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I just read a contrarian take on Orwell's rules in the Chronicle of Higher Education. The author took issue with his first commandment. 'Elimination of the fittest' she called it. Or something close to that.
For my part, i think Orwell is doing little more than turning a prose style pioneered by others and turning it into dogma. Orwell has great advice for people who want to be mid-20th c. writers, but these days it's more refreshing to read a writer like HP Lovecraft who tells rather than shows, who delights in the labyrinths of language.
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