Lear, Tolstoy and The Fool by George Orwell is the thirty sixth of The Essays - you find this collection in the 917th place on The Greatest Books of All Time site, nevertheless, the algorithm changes the places in the hierarchy, ergo you could see a different structure, I don’t know what data is used, however, if it takes into account the ‘reading public’, then the chefs d’oeuvre will descend from the top spots, and the likes of The Da Vinci Code will dominate the front rows, and they will become the “GOAT” – that notwithstanding, you have more than five thousand reviews on books from the aforementioned site and others, with notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other lists waiting for you on my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html if you are interested

 

Lear, Tolstoy and The Fool by George Orwell is the thirty sixth of The Essays - you find this collection in the 917th place on The Greatest Books of All Time site, nevertheless, the algorithm changes the places in the hierarchy, ergo you could see a different structure, I don’t know what data is used, however, if it takes into account the ‘reading public’, then the chefs d’oeuvre will descend from the top spots, and the likes of The Da Vinci Code will dominate the front rows, and they will become the “GOAT” – that notwithstanding, you have more than five thousand reviews on books from the aforementioned site and others, with notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other lists waiting for you on my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html if you are interested

 

 

10 out of 10

 

The Essays of George Orwell have been overwhelming – they will soon been in the past, hence the tense - https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/10/how-poor-die-by-george-orwell-is-thirty.html though I find myself in a quandary, if not a vicious circle or spiral, since authors I admire express negative views on each other

 

“One's first feeling is that in describing Shakespeare as a bad writer he is saying something demonstrably untrue. But this is not the case. In reality there is no kind of evidence or argument by which one can show that Shakespeare, or any other writer, is 'good' ... Ultimately there is no test of literary merit except survival, which is itself an index to majority opinion. Artistic theories such as Tolstoy's are quite worthless, because they not only start out with arbitrary assumptions, but depend on vague terms ('sincere', 'important' and so forth) which can be interpreted in any way one chooses. Properly speaking one cannot answer Tolstoy's attack. The interesting question is: why did he make it? But it should be noticed in passing that he uses many weak or dishonest arguments. Some of them are worth pointing out, not because they invalidate his main charge but because they are, so to speak, evidence of malice.” A pretty good summary

Tolstoy https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-death-of-ivan-ilych-by-leo-tolstoy.html is more than harsh on Shakespeare “nevertheless I will endeavor, as well as I can, to show why I believe that Shakespeare cannot be recognized either as a great genius, or even as an average author” which means Shakespeare was bad

 

King Lear https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/king-lear-written-by-william.html in particular seems to enrage Tolstoy, only Orwell exposes the similarities between the king and the Russian titan, both have given up privileges, and the latter is at an age when he is not tolerant anymore, if he ever was…

In fact, he had a penchant to beat his servant and was inclined to hit people he disagreed with, we read in Intellectuals https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/intellectuals-by-paul-johnson.html about Leo Tolstoy, Henrik Ibsen, Ernest Hemingway, Jean Jacques Rousseau and their often vile ways, so why wonder then?

 

Furthermore, Magister Ludi Kingsley Amis had this to say: “I often feel I will never pick up a book by Orwell again until I have read a frank discussion of the dishonesty and hysteria that mar some of his best work” https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/memoirs-by-kingsley-amis-author-of-take.html cancelling all?

Disagreements are natural, but we may end up in a situation where King Kingsley is fierce in his rejecting Orwell, Tolstoy destroys Shakespeare and the result may be that we feel we need to abandon them all, where are our values, in the age of Orange Julius Caesar, who posts videos with him as king, what else, piloting a plane

He then drops tons of…shit on the estimated seven million Americans who took part in the NOKINGS marches that took place a couple of days ago, what does it say about the world we live in, if this is the leader of the free world?

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence

Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the benefits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’