Orwell’s “Coming up for Air”

[ndrosen]

Friends may know that George Orwell is one of my heroes, and an influence on me. He is best known for Nineteen Eighty-Four, Animal Farm, and for his political writings and other essays, but it should not be forgotten that he was also a mainstream novelist. You really need to be an Orwell enthusiast to seek out and read A Clergyman’s Daughter and Keep the Aspidistra Flying, as I have done, but Coming up for Air is a better-written work, and would be of interest even if it had not been written by the author of “Politics and the English Language” and the “As I Please” columns for the Tribune.

I therefore made note of a post by David Post at the Volokh Conspiracy, referring to this novel. If I recall correctly, Orwell wrote the book without a single semicolon, believing at the time that that form of punctuation served no real purpose. He did not stick to the position, and, as I recall, there are semicolons in 1984.

Comments

[thewayne]

We have his book about being a dishwasher in Paris in my library, I sent it out on interlibrary loan earlier this year.

[ndrosen]

I have also read and reread “Down and Out in Paris and London.”

[thewayne]

That's it!  I had some exposure to Hunter S. Thompson last night in the form of an amusing paraphrase, and my brain was telling me it started with "Down and Out", but deeper down "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was stirring around and my confidence level wasn't very high.  I tried reading Fear and Loathing once, couldn't get into it at the time and never tried seeing the movie.  Drug culture does not have a high appeal to me.

[thewayne]

I'm not sure whether I have every book that Nicholas has written in my library or not, I'll have to check the database when I get in to work tomorrow.  I might be missing one or two.

[selenite0]

I'm pretty sure there's no semicolons in my books. In fact, I think the last time I used a semicolon I was editing some C++ code.

[ndrosen]

When I was in high school, I wrote an appreciation, “On the Humble Semicolon.” I continue to use semicolons; think of that what you will.

[filkferengi]

I stan semicolons; they reflect how I think.