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The Orwell Diaries
By matt | August 11, 2008
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Here’s a good one for your feed reader: The Orwell Diaries. It’s the diary of George Orwell, posted on the same day he wrote each entry…just 70 years later.
From the opening entry, posted by the Orwell Prize people (whoever they are):
From 9th August 2008, you will be able to gather your own impression of Orwell’s face from reading his most strongly individual piece of writing: his diaries. The Orwell Prize is delighted to announce that, to mark the 70th anniversary of the diaries, each diary entry will be published on this blog exactly seventy years after it was written, allowing you to follow Orwell’s recuperation in Morocco, his return to the UK, and his opinions on the descent of Europe into war in real time. The diaries end in 1942, three years into the conflict.
First, if I read the diary in a book, I’d probably skim the “minor” entries (so far, on August 11th, he’s caught a snake and it’s been misty weather) as I looked for the “important” things he wrote. In this format, even the “minor” entries get a day to be read and considered. It provides a bit more time to absorb and understand Orwell as we read what he thought was important enough to write down in a diary.
It is an interesting transition from a written format into an electronic form. Normally, we see entire works uploaded to the web, such as with Google Books. We see the work in the same way as on paper: in one big lump. Not here, as we see the work unfold, linearly, through time.
Second, Orwell wasn’t writing for an audience, but he was doing as bloggers do today: writing about the large and small things that fill their days. I suspect what we read won’t be much different than what we see on many blogs…except that this one was written by Orwell. I wonder if it will make the sections that are more “pithy” more meaningful.
Cool stuff, I think.
Topics: books |