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Nathan Waddell - A Bright Cold Day - Book Talk
When we think about Orwell, we imagine an angular, moustachioed sceptic crouched over a typewriter, who – between puffs on his cigarette – composes effortless streams of prose, unadorned but explosive. We see a man with ‘Important Things to Say’ about: the slow creep of authoritarianism; the consequences of all-seeing tech; the fragility of truth.
Much less often do we see him as a person caught up in the business of everyday life. And yet Orwell’s work thrums with the quotidian: the smell of boiled cabbage, the chill of an unheated flat in early spring, the rumbling of old pipes.
A Bright Cold Day reveals how the principles that govern us begin in the mundane. From waking and showering to breakfast, work, lunch, the pub, sleep and dreaming, Orwell was never dulled to the routines of living. And in the details of the day, we can understand how power, money, freedom and choice play out, not just for Orwell’s literary characters, but for us all.
Nathan Waddell is Professor of Twentieth-Century Literature in the Department of English Literature at the University of Birmingham. He has written and edited a number of books including - A Bright Cold Day: The Wonder of George Orwell; Moonlighting: Beethoven and Literary Modernism; Modernist Nowheres: Politics and Utopia in Early Modernist Writing, 1900-1920; Modern John Buchan: A Critical Introduction
Much less often do we see him as a person caught up in the business of everyday life. And yet Orwell’s work thrums with the quotidian: the smell of boiled cabbage, the chill of an unheated flat in early spring, the rumbling of old pipes.
A Bright Cold Day reveals how the principles that govern us begin in the mundane. From waking and showering to breakfast, work, lunch, the pub, sleep and dreaming, Orwell was never dulled to the routines of living. And in the details of the day, we can understand how power, money, freedom and choice play out, not just for Orwell’s literary characters, but for us all.
Nathan Waddell is Professor of Twentieth-Century Literature in the Department of English Literature at the University of Birmingham. He has written and edited a number of books including - A Bright Cold Day: The Wonder of George Orwell; Moonlighting: Beethoven and Literary Modernism; Modernist Nowheres: Politics and Utopia in Early Modernist Writing, 1900-1920; Modern John Buchan: A Critical Introduction
Thursday 17 July
Rossiter Books
5 Church Street
Great Malvern Worcestershire WR14 2AA
Ticket £7(£3 off the book at the event)
7pm
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