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Orwell's fiction is clumsy, there's no doubt about it. His best work is represented in his prose essays. Yet the key essay on style - 'The Politics of the English Language' - is an odd little piece. I feel certain that he started writing on one topic, and changed his mind half-way through about the issues he wanted to address. It's the essay in which he decries the use of acronyms: for example, if you write 'NATO' instead of 'North Atlantic Treaty Organisation', you're less likely to wonder why Turkey is part of the organisation.
The second half of 'The Politics of the English Language' does make some extremely valid points about how to write clearly.
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