Happy birthday, George Orwell

It is the birthday of writer George Orwell (1903), who is remembered for his novella, Animal Farm (1945) and his novel, 1984 (1949), both of which painted visions of totalitarian regimes controlling society. Animal Farm was an allegory intended to satirize the rise of Joseph Stalin in Russia. The novel 1984 was intended to tackle issues of war, censorship, surveillance, and though control. Here is a riveting program by the BBC about Orwell, including extensive interviews. It's worth the effort to watch it all. (Warning: For some inexplicable reason, the YouTube playlist is not in order. Be attentive.)

Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World

Aldous Huxley

It is the birthday of English writer Aldous Huxley (1894), whose science fiction novel Brave New World (1932) is considered among the best English-language novels of the 20th century.

The book predicted the loss of individual identity in a world of mass production. Huxley wrote it partly as a parody of H.G. Wells' A Modern Utopia (1905) and his Men Like Gods (1923), books that presented an upbeat vision of the future. Huxley took a dim view of what was to come. When it was published, Brave New World was widely panned by critics but has since come into favor in literary circles.

Huxley came from a family of overachievers. His father was an educator and writer. His grandfather was a prominent biologist and such a staunch advocate of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution that he earned the appellation "Darwin's Bulldog." His brother and half brother were also biologists.

Huxley first trained in his father's botanical lab and was taught by his mother until she died. Then he went to Eton College and later Oxford. He was exempted from military duty during World War I because of an illness that left him mostly blind, though in later years he recovered most of his eyesight.

He taught French at Eton for a year and proved to be a terrible teacher, unable to maintain discipline in his classes. Among his students was Eric Blair, who later became George Orwell. He eventually started writing and wrote several novels and many magazine articles. He was a regular contributor to Vanity Fair.

Huxley moved to Hollywood in 1937 and lived there until his death in 1963, though he lived for a brief time in Taos, New Mexico. He wrote Ends and Means (1937), a collection of essays on ethics, nationalism, religion, and war. He was a vocal pacifist.

 He tried writing for the movies, completing a screenplay for Madame Curie for MGM and contributing to the studio's 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice. He also worked on the 1943 production of Jane Eyre for 20th Century Fox. But his leisurely style didn't fit energetic Hollywood.

He later became interested in spiritualism and psychedelic drugs. He became associated with Swami Prabhavananda in Hollywood and became active with the Vedanta Society of Southern California. He wrote extensively for the organization.

Huxley died on the same day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Author C.S. Lewis also died that day. Christian theology writer Peter Kreeft was inspired by those events to write the novel Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C.S. Lewis, and Aldous Huxley (1982), in which the three men discuss Jesus from different points of view.

Brave New World was adapted as a TV movie in 1998.

George Orwell wrote Animal Farm, 1984

George Orwell

It is the birthday of novelist George Orwell, whose best-known books, Animal Farm (1946) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), warn of social ills. Both are considered among the best English language novels of the 20th century. 

Animal Farm is a biting satire that criticizes Stalinist Russia and the Soviet regime that ran the country, and the corruption of original socialist ideas, which Orwell supported. One main principle of the Animal Farm society begins as "All animals are equal" but eventually becomes "All animals are equal but some are more equal than others." 

Nineteen Eighty-Four describes a society ruled by a totalitarian group known as The Party and a enigmatic dictator known as Big Brother, a term that has entered the popular vocabulary along with thought police, Newspeak, Oldspeak, doublethink, crimethink, ungood, unperson and more. Orwell's work gave rise to the term Orwellian to describe an authoritarian society or concept. Orwell's name was actually Eric Blair. 

He chose the pseudonym George Orwell because of his love of the Orwell River, a waterway in Suffolk County, England, where he lived much of his life. Orwell worked as a journalist for several newspapers and contributed to numerous magazines. His Homage to Catalonia (1938) tells of his experiences as a soldier in the Spanish Civil War. His Burmese Days (1934) is based on his time as an officer in the Indian Imperial Police in Burma.