is low. Orwell estimates the average person buys only about three books a year, costing perhaps £1 or less.
Reading value. Even if buying every book read, reading as a recreation costs about two shillings an hour, comparable to expensive cinema seats. Buying second-hand reduces the cost significantly, and using public libraries makes it almost free, making reading one of the cheapest pastimes.

2. The reality of working in a bookshop reveals more about people than literature.

When I worked in a second-hand bookshop – so easily pictured, if you don’t work in one, as a kind of paradise where charming old gentlemen browse eternally among calf-bound folios – the thing that chiefly struck me was the rarity of really bookish people.

Customer types. Most customers weren't true book lovers but rather first edition snobs, students needing cheap texts, or people buying gifts. The shop was also frequented by peculiar individuals, including those trying to sell worthless books or ordering expensive ones with no intention of paying.
Bookshop downsides. The trade involves long hours, unhealthy conditions (dust, cold), and dealing with tiresome tasks like selling Christmas cards. Orwell notes that booksellers often lose their love for books due to constantly handling them and having to misrepresent them.
Reading habits observed. A lending library attached to the shop revealed actual reading tastes, showing the popularity of authors like Ethel M. Dell over classics like Dickens or Austen. Men tended to read either respected novels or detective stories, consuming vast quantities of the latter.

3. Professional book reviewing is often a soul-crushing exercise in dishonesty.

The reviewer, jaded though he may be, is professionally interested in books, and out of the thousands that appear annually, there are probably fifty or a hundred that he would enjoy writing about.

Drudgery and pressure. The job involves receiving ill-assorted books on unfamiliar subjects and being forced to invent reactions to them under tight deadlines. Reviewers often praise trash and constantly produce writing that feels like "humbug."
Lack of sincerity. The need to review almost every book published, combined with limited space, leads to inadequate and misleading accounts. The only truthful criticism for most books would be "This book is worthless," but this is not what the public wants or what editors allow.
Standards collapse. When reviewers must call both a classic play and a mediocre thriller "good," the word loses meaning. The ideal would be to review only significant books at length, but the system relies on "hacks" who produce formulaic snippets, destroying their creative faculties.

4. True intellectual liberty means the freedom to report reality, even if inconvenient.

What is really at issue is the right to report contemporary events truthfully, or as truthfully as is consistent with the ignorance, bias and self-deception from which every observer necessarily suffers.

Attack on liberty. Intellectual liberty is threatened by totalitarian apologists and practical forces like media monopolies and bureaucracy. Writers face pressure to conform, becoming minor officials who cannot tell the whole truth.
Rebels against integrity. Unlike past heretics who stood alone for conscience, many modern rebels against the status quo also reject individual integrity, viewing it as selfish. They argue that truth is relative or that lying is justified for a perceived greater cause.
Dodging the issue. Arguments against intellectual liberty often frame it as individualism versus discipline, avoiding the core issue of truth versus untruth. This allows for the justification of falsifying facts and feelings for political ends.

5. Totalitarianism demands the continuous falsification of history and objective truth.

From the totalitarian point of view history is something to be created rather than learned.

Systematic lying. Organized lying is integral to totalitarian states, not just a temporary tactic. Because the ruling caste must appear infallible, past events are constantly rewritten to match current doctrine and conceal mistakes.
Truth is fluid. Major policy changes require corresponding changes in historical narrative and the revaluation of figures. This leads to a disbelief in objective truth, where facts can be disregarded in politics and history, even while accepted in science.
Intellectual complicity. The "russophile" intelligentsia in England often condoned or participated in this falsification, suppressing known facts about the USSR. They prioritized political expediency over truth, arguing that honesty would be "inopportune."

6. Tyranny is inherently hostile to prose literature and sincere expression.

Freedom of the intellect means the freedom to report what one has seen, heard, and felt, and not to be obliged to fabricate imaginary facts and feelings.

Prose requires sincerity. Imaginative writers are unfree when forced to falsify their subjective feelings, which are their facts. This destroys their creative ability. Even non-political topics are affected, as any thought might lead to a forbidden one.
Poetry vs. Prose. Poetry, especially lyric or communal forms, might survive under tyranny because its meaning is less direct and individual feeling less central. Prose, however, is a product of rationalism and the autonomous individual.
Death of literature. Totalitarianism, with its unstable doctrines and enforced orthodoxy, is deadly to prose literature. Writers who adopt the totalitarian outlook destroy themselves, as literary creation requires spontaneity, which cannot exist in captivity.

7. Patriotism can be a deep, complex loyalty, even towards a changing nation.

Patriotism has nothing to do with conservatism. It is devotion to something that is changing but is felt to be mystically the same, like the devotion of the ex-White Bolshevik to Russia.

Personal shift. Orwell recounts his own shift from pacifism to supporting the war against Hitler, realizing his deep-seated patriotism through a dream. This loyalty was not to the current government but to an enduring, albeit changing, idea of England.
Middle-class training. He reflects on the moral training for war received by the middle class from childhood, which instilled a loyalty that made sabotage impossible in a crisis. This training, though sometimes mocked, prepared individuals for commitment.
Loyalty's power. The capacity for patriotism and military virtues is seen as essential, even for revolutionaries. Orwell suggests that those who lack this deep, emotional loyalty to their country might flinch from the demands of revolution.

8. Public hospitals can expose the poor to impersonal suffering and neglect.

During the past fifty years or so there has been a great change in the relationship between doctor and patient.

Nineteenth-century legacy. Hospitals historically served as places for the destitute to die or for students to practice on the poor. Orwell's experience in a Paris hospital (Hôpital X) revealed lingering aspects of this past, including squalor, neglect, and impersonal treatment.
Patients as specimens. In public wards, patients were often treated as interesting cases for students rather than as human beings. Orwell describes students examining him with intense interest but no personal interaction, and patients dying unnoticed or exposed.
Contrast with England. While acknowledging improvements, Orwell notes that the level of neglect and impersonal death seen in Hôpital X would be less likely in English hospitals, attributing this partly to better-trained nurses. However, he maintains a "sound instinct" to avoid hospitals if possible, especially public wards.

9. Early schooling can inflict lasting psychological damage through cruelty and snobbery.

Soon after I arrived at St Cyprian’s (not immediately, but after a week or two, just when I seemed to be settling into the routine of school life) I began wetting my bed.

Punishment and shame. Orwell's bed-wetting at age eight was treated as a crime punishable by beating, instilling deep shame and a sense of being inherently wicked. This experience taught him that sin could be something unavoidable that happened to you.
Harsh environment. The school, St Cyprian's, was a world of "force and fraud and secrecy," where boys were flung from a loving home into a hostile environment. Bullying was rampant, and there was no effective redress except sneaking, the ultimate sin.
Physical squalor. Beyond psychological cruelty, the school environment was physically disgusting, with poor hygiene, insufficient food, and uncomfortable conditions. Memories are filled with details of dirt, smells, and physical discomfort.

10. Children internalize societal hierarchies and a sense of inherent failure.

By the social standards that prevailed about me, I was no good, and could not be any good.

Class system. St Cyprian's had a clear hierarchy based on wealth and social status, with rich boys favored and poorer scholarship boys like Orwell constantly reminded of their dependent position and lack of privilege.
Snobbery and values. Boys internalized the prevailing snobbish values, believing that wealth, strength, beauty, and social dominance ("guts" or "character") were the true virtues. They were acutely aware of class distinctions and judged others accordingly.
Belief in worthlessness. Orwell absorbed the idea that he was inherently "no good" due to lacking these qualities (money, strength, popularity, etc.). This conviction of failure went deep, influencing his self-perception and plans for the future.

11. The instinct to survive persists despite internalizing feelings of worthlessness.

Even a creature that is weak, ugly, cowardly, smelly and in no way justifiable still wants to stay alive and be happy after its own fashion.

Acceptance of failure. Despite believing he was damned by the "armies of unalterable law" (the powerful and successful), Orwell developed an instinct to survive by accepting his perceived failure and making the best of it.
Criminal survival. Preserving any independence meant breaking the rules of the dominant code. Orwell recounts an incident where he struck a bully but then refused to fight, recognizing his cowardice by the school's standards but also the necessity of his action for self-preservation.
Emotional rebellion. While intellectually accepting the prevailing codes, Orwell's inner self maintained an emotional rebellion, recognizing the gap between expected feelings (gratitude to cruel benefactors) and actual feelings (hatred). This internal conflict was a key part of his experience.

Last updated: May 4, 2025