NONFICTION - Nov. 17, 1991

ORWELL: A Biography by Michael Shelden (HarperCollins: $25.50; 512 pp.) Political writers, left and right, are a dime a dozen these days, appearing not only in journals of opinion but on national talk shows. They all should read this book, for it shows just how low political commentary has fallen since Orwell’s time; the independence, seriousness, and personal commitment that Orwell brought to his work seems sadly lacking in his successors. Michael Shelden, a professor of English at Indiana State, has written a sensible, somewhat defensive biography, and although it won’t be definitive--Shelden’s discussions of “1984” and “Animal Farm” are surprisingly brief--it captures the close link between Orwell’s life and work. Orwell wrote himself into an early grave (he died at age 46 in 1950, officially of tuberculosis) by publishing more than a book a year for 16 years, and much of that time he had to fight to see them in print--even his 10th book, “Animal Farm.” Orwell would no doubt be both amused and horrified to see that today politics are dominated by even shallower thinking than in his time--by sound bites, punditry and spin control, terms and concepts straight out of “1984’s” Newspeak.