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Orwell's Nose: A Pathological Biography Kindle Edition

by John Sutherland (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 36 ratings
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Some time ago, John Sutherland permanently lost his sense of smell. At about the same time he embarked on a re-reading of George Orwell’s works, and his lack of olfactory sense cast an entirely new light on the re-evaluation. What he now noticed was just how acutely attuned to scent Orwell was: rich descriptions of odours, fetors and reeks occur throughout his works, from Winston Smith’s apartment building in Nineteen Eighty-Four: ‘The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats,’ to John Flory’s concubine Ma Hla May in Burmese Days: ‘A mingled scent of sandalwood, garlic, coconut oil and the jasmine in her hair floated from her.’
Orwell’s Nose is an original and imaginative account of the life and work of George Orwell, exploring the ‘scent narratives’ that abound in Orwell’s fiction and non-fiction. Along the way the author elucidates questions that remain unanswered in previous biographies, and addresses gaps in the evidence of the writer’s life and legacy. Orwell covered his tracks well; this illuminating and irreverent book provides a new understanding of one of our most iconic and influential writers.
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  1. Print length
    240 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Reaktion Books
  5. Publication date
    August 8, 2016
  6. File size
    3568 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Orwell has been the subject of acres of print, but I've never come across an approach as original as Sutherland’s. . . . Insightful and quite brilliant." ― Mail on Sunday

“An unusual perspective illuminates a much written-about author.”
  ― Kirkus Reviews

"Sutherland is able, with the straightest of faces, to talk about Coming Up For Air being 'the most aromatic of Orwell’s novels'--a book that, his researches insist, 'fairly caresses the nostrils.' A conventional academic critic--which Sutherland is not--would probably throw up his or her hands in horror at this insouciance, but it takes only the briefest saunter through the Eng Lit canon to establish that the University of London's former Lord Northcliffe Professor is on to something, not merely in the matter of Orwell's nose but with literary life in general." -- D. J. Taylor ― Times

“Odour is front and centre in Orwell’s work, and Sutherland has provided some helpful ‘smell narratives’ that enable us to follow an oblique path through some of the best-known texts (fiction and documentary) from one hotspot of rankling secretions to another.”
  ― London Review of Books

“A good biography, [Orwell] asserted, needed two things: piety and wit. John Sutherland’s extraordinary new book, Orwell’s Nose, abounds in both . . . As with Orwell’s writing style, very little goes to waste here, and the book is a remarkable achievement of synthesis. His demeanour and habits are subjected to an examination that, despite its brevity, is in some ways as forensic as those offered by the lengthier investigations of Sutherland’s predecessors. . . . As one would expect from a writer of Sutherland’s stripe, there’s an easy familiarity with Orwell’s output, the reams of criticism in print, and also the countless literary allusions found in his writings, all of which make it an effortless read.” ― PopMatters

“Orwell’s Nose is well-suited to London-based Reaktion Books’ peerless list of offbeat but intellectually compelling titles. Compelling this ‘pathological’ biography is. For an Orwell lover, just contemplating Sutherland teasing out what he calls the writer’s ‘smell narratives’ is to be pitched into the opening of 1984 and into a new appreciation of its literary, as opposed to political, power.” -- Brian Bethune ― Macleans

“Orwell’s Nose is an olfactory cornucopia, a brilliant thematic biography and a compassionate exposure of an almost clean conscience in an invariably dirty age.” ― Wall Street Journal

"John Sutherland is a skilled, entertaining, and often humorous writer." ― NewPages

“Orwell’s Nose is highly readable in a quick, casual style with many felicities. . . . This book sent me walking about nose aloft, like a Bisto Kid, hungry for (in Sutherland’s phrase) ‘life’s olfactions.’” ― Financial Times

“In this ‘pathological biography,’ a noted critic rereads Orwell and determines that the writer ‘was born with a singularly diagnostic sense of smell.’ In addition to the infamous assertion in ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ that ‘the lower classes smell,’ Sutherland, who recently lost his own sense of smell, turns up other pungent landmarks of Orwell’s life.” ― New Yorker

“As a literary critic, rather than a traditional biographer, Sutherland takes the surprisingly atypical approach of viewing the work as central to the life. The result is a relatively short book that captures the essence of Orwell better than the average six hundred page biography. . . . In the universe of smells that Sutherland presents, the smells of teak, of English pastures, of industrial poverty, and of dying humanity, it was the smell of a working typewriter, of ink running off a ribbon, that most regularly greeted Orwell’s nasal passages. In Orwell’s work, as in his nose, we find the odor of mortality and the mystery of creation paired in a vibrant paradox.” ― Los Angeles Review of Books

“This clever little book packs in a great deal: a prefatory essay on smell in literature, a breakneck biography of George Orwell and three quirky appendices including ‘smell narratives’ of two of his books. Sutherland has an impressive nose for the pongs in Orwell’s prose. . . . This biography is redolent, above all, of Sutherland’s enduring enthusiasm for a writer he has been reading for more than half a century.”
  ― Sunday Times

“As the title suggests, this entertaining and scholarly, if somewhat eccentric, biography examines the life and works of George Orwell through the lens of his olfactory preoccupations. . . . What emerges is a rigorous, rollicking, and at times ribald portrait of the author, from his childhood ‘born into a class neurotic about sanitation’ to the ‘lower-class smell’ of his barracks as a British colonial policeman in Burma and his eventual marriage and purchase of ‘a grand building, still smelling of oats and horse piss.’. . .  The overall depiction is diligently researched and scrupulously evenhanded, with the two authors’ (perhaps) shared fixation providing a unique scaffolding for a fresh look at a luminary of English letters.”
  ― Publishers Weekly

“Irreverent, conjectural, even scurrilous, Sutherland’s narrative delights in the funky underside of this most revered of literary figures, even as it clearly exhibits a continued affection for him.”
  ― Los Angeles Review of Books

Review

“Do we need another biography of George Orwell? The answer is yes, if it is as racily readable as Orwell’s Nose. Orwell’s obsession with smells, agreeable and (more often) offensive, has been noted before, but never explored to such effect, not excluding the smells of shag tobacco and BO he emitted himself. Sutherland combines admiration for Orwell’s ‘perfect prose’ with a candid registration of his imperfections as a man, and his almost masochistic tendency to make life difficult for himself—which often however inspired his finest work.” -- David Lodge, author of "A Good Time to be Born"

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01J44ZDZE
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Reaktion Books (August 8, 2016)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 8, 2016
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3568 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 36 ratings

Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
36 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Tom Allman
5.0 out of 5 stars A Quirky and Snarky Treat
Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2016
Verified Purchase
‘but it was shot through by a sharper reek of sweat, which -one knew this at the first sniff, though it was hard to say how -was the sweat of some person not present at the moment.’

This book is a Quirky and Snarky Treat!
It is not like any other biography you will ever read, or likely will ever read. And, that is a great thing! Mr. Sutherland has managed to write an unforgettable picture of an unforgettable writer. Sutherland, who has permanently lost his sense of smell, examines Orwell's life tangentially, through his descriptions of the fascinating world around him.
Eric Blair (aka George Orwell) is an incredibly fascinating person. His will stated that he wish no biographies. So any attempts were done without permission of his estate. It turns out, after reading this book, you will never read him the same again. Oh what a sense of smell! Here are some examples:

~ 'Poverty is spiritual halitosis'
~ 'Their[Burmese Women] slender flanks and pointed breasts... the odour of spices that clung to their satiny skins.
~ 'Socialism, at least in this island, does not smell any longer of revolution and the overthrow of tyrants; it smells of crankishness, machine-worship, and the stupid cult of Russia. Unless you can remove that smell, and very rapidly, Fascism may win.

I have read about half of Orwell’s books, and I'm working my way through the rest, and I must say that I hardly knew ye, Mr. Blair.
I must say that if Mr. Sutherland writes more biographies like this, say on Marx or Conrad, I'm in.
So many quotes, so little space. What I can say is that if you've only read 1984 and Animal Farm, you are missing out. If I could I would suggest 'Why I write', it's short and is all kinds of fantastic.

This book is a Quirky and Snarky Treat!

It is not like any other biography you will ever read, or likely will ever read. And, that is a great thing! Mr. Sutherland has managed to write an unforgettable picture of an unforgettable writer. Sutherland, who has permanently lost his sense of smell, examines Orwell's life tangentially, through his descriptions of the fascinating world around him.

Eric Blair (aka George Orwell) is an incredibly fascinating person. His will stated that he wish no biographies. So any attempts were done without permission of his estate. It turns out, after reading this book, you will never read him the same again. Oh what a sense of smell! Here are some examples:

'Poverty is spiritual halitosis'

'four frightful words...The lower-classes smell'-the Road to Wigan Pier

'The hallway smelt of smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats.'

[Victory Gin] 'It gave off a sickly, oily smell, as of Chinese rice-spirit.'

'

' "Communism" draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, "Nature Cure" quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.'

'Their[Burmese Women] slender flanks and pointed breasts... the odour of spices that clung to their satiny skins.

I have read about half of Orwell’s books, and I'm working my way through the rest, and I must say that I hardly knew ye, Mr. Blair.

I must say that if he writes more biographies like this, say on Capote, or Conrad, I'm in.

So many quotes, so little space. What I can say is that if you've only read 1984 and Animal Farm, you are missing out. If I could I would suggest 'Why I write', it's short and is all kinds of fantastic.

Socialism, at least in this island, does not smell any longer of revolution and the overthrow of tyrants; it smells of crankishness, machine-worship, and the stupid cult of Russia. Unless you can remove that smell, and very rapidly, Fascism may win.
4 people found this helpful
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Bruce Swanson
4.0 out of 5 stars I'm enjoying the book very much -- a good, interesting read
Reviewed in the United States on December 22, 2017
Being a fan of Orwell's non-fiction, I'm enjoying the book very much -- a good, interesting read. But I'm puzzled by the picture, supposedly of Orwell, on p.78. The caption says that it was probably taken in 1916. I cannot believe it. First, Orwell would have been 13 in 1916 and the man pictured is clearly years older than 13. Second, the photo really doesn't look like it dates from that era, from the quality of the picture to the casual pose of the subject. Third, Googling Orwell's images does not locate it. I suspect the author is pulling our leg and that the picture is of himself, probably taken in the 1960s.
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E. Jacobson
5.0 out of 5 stars as well as the abuse he inflicts on the poor title plant in his flat
Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2016
Verified Purchase
Although I had noticed Orwell's tendencies to use smell quite a lot in his novels, I had never really thought about it until reading this book.

But Orwell wasn't just obsessed with smells (although it's his main sense that he focuses on) but concentrates on gross things in general. In Down and Out in Paris and London table and countertops are often greasy and waiters spit in the food at an upscale hotel. In A Clergyman's Daughter Dorothy watches a woman's saliva string and slobber from the communion cup (my stomach turns at just thinking about that scene and typing it out). In A Road to Wigan Pier a woman wipes her mouth with greasy strips of newspapers and throws them on the ground in a pile. Gordon Comstock's rooms are freezing beyond belief in Keep the Aspidistra Flying; as well as the abuse he inflicts on the poor title plant in his flat. And the senses are often attacked constantly in Nineteen Eighty-Four; too many times to count. These are just the ones that stand out in my mind the most.

Sutherland wasn't afraid to point out times when Orwell was a hypocrite or being silly, which I appreciated despite being a huge fan of Orwell's to the point of obsession.

This isn't a detailed biography, those wanting that should look elsewhere---I recommend Bernard Crick (got the impression Sutherland doesn't like Crick's biography) or, recently, DJ Taylor. But it's an interesting and refreshingly new take on George Orwell.
7 people found this helpful
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Judith Robinson
3.0 out of 5 stars Smells better than it Reads
Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2017
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I love Orwell and try to read everything about him. I bought Orwell's Nose as a present this year and by mistake ordered two - so kept and read one for myself.
The title is misleading as the material is pretty thin regarding Orwell's Nose - yes, he does write about the various smells he has had occasion to dislike throughout his life. but Sutherland is stretching it a bit nevertheless.
I have never read anywhere either that Orwell could have been guilty of rape in his younger days.
Overall, nothing new here - the book will sell because of the title - but it could have been extended to include a lot more about the importance of smells in our lives.
3 people found this helpful
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Christian Schlect
5.0 out of 5 stars A Window Pane View of Orwell
Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2016
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A nice, interesting book that will be enjoyed by fans of George Orwell. However, it is neither a comprehensive biography, nor a full evaluation of the writings of this complicated man.

The well informed Mr. Sutherland guides the reader through the highlights of Mr. Orwell's life, with particular attention to his odd approach to women, his life-long Etonian ties, his affinity for farm animals, and to hard times in places such as Burma, Paris, and Spain. And, of course, given the book's title, to Mr. Orwell's effective use of smells in his written work.

Mr. Sutherland is British and this book is sprinkled with words and phrases better known on that side of the Atlantic. Which makes it that all the more interesting.
6 people found this helpful
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BL
2.0 out of 5 stars Orwell's Nose Smells
Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2017
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The rare moments of insight in this book are overshadowed by mean-spirited and sometimes wild conjecture, sprinkled with snarky comments meant to show how clever the author is. Combine this with sloppiness (Orwell is misidentified in a photo on page 86) and downright inaccuracy (Sacco and Vanzetti were convicted of a double murder during an armed robbery not for "a bomb outrage against a bank," p. 107), and "Orwell's Nose" kind of smells.
3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

MR G DOBSON
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 13, 2017
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Still finding out some odd things about Owell I have not seen before.
One person found this helpful
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Kenneth Jackson
5.0 out of 5 stars But it was worth the read because it gave me a better, rounded
Reviewed in Canada on March 23, 2017
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Anything about Orwell is always welcome. However, this book is different from anything else I have read about the Man. I have read everything written by him and much written about him. He sought out experiences of identification with the people on the lower rung. Strangely enough this book shows that Orwell "turned up his nose" at stuff the lower classes simply took for granted, as familiar parts to their own lives. Truth to tell, I found it a little difficult to read a book that seemed to show up deficiencies in the life of a man who is one of my heroes. But it was worth the read because it gave me a better, rounded, picture of Eric Blair, aka George (a solid English name) Orwell (one of the more insignificant rivers in England).
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Deano
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting insight into Orwell, for me at least. ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 15, 2017
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Interesting insight into Orwell, for me at least. Learned something about the man, I think it will help me appreciate his writing a little more.
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