Before I bought this book, I had approximately 43 books on my bookshelf that I have yet to read. I bought three more books along with this one, and I bought four more afterwards. I do not only have books on my bookshelf, I also have a list of books that I want to borrow from different libraries and from a couple of friends. My dad pointed out that my book-keeping and book-buying has grown into a vice.
This is what Orwell points out in this book (that originally was an article); that we choose the vices we finance. Whether we drink, smoke, or read, or maybe a combination of these; we mustn’t complain about the prices, because since they are our vices, we are willing to pay for them. Luckily for me, I only finance one vice, and that is the vice of books. A not-so-bad vice, because we set the value of the books we have and the ones we read. As Orwell describes; “There are books that one reads over and over again, books that become part of the furniture of one’s minds and alter one’s whole attitude to life, books that one dips into but never reads through, [and] books that one reads at a single sitting and forgets a week later…”
This is not the only topic discussed in the book, however, since various complements of Orwell’s literary life are narrated in great intimacy. What I got out of this book, is that in the eyes of the great author George Orwell; literature is like the art of the intellectuals.
Manos literarias 06/06/2017
Manos Literarias 