chickenfeet

I am a Frog. I discovered Orwell on my own, aged 21; and I'm not understating it in saying it changed my life. More specifically, the essay How The Poor Die in Inside The Whale (and afterwards the rest, natch.) Once you learn a truth, Orwell said elsewhere, it cannot be unlearned. The minute I saw how the complete absence of bathos cut through everything to show things clearly from 60 years away, I was unable to stand the pathetic fake sentimentality of 95% of contemporary French journalism. Led me to work on the other side of the Channel in short order.