Exaggeration nation: Orwell

Is George Orwell’s1984 the most influential novel ever written? That’s what Geoffrey Wheatcroft says in a recent essay ^[1] in the New York Times:

No other [novel] can have so enriched the language. Try a Web search for countless contemporary uses of Newspeak, the thought police or doublethink – the expressions, that is: a glance at the political pages or op-ed columns provides plenty of examples of what those brilliant coinings describe.

My, with all this “coining” and “enrichment,” Orwell is practically the Royal Mint. Maybe Orwell’s words are still in circulation but are his ideas really in good condition?

In his 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language” Orwell excoriates ^[2] writing “designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” Instead, he advocates writing as “an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought.” Which of these two descriptions more accurately characterizes the op/ed prose that Orwell has supposedly influenced so profoundly?

In other words: How can a champion of the English language be so influential if the state of that language — especially in political writing — is so obviously dilapidated? Wheatcroft seems to measure importance as the provision of buzz words to dunderheaded hacks so that they can browbeat one another more wantonly. That’s like saying somebody makes the best baseball bats because of how many schoolyard bullies prefer them.

It’s also against the spirit of Orwell’s approach. Orwell criticized writers who borrow “ready-made” phrases and he deplored the use of specialized jargon where simpler words will do, so it is bizarre to celebrate him on the strength of the enduring appeal of his ready-made phrases and specialized jargon.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a lifelong admirer of Orwell. I just feel obliged to point out that he would probably consider Wheatcroft’s usage of “influence” a little barbarous. Yes, many people still borrow a word or two from 1984. But in doing so, they don’t testify to Orwell’s sway so much as ignore it.