Aldous Huxley and George Orwell are two writers who people continue to read, many decades after their deaths.  Both wrote books about the future and both are considered men of letters, par excellence. Sometimes people wonder who was the correctest of the two dystopian writers. Who was a better forecaster of the future? Both wrote about a society morally ruined. And both were products of the excessive English literacy at the beginning of the last century, and, finally, both have firm and enthusiastic adherents.  And this probably is true as well--they have managed to survive cancellation in our woke culture, just because they were so contrarian themselves in their own day.Who was the smartest? I think it is a contest of champions--a Joe Louis versus Sugar Ray Leonard comparison. 

They did differ in background. Huxley had the more priveleged upbringing. He was from the intellectual British aristocracy, while Orwell had humble beginnings. Most interestingly, Huxley taught Orwell at Balliol and opined on the latter’s book after publication, admiring it in the somewhat distant way of an old schoolmaster admitting the worth of a student’s work.

Of the two, Huxley seemed much the happier person. Generally his stories suggest a fun, modern life, although against a somewhat depressing background of post world war one.  And his work seems to show possibly an edge intellectually. There was nothing Huxley could not parody, satirize, or discuss with complete authority.  His writing also has an airier quality. He could float above his topics with an abstractly distant eye, shooting satirical darts at the topic. Orwell was more scrappy, and possibly more grounded in day-to-day politics. His instincts, his common sense were unerring. He could sense political winds. And his sad sack self-descriptions were always funny. He was humorous, in a wry way, though not laugh-out-loud funny.  But Huxley was able to satirize almost anyone hilariously, and the humor was not always self-directed.

Orwell tended to take a sad sack persona. His personality was less elitist and more of the smart but disparaged smart boy who earns his keep by writing book reviews and journalistic articles. His description of being a scholarship boy are truly depressing, though apparently, some say they were partly made up. The feeling one gets when reading the two is different, as well. Reading Huxley, one shares the omniscient, phyrric intellectual scope that was Huxley. Orwell is more like listening to a very smart pundit who intuitively knows how the world works, but who suffers in the process of gaining that knowledge. 

Reading either one improves the mind.  Either is a rare literary company. Each one frees our thoughts from the dreadful banality of day to day internet searching. That they are both mixed in he history of their times by virtue of the salience to current events gives another reason to read. It is a reminder when the world was of the word rather than of the photo opportunity.