I sold you and you sold me.

12/30/2007 2:18:04 AM

you people should read a book...

12/30/2007 2:55:23 AM

There lie they, and here lie we
Under the spreading chestnut tree

12/30/2007 3:07:45 AM

Quote :

"The "Chestnut Tree Cafe", like most everything else in Orwell's books, is based on a real place, in this case a London restaurant named the "Cafe Royal". Here's some basic background to the Cafe Royal time period: Prior to WWII Orwell was an isolationist (labelled pacifist) who believed that England should not get involved in another fascist/communist/imperialist war. In his novel Coming Up For Air - which was published in 1939 just before England declared war - Orwell warned people about what was coming and that the only winners would be "the streamlined men from Eastern Europe who think in slogans and talk in bullets". But once the war started Orwell stopped being a pacifist and joined the war effort full throttle. All his so-called "socialist" friends (really communists) stayed isolationist until Germany invaded Russia and then they shouted louder than anyone else that England had to go help Stalin. Orwell was eating in a restaurant with some of them when the news of Germany attacking Russia came over the radio and they immediately turned from pacifist talk to war-mongering talk, literally in mid-sentence. That's where he got the idea for the scene in "1984" where Winston's drinking gin in the Chestnut Tree Cafe when the Party announces another victory over the enemy - whose name has been changed from Eastasia to Eurasia - and everyone cheers as though nothing is any different. Orwell and his wife Eileen moved from the village of Wallington to London where Eileen got a job with the Ministry of Information and Orwell - who was rejected for active service due to his wretched lungs - volunteered in the Home Guard and worked as a book reviewer and contributor to literary magazines, then for BBC as a talks-host and announcer, and then as editor and columnist in a literary magazine, while all the while writing Animal Farm which he finished in 1943, but which no one would publish because it was anti-Communist and described Stalin as a pig. But Orwell wasn't like most of the Fleet Street/Bloomsbury crowd (so called because the newspaper, magazine and publishing offices were located in those streets of London) who drank too much and got too little done. He would stay for his designated amount of time (usually mid-day) and then go home to his writing routine which was from after supper until the wee hours of the morning. He seldom joined the "established" journalists who frequented a restaurant called the Cafe Royal. Those people were what we refer to today as "politically correct" or "mainstream" journalists and who Winston described as "orthodox". Orwell didn't have a politically correct or orthodox bone in his body and didn't enjoy the company of people like that. He preferred to hang out with struggling writers, poets and journalists even though he was no longer struggling himself, being a published author and a friend of some wealthy fellow-Etonians. Another thing that made Orwell different from the intellectual types who frequented the Cafe Royal was his life style. He and Eileen lived in working class neighbourhoods of London in rented apartments and stuck strictly to the war-time rationings, even when he was making above-average money at the BBC. Many of the people who frequented the Cafe Royal actually hated Orwell and would never publish his writings. Some of them, who had originally thought Orwell was a Communist (they used the word "socialist") like themselves, had been horrified to realize that Orwell was actually the ENEMY of Communism and he was looked upon as a traitor to "the cause". Some of them actually worked for Secret Intelligence (KGB/MI6/CIA) and pretended to be anti-Capitalist and anti-Communist to stay in Orwell's circle. They betrayed Orwell's cause (socialism) by refusing to publish Homage to Catalonia and slowing down the publication of Animal Farm. Also, the Communists despised Orwell when they heard that he'd submitted a list of their names to the post-war government when asked who should and shouldn't be given jobs in writing in support of democracy and against communism, now that the Cold War was on and England and Russia were enemies again. To this day they call him a traitor for exposing them as "crypto commies", believing, as they do, that they should be protected by a veil of silence. To them, Orwell is another Joseph McCarthy."

werdz

12/30/2007 3:19:43 AM

SHIT I THOUGHT THIS THREAD WAS ABOUT THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH.. you chillens and your 1984

The Village Blacksmith

Under a spreading chestnut tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whate'er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.

And children coming home from school
Look in at the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,
And hear the bellows roar,
And catch the burning sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing-floor.

He goes on Sunday to the church,
And sits among his boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach,
He hears his daughter's voice,
Singing in the village choir,
And it makes his heart rejoice.

It sounds to him like her mother's voice,
Singing in Paradise!
He needs must think of her once more,
How in the grave she lies;
And with his hard, rough hand he wipes
A tear out of his eyes.

Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

12/30/2007 8:49:52 AM