The Crystal Spirit: A Study of George Orwell

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

It is, of course, appropriate that George Woodcock’s highly praised study (it won many accolades, including a Governor General’s Award on its first publication in 1966) should be reprinted in Orwell’s year of 1984. The Crystal Spirit was one of the earliest full-scale studies of Orwell, and its quadripartite structure is uniquely suited to the qualities of the man and his work. Woodcock himself describes these sections succinctly as “the man, the myth-maker, the polemicist, the stylist.” The first is not biography proper (which Orwell forbade in his will), but Woodcock’s personal — and extremely valuable — reminiscences of a friendship; the second explores the main writings thematically, pointing up the developing coherence of Orwell’s preoccupations; the third attempts to extract a philosophy of conservatism and rebellion from his writings and attitudes; and the fourth, “Prose Like a Windowpane,” discusses and illustrates his style — or, to be more accurate, his styles.

Woodcock was particularly well equipped to tread his way through the treacherous paths of Orwellian interpretation. As a Canadian living and working in London during the 1930s and 1940s, he could observe Orwell from the sidelines, recognizing his impassioned Socialism on one hand but able to reconcile this with a bedrock conservatism (small “c”) on another. He could also provide a balanced critique of Orwell’s position on imperialism (not nearly as clear-cut as is sometimes assumed). His own views partly overlapped with Orwell’s, partly differed from them, but they enabled Woodcock to understand a deeply committed Socialist hated by Communists, and an anti-totalitarian who could be desperately smuggled into the baggage of the imperialist Right.

Reading The Crystal Spirit in 1966, one was impressed by the roundedness of its intellectual portrait of an important writer and a lovable but infuriating man. That impression remains, of course; but, rereading in 1984, I am struck by Woodcock’s own “prose like a windowpane.” He writes of Orwell that “he wisely took much more pride in a good critical essay than in an indifferent piece of fiction.” The same might be said of Woodcock. The final reason why Woodcock is the ideal commentator on the author of Animal Farm and the political and critical essays is that both write directly, clearly, precisely, and delicately.

For this new edition, Woodcock has added an 18-page introduction that sets his book in the context of the 1980s.