George Orwell and Fenian Bastard

Today would have been George Orwell's 105th birthday.

I found myself reading Orwell's page on Wikipedia when this bit jumped out at me;

When reading some of Fenian's finer screeds you also got that image of the writer behind the words and he too seemed about 40 with a small beard and a high color, laughing, with a touch of anger in his laughter. If Fenian were to come back - the name "Generously Angry" would be a fitting screen pseudonym.

Of course he could also go with "Bitterman from the 60's" or "I was Wrong About Rumsfeld" or "Lynchy Kicked My Ass in Debate" and those would be equally apt as well.

 

You shouldn't speak ill of the deleted, Evil B.

 

I'm not speaking ill of anyone. Orwell's description of Dickens actually did make me think of Fenian. Don't tell me that the words a 20th "century liberal, a free intelligence, a type hated with equal hatred by all the smelly little orthodoxies which are now contending for our souls" doesn't sound pretty spot on for old Fenian.

 

'...no triumph, no malignity....'

Doesn't sound like our Fenian. But I still miss the guy.

 

I was going to say something about that. I know it's not a perfect simile.

But hey - nobody could say "nana nana boo boo" in bigger words and with more references to Ancient Greek philospophers than our Fenian.

And no I am not making fun of Fenian. He was a wordsmith and I'm guessing that old George Orwell would have been filled with more triumph and malignity if he reached a riper old age.