“When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art.’ I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.”
— George Orwell
I have been drawn to the work of George Orwell since reading 1984 for the first time, in 1990.
There is a line in the book that says: “In the face of pain there are no heroes.”
I read it whilst recovering from major spinal surgery, having just endured the most intense and agonising physical pain you could possibly imagine.
Words have never resonated more. That’s probably why they’ve stayed with me over the following decades and now I’m pretty sure they make up my DNA.
When your spine doesn’t do what it should, the repercussions are huge but I think I’m only just beginning to fully realise that now.
This is the full quote: “Never, for any reason on earth, could you wish for an increase of pain. Of pain you could only wish for one thing: that it should stop. Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain there are no heroes, no heroes, he thought over and over as he writhed on the floor, clutching uselessly at his disabled left arm.”
The novel I’m writing faces this head on.
In my mid-fifties, it seems as if my spiritual self wants to examine the physical self in greater detail.
Am I sounding like a novelist or a lunatic?
Not sure.
But Orwell is still very much with me. And as he says above: I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention”.
That’s me now.
And you know what’s even more interesting?
Since I made the decision to take a very personal story and turn it into something that will hopefully be shared with a wider audience, I feel nothing but relief.
I know it won’t be easy.
But it’s time.
Lisa