ORWELL ABROAD
doubt if many of 'your readers will have disagreed with Mr. John Wain's assess- ment of Mr. Lawrence Brander's book, George Orwell; or with his remarks about Orwell. But surely his jokes about foreigners are not only in poor taste and out of place in a serious review, but also quite irrelevant to Mr. Brander's failure to write a good book about Orwell. Further, Mr. Wain's attitude is one which Orwell, whose general ideas he evidently admires and partly shares, would have particularly despised.
Does Mr. Wain seriously think we ought to split our sides (as he obviously does) over such damned funny ideas as ' some Croat,' Eskimo readers,' or ' Turks' ? And over such even damned funnier ones as these peoples' possible concern with Orwell, or with Mr. Wain's (and our) own literature ? The conception of other races' literature must make him howl with (doubtless indulgent) glee.
It isn't easy to know what he means when, at the end of his review, he writes (of Orwell), ' He managed to tell enough truths in his lifetime to make any degree of attention to his work valuable and urgent; and that goes for Mr. Brander's Turks too '; even if this means what I think it does—that Mr. Brander, a% a 'Britisji Council man' whose ' real aim may be to get the book translated into Turkish or Korean' (though this is strongly suggested to be the reason for Mr. Brander's failure), has let the Turks down—it is still evident that the Turks (and other foreigners with funny names) are being used as a humorous ground-pass to the theme of the review. It is just possible that the conjectured
reactions of foreigners to Orwell's work might make an interesting essay subject; but, outside the Remove, isn't it dangerous, unpleasant and intolerant to laugh at foreigners ? Or do we all sign a petition to keep the swine out of Our school ? Quite apart from any literary considerations, this attitude is a challenge to the idea of any sort of human dignity; it is especially shocking to find a critic of Mr. Wain's intelligence and ability using it as his comic stock-in-trade. If he is right, and foreigners really are funny in themselves, then the only logical attitude, for all of us, is to pity, not just man un-English, but man un- Wain.—Yours faithfully,
MARTIN SEYMOUR-SMITH
2 A vonniore Mansions, Avonntore Road, W.14
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