Reactions
Orwell's essays in Tribune, including this, have been described in The Independent as some of the greatest essays in the English language. The question Orwell raised continues to provide a basis for discussion, as in a review of a poll in which one in four Americans read no books at all in 2007 and that chief executives claim that they have no time to read literature.
The essay was the subject of an update by Structo Magazine who published "Books v. Cigarettes: 63 years on".
Read more about this topic: Books V. Cigarettes
Famous quotes containing the word reactions:
“In this Journal, my pen is a delicate needle point, tracing out a graph of temperament so as to show its daily fluctuations: grave and gay, up and down, lamentation and revelry, self-love and self-disgust. You get here all my thoughts and opinions, always irresponsible and often contradictory or mutually exclusive, all my moods and vapours, all the varying reactions to environment of this jelly which is I.”
—W.N.P. Barbellion (1889–1919)
“We have all had the experience of finding that our reactions and perhaps even our deeds have denied beliefs we thought were ours.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)
“Prolonged, indiscriminate reviewing of books is a quite exceptionally thankless, irritating and exhausting job. It not only involves praising trash but constantly inventing reactions towards books about which one has no spontaneous feeling whatever.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)