A Clergyman's Daughter by George Orwell

A well-written book that explores how real and necessary faith is. I am not certain whether Orwell intended the book to argue that faith is something one does out of custom and is completely unnecessary otherwise. Yet, the idea that life is meaningless without faith, although problematic to Orwell, is not something that I, as a Christian, find problematic. As a Christian I would argue that we are created to find life meaningless without faith - for one should not live without it. The despair in the daughter's life seems to point to the validity of faith, although the faith that she chooses is not so much life-giving as settling. He paints a poor picture of how things should be - and it is not actually surprising then, that he questions whether one should really have this kind of faith in one's life.