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The Spectacle Blog
Among the papers newly released from T.S. Eliot's widow is his rejection letter for George Orwell's Animal Farm. Reports the London Times:
IT must rate as the literary snub of the 20th century. T S Eliot, one of Britain's greatest poets, rejected George Orwell's Animal Farm for publication on the grounds of its unconvincing Trotskyite politics.
Eliot, a former director of Faber and Faber, the publisher, wrote his rejection in a highly critical letter in 1944, one of many private papers made available for the first time by his widow Valerie for a BBC documentary.
When Orwell submitted his novel, an allegory on Stalin's dictatorship, Eliot praised its "good writing" and "fundamental integrity".
However, the book's politics, at a time when Britain was allied with the Soviet Union against Hitler, were another matter.
"We have no conviction that this is the right point of view from which to criticise the political situation at the current time," wrote Eliot, adding that he thought its "view, which I take to be generally Trotskyite, is not convincing".
Eliot wrote: "After all, your pigs are far more intelligent than the other animals, and therefore the best qualified to run the farm - in fact there couldn't have been an Animal Farm at all without them: so that what was needed (someone might argue) was not more communism but more public-spirited pigs."
"It's a fascinating, yet very odd letter," said Anthony Wall, series editor of Arena, the BBC arts documentary, which will explore the papers. "What exactly does Eliot mean?"
Animal Farm was published the following year by Secker & Warburg.
It bears reminding that the hard left's distaste for freedom is nothing new.
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Mary| 4.11.09 @ 1:58PM
In Barney's Version, Mordecai Richler lets fly with some scuttlebutt about Eliot and his wife, and the likelihood that she wrote a lot of his stuff. IIRC, the scuttlebutt also included locking her up in house.
The book even mentions Rush.
Martin| 4.11.09 @ 2:10PM
Nice theory, but falls down on the fact that Eliot wasn't any kind of left, whereas in 1944 Orwell was considered a fellow traveler. Eliot was almost certainly rejecting Animal Farm from the right.
Doesn't make the rejection a good decision, but things became much clearer after Yalta, so it may have been a matter of timing.
Mary| 4.11.09 @ 2:34PM
Didn't he claim to be a Royalist? If so, I can see how that would put him at odds with Orwell.
Maybe O/T a bit, but this is a great read.
George Orwell is more important that Eliot. A lot more important.
H/T for Orwell link: The likeable curmudgeon John Derbyshire.
Bonnie| 4.11.09 @ 3:24PM
"It bears reminding that the hard left's distaste for freedom is nothing new. " Wha...??! There ought to be some kind of stupidity award for this remark. T.S. Eliot was not 'left', hard or otherwise. Orwell was 'left', 'hard', and very much for freedom.
Alan Brooks| 4.11.09 @ 4:02PM
verrry interesting.
in my unhumble opinion Trotsky was even worse than Stalin (!), Trotsky wanted a worldwide Leninist bloodbath, the sort that didn't "sell too good" (as they say on Long Island) in Poland 1920.
Alan Brooks| 4.11.09 @ 4:04PM
even worse (!) than Stalin.
Cripes, what a sobering thought.
Red Phillips| 4.11.09 @ 4:14PM
I have always thought that Animal Farm is a much better book than the mind-numbing and preachy 1984.
People are right that Eliot was no leftist although as an old school rightist he likely believed in some sort of natural elite, hence the reference to public spirited pigs. Orwell was a leftist but an anti-authoritarian. Whether he was ever a Trotskyite like the original neocons (shameless swipe) I will have to leave to others who would know better.
Alan Brooks| 4.11.09 @ 4:35PM
a deserved swipe,
but there is no more of a reprobate who knows from where he speaks than a former Commie.
you think about it.
Alan Brooks| 4.11.09 @ 4:37PM
no, i DO know exactly who you were swiping-- not the neocons.
Vaemar| 4.12.09 @ 12:41PM
I think Martin is quite likely correct - Eliot was critcising Aminal Farm from the right.
The book is anti-Stalinist, certainly, and was a valuable weapon for freedom in the Cold War, but as Eliot says, it really offers nothing positive, except possibly more public-spirited pigs. It does not acknowledge that Capitalism really does deliver the goods in terms of prosperity and freedom. Orwell was a great writer but showed almost no interest in political economics - there is not a mention of Adam Smith in the index to the whoile of his collected work. Further, he treats religion as nothing but a fraud and a racket, cynically used by the pigs to keep the animals quiet. Evelyn Waugh, writing Orwell a basically friendly and supportive - indeed enthusiastic - letter after the publication of "Nineteen Eighty Four" made the point to him that religion matters in political life as more than acynical racket and men who worship a crucified God will not be silenced by the fear of secret police.
Vaemar| 4.12.09 @ 12:44PM
Further to the above, as Animal Farm is a close allegory of the Russian Revolution, it completely ignores the point that in the period before the First World War, Russia under the Czarist regime was actually modernising quite rapidly and the standard of living was improving.
Alan Brooks| 4.12.09 @ 11:56PM
Orwell couldn't have known in the'40s that not only Communism would be shown to be an illusion, but also ALL marxism, feminism, even progressivism.
Eliot was correct, he knewTrotskyism was a dead end.