George Orwell Books

This gripping and passionately written book shows how reactionaries use George Orwell to cover their warmongering and to smother their opponents. Conservatives and social democrats alike wrap themselves in Orwell's mantle to attack democracy and sovereignty.

Orwell all his life adopted the Etonian pose (like Boris Johnson today), "I'm really a frightfully decent chap, so you must excuse my attitudes to women, Jews, the working class, socialists, communists ... "

In his extensive research, Lucas has found some remarkable material. General Anthony Zinni, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, "Access to energy drives all U. S. policy in the region." When Rupert Murdoch asked Blair in March 2003 what the Sun could do to help him, Blair said, "Step up the attacks on the French."

The broadcaster Michael Savage said, "We need racist stereotypes right now of our enemy in order to encourage our warriors to kill the enemy." Lucas reminds us that the Guardian reported as early as 27 December 2002 that the CIA was using torture at the Bagram air base, and, on 7 March 2003, that US forces had beaten Afghan prisoners to death.

Christopher "I'd vote for Bush" Hitchens said that the war "will be greeted by the majority of the Iraqi people as an emancipation." On the occupation, a State Department official observed, "the bottom line is we control the purse strings, the appointments, and anything else of political value."

Lucas quotes Edward Said, "Demonisation of the Other is not a sufficient basis for any kind of decent politics, certainly not now when the roots of terror in injustice can be addressed, and the terrorists isolated, deterred, or put out of business." That one sentence contains more sense about how to fight Al Qa'ida than all the Bush and Blair lexicon of lies. We must right injustices, especially the Israeli denial of sovereignty to the Palestinian people (against the disgusting lie that attacking Iraq could bring peace between Israel and Palestine); and we must isolate, deter or kill Al Qa'ida's leaders.

We need to do both. We can fight for justice, without supporting terror, and we can oppose terror, without supporting the US empire - to deny this is to accept Bush's own logic.

The phenomenon of posturing as "the reasonable left" in many academic and journalistic circles of late by such characters as Hitchens and Walzer has been very troubling and has bred further confusion and straw-man positions for those who attempt to do honest work and critique to confront. At this time, the debates ranging over topics like the current wars, the presidential election and even the content and effect of Michael Moore's recent film have spurred some pointless tangents deflecting needed effort and attention from much more important debates. Lucas' book is a solid criticism of the damage wrought by such self-aggrandizing attacks as the ones Hitchens, Walzer and others have popularized. Of course, others on the left from Mickey Z to Eric Alterman have been guilty of similar diatribes, and numerous others have been caught up in such games defensively.
Beyond this, the work on Orwell is very interesting and saddening to a degree. Even the fan of Orwell should take the book seriously, for it does not discredit many of the core tenets readers have taken away from Orwell's work, which often remain solid, but in fact furthers the work which many hold Orwell in high esteem for, but which he himself seems to have shied away from.

Please note: the book (for political reasons worth telling at another date) has been moved from Verso to Pluto Press. It is officially out 22 March 2004.

This book portends to be about how intellectuals who have change din mid stream from radical left to moderate centrists dare to use Orwell in order to justify their actions, Mr. Hitchens being the most trotted out example. The question here really is not whether or not intellectuals have used Orwell, they have, but rather what is the nature of Orwell that appeals to people to do so.

Perhaps it is worth understanding Orwell. Orwell was an English radical, a communist who went to fight in the Spanish Civil War and very much opposed Churchill style conservative natioanlism. Then Orwell realized the evils of Stalinst style communism and wrote books such as 1984, and ANimal Farm, trying to come to grips with the monster state, the police state that was the Soviet Union. Orwell never stopped being a socialist, he never stopped being a leftist, but he realized that the worst forms of Leftism were actually the same as the worst form of the right. In the 1930s as Hitler gobbled up Europe Orwell found himself on the side of Churchill opposing Nazism.

Orwell never became a right winger. But he became a thoughtful leftist and this is what lodges in this books throat, that Orwell dared to change, he dared to grow up and dared to realize not every conservative, such as Winston, was evil and that not every leftist, like Stalin, was a saint. Hitchens also grew up. And many other intellectuals such as Horowitz and Podhoretz grew up, changed, and realized some of their colleagues were wrong. And this book is merely a character assasination of anyone who dares to challenge the monolith of leftism. It pretends to assautl those who defend the 'establishment' but in fact Hitchens is still fighting the establishment, he is fighting the liberal estblishment, sort of like in 1984.

Seth J. Frantzman

Very disappointing "indictment" of Orwell. Don't bother. Much better you read Orwell himself or Chris Hitchens' fine new book on George. This is a pass.

As an English teacher, I really hate it when my students read the cliff notes instead of the book, but I do believe well-written Cliff notes can dramatically increase a student's understanding of a book by introducing ideas, concepts, and symbols the student might have missed and by presenting issues that help the student think about the book. That's just what these Cliff Notes do, and I even use them in my class. I've found they really help to fuel discussions and increase everybody's meaningful experience of the book. I highly recommend them.

I'm usually the type to read a book and not use the Cliffs Notes for it (mainly because their use is discouraged in my AP English class). However, I found this particular Cliffs Notes to be very helpful. The authors expounded on some topics I already knew were there and showed many others that, had I not read the Notes, probably never would have picked up on. It is also very well-written, in language that even someone who hasn't already read 1984 would understand. It helped me out a lot and I will keep using Cliffs Notes- if their quality is as good as this one's.

I decided to read the cliffnotes instead of rereading the book before I had a test on it. It was awful, the cliffnotes completely fail to really illustrate the ideas George Orwell was trying to convey. 1984 is an excellent book and well worth the time to read it.

I had to read 1984 for a class I was taking and I bought the Cliffs Notes to go with it and it really helped. A lot of 1984 was pretty obvious, but most of it wasn't, and the Cliffs Notes to it were really good and made me understand the book a lot better. I highly suggest that someone reading 1984 buy it.

As others have noted, Hilary Spurling really hits you over the head with the unsavory reputation of her subject, Sonia Brownell, "The Girl from the Fiction Department." While seemingly a friend's generous attempt at salvaging what she could, it seems to me that she might have downpedaled how awful most readers think Sonia is. At least then she wouldn't come off as sounding so defensive.

When all is said and done, it sounds as though Sonia did a heroic job protecting the estate of George Orwell, but it might well have done just fine without her. She never quite lived down her status as the woman who married Orwell in extremis, and she never will, not as far as I can see. My hat is off to Hilary Spurling insofar as her loyalty to pal Sonia, but I think she went about it the right way, and after a while, you get tired of hearing about Sonia's beauty and distress and boyfriend after boyfriend, for a short book it has many longueurs. There are tidbits about the famous (Marguerite Duras, Lucien Freud, etc) and these perk up a sad story. But the reader longs for the unadulterated vemon of something like David Plante's memoir of the difficult women in his life. If you want to read a good book by Spurling, about another of her neurotic friends, read IVY instead.

Born Sonia Brownell in 1918, the subject of this book is believed to be the inspiration for a character in George's Orwell's book, 1984. Apparently, she has been a figure of controversy since her death in 1980. Her curious life decisions - including her marriages to a dying Orwell in 1949 and later to an openly homosexual man, and her lawsuit against George Orwell Productions - have sparked charges that the literary editor was a gold-digger.

Spurling combs through Sonia's papers at the George Orwell Archives as well as unpublished letters and other sources to disprove this well-established notion of her subject. In spite of her obvious bias, the author succeeds in creating a fair portrait of the former Mrs. Orwell, one that doesn't hide her subject's flaws but puts them in context of a long, at times trying, life lived.

The opening pages reveal an early source of Sonia's pain: she lost her father at a very young age. While living in colonial India, her father died under mysterious circumstances - some now believe the death was a suicide. Later, her stepfather turned to drink and nearly died of emphysema. These early hardships, coupled with stiff social competition at a traditional and elite Catholic school, give us insight into her scorn for religion, her tendency to seek philosophically absolute positions and into some of her guilt later in life.

The second chapter chronicles Sonia's early life and times with literary and artistic circles, namely her involvement with the Euston School of painting. She became a frequent subject for the artists in her neighborhood. Because of her seemingly cocksure personality and her unwillingness to pose in the nude she became known as "the Euston Road Venus". A long series of affairs with lovers and her somewhat clandestine trips abroad with multiple men are enticing parts to her story and give the impression of a fiercely independent, if susceptible, woman.

Because I know little of art and literature from this time period the material is less accessible to me but the book is well-written to the degree that one need not be all too well versed in this work to appreciate the story. It certainly doesn't hurt that the subject of the book is a truly fascinating, eccentric person. Nearly anyone interested in 20th century British art or literature, as well as the lives of modern literary figures, will find this short biography a satisfying read.

"The Girl from the Fiction Department" is a slim but effective biography of the woman who seemed to be at the epicenter of 1940s literary London.

While Sonia Brownell never wrote any books herself (and is primarily known for having married "1984" author George Orwell on his deathbed), her life does have a certain fascination, and author Hilary Spurling (the biographer of the criminally underrated novelist Ivy Compton-Burnett) does as much as she can to indicate that, had Brownell not had the misfortune to have been born a) a woman and b) a Roman Catholic, she might have amounted to something in the literary world. In other words, this book belongs to the "Minor Characters" school of literary history (pioneered by Joyce Johnson, the one-time girlfriend of Jack Kerouac): instead of writing about the men who write, write about the women who hang around the men who write, because even though they never wrote anything worth reading, they nevertheless slept with people who did, and that makes them interesting in their own right -- right?

I've never been too sure about this thesis, but the fact is that Sonia Orwell was a pretty interesting person in her own right, and her life makes for absorbing reading, even if only on a gossip level.

Brownell worked at Cyril Connolly's "Horizon," the great British literary magazine of the 1940s, and either knew, befriended or had intimate relations with many of the great writers and artists of the period, many of whom she inspired. From Francis Bacon, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Lucian Freud to Michel Leiris (whose works, hitherto unknown to me, I am now decidedly curious about), it seemed that Brownell knew or slept with just about everyone worth knowing or sleeping with during that time frame, and Spurling makes a convincing case that it was Brownell, and not the sybaritically indolent Connolly, who really kept "Horizon" going during its glory days of World War II, when it really seemed to many literate observers as if the magazine was the only thing keeping the torch of culture lit during Europe's painfully protracted Gotterdammerung.

Among the many authors intrigued by Brownell was George Orwell, already suffering from the tuberculosis that would kill him, and he immortalized Brownell by using her as the model for Julia, the heroine of his last novel "1984." He also fell in love with her, and clutching at the straws of romantic love (never overly reliable at the best of times), he persuaded her to marry him in the delusional hope that it would keep him alive: it didn't. And while this transformed Brownell into (as many people maliciously called her) The Widow Orwell, it also gave her the responsibility of looking after his estate, editing his works for posthumous publication and generally complying with his wishes (among them the wish that no biography be written), which Spurling believes she did far more conscientiously than her abundant detractors have been willing to admit.

In most of the Orwell biographies you read, Sonia Brownell Orwell doesn't come off very well, usually being portrayed as a golddigging slut, and Spurling's portrait is a praiseworthy attempt to redress the balance. She even advances the claim that looking after Orwell's interest in the long run not only made Brownell miserable but eventually killed her. I'm not so sure about that, but I will admit that Spurling makes Brownell seem like the thoroughly fascinating person she must have been in life, and this slim volume is definitely worth reading to find out not only who she was, but why she's worth remembering.

This book was terrific! A glimpse into a very fascinating period, in world events, art and literature through the life of someone at the epicenter. Ms.Orwell went through many different "periods" over her lifetime: this is a really long view of life and I found it both fascinating and reassuring.
I am a painter who is extremely interested in the Euston Road school, and I was absolutely riveted by this new perspective on them all, from the point of view of Ms. Orwell's involvement with them, both as friend and art critic. Something I had only very vaguely remembered mentioned in the (very male-oriented) literature on that school. In fact, I casually picked up this book, somewhat interested in the cover photograph, leafed through it and saw the illustrations by William Coldstream, and then had to read it.
This book is written by someone partisan to Ms.Orwell, in part to correct what she believes is a misrepresentation of Ms.Orwell in the past. I had no idea at all that Ms. Orwell was held in disfavor by many previous Orwellian biographers, but it didn't matter to my enjoyment of the book. There is something very satisfying in the way Ms Spurling "makes her case": it is very convincing and makes you wonder how many other people looked down upon in the annals of history could have used an erudite and talented friend to come to their defense.

Jeffrey Meyers' new biography of George Orwell, the brilliant British Socialist writer, is worth reading if short. Meyers does a more than adequate job of chronicling Orwell's varied and sometimes sad life, his personal relationships, and his books and major essays. An odd feature of the book is Meyers' meticulous description of photographs he doesn't include; several of the Orwell photographs he describes have never, to my knowledge, been reproduced elsewhere and might have been interesting in place of the often-reprinted shots featured in the book. It makes me wonder, in fact, if Meyers wanted to print more photographs and the publisher refused. All in all this is a decent, eminently readable biography and should prove a good introduction to Orwell's life. Orwell was, in my view, the finest essayist in the English language in the last century and probably within the last two centuries, and remains the conscience of his time and even of ours. In an age that prides itself on "I've got mine, to hell with you" (to paraphrase Sir Richard Rees, Orwell's friend, writing about Orwell), Orwell remains a staunch defender of a currently unpopular Socialist ideal that calls on all of us to care for one another and strive together to achieve for society what we selfishly and greedily grasp for ourselves now. Readers interested in knowing more about Orwell should also read Michael Shelden's "Orwell," which is more detailed and comprehensive (although it should be noted that Meyers includes some new information of his own) and Bernard Crick's "George Orwell: A Life" which some have discredited but which remains a incisive look at Orwell's works and his politics.

Jeffrey Meyers is the author of this clearly written biography of George Orwell (Eric Blair). The biography covers the whole of Orwell's life, including his socialist but anti-Stalinist left wing beliefs, time fighting for the Anarchist/Trotskyite POUM in the Spanish Civil War, lifelong battle over his health and his infatuation with various women as he grew older.

In our time Orwell has been claimed by the right wing (something that would have appalled him) yet Meyers shows his definite, though rocky, affiliation with Englands leftist movements which he kept to the end of his life. Another pervasive element is Orwell's constant money problem's finally resolved, ironiclly, when he was literally on his deathbed.

For clarity of writing this biography can't be criticized. It reads quickly because the style is so straightforward. Meyers, who's written several biographies, is certainly a master at his craft. I'd recommend this as a good read and overview of Orwell's literary and personal life. Good biography.

Jeffrey Meyers is a biographer of some renown. An accomplished writer of criticism, his works focus mainly on literature, covering subjects from 'Homosexuality and Art' to studies on the mechanics of biography itself. He has published portraits of many literary figures - Robert Frost, D.H. Lawrence and Ernest Hemingway, displaying an uncanny genius for research. ~Orwell - Wintry Conscience of a Generation~ is one of his more recent contributions that has given us a new and more down to earth portrayal of one of the most admired literary cult-figures in English letters. This book is not a hagiography, a monument-chiselling-excercise, creating more myth than fact: in this biography we are introduced to a human being, at times dark and disturbing, who received the calling to write somewhat late in life, and who showed a staunch integrity that today is quite rare.

Personally, reading Orwell is similar to sitting in the principal's office, being told in no uncertain terms the hard facts about the world, to then come away with a much firmer hold on reality. Orwell is a wake-up call, shattering any illusions you might have of a so-called just and fair society, revealing the numerous machinations of power under superficial propaganda that those in a position of influence want us to believe. While others were band wagoning, blowing any way the political and philosophical breeze was heading at the time, Orwell held fast to what he knew to be the truth - and eventually paid the price.

I found it interesting that Eric Blair (Orwell) suddenly dropped his career as a colonial policeman in Burma, (a truly detestable job for any man of conscience) to become a full time writer without having really written anything of significance. From the point of this 'calling', until his early death from tuberculosis at 47 years of age, wrote some of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, not to mention a myriad of essays, articles and reviews, which scholars, historians, and political scientists are pouring over to this day. Another interesting point - Orwell believed that if a writer produced anything less than 100,000 words a year, they were not doing their job. Anyone who writes professionally or other wise, knows this to be a daunting task.

At the beginning of Orwell's writing career, his actions showed considerable courage, a self-imposed guilt, believing that a rough, tramp-like existence was absolutely necessary: "...Every suspicion of self advancement, even to "succeed" in life to the extent of making a few hundreds a year, seemed to me spiritually ugly, a species of bullying...My mind turned immediately towards extreme cases, the social outcast: tramps, beggars, criminals, prostitutes...what I wanted, at the time, was to find some way of getting out of the respectable world altogether." As Meyers simply explains, "Living rough and becoming a writer were part of the same route out of the respectable world." (p.79)

One of my favourite novels, 'Down and Out in Paris and London', describes this conscious escape from the privileged Victorian middle class into the dark recesses of working class poverty. Orwell is of that particular writing school where, in order to write about it, you have to live it - and he did so, plunging himself continually into personal and political conflict.

Jeffrey Meyers has done us all a big favour, giving us a gritty astonishing portrait of a man of letters, who fought for social justice, informing us through his actions and writing the importance of personal and political integrity - Orwell is a true prophetic moralist.

I thought that this book was a bit slow getting started but once you get passed that all the book gets very interesting. I really only wanted to read this book because I knew that Big Brother the television serise was based on this,but no I have relised what it is all actually about and the story behind it which isnt just another reality show.It was excellent the way that Orwell protrade Winston throughout the whole book and the use of all the other characers emphasised this greatly.I really enjoyed this book and just how Orwell protraded the future of the wrold in 1984.

Written to be a comment on what happens when socialist dictators take over it extends well beyond. It touched upon what it means to be a person, the rights all should have and a graphic depiction on what it takes for a man to give up his principles. A grand, grand, grand book. One of the best written in a good time.

"Animal Farm"

No animal may drink alcohol "to excess"

A fairy tale or a nightmare? It all began with a dream by Major, a Middle White boar, of equality, and freedom from oppression. Maybe not in our life comrade, but eventually.

The dream brings a song. Intolerable conditions lead to revolution. As time passes things change; not exactly as planned.

There are two striking parts to this tale that stand out. First when Boxer is sent to the hospital and Benjamin reads the side of the van "Horse Slaughterer." Secondly there was a party in the farm house as the pigs were playing cards with the men, two aces of spades showed up. An argument ensues. Then a realization was drawn by the creatures outside looking in as they "...looked from pig to man, and man to pig, and from pig to man again..."

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"1984"

Deviates corrected for their own good

In a society that has eliminated many imbalances, surplus goods, and even class struggle, there are bound to be deviates; Winston Smith is one of those. He starts out, due to his inability to doublethink, with thoughtcrime. This is in a society that believes a thought is as real as the deed. Eventually he graduates through a series of misdemeanors to illicit sex and even plans to overthrow the very government that took him in as an orphan.
If he gets caught, he will be sent to the "Ministry of Love" where they have a record of 100% cures for this sort of insanity. They will even forgive his past indiscretions.

Be sure to watch the three different movies made from this book:
1984 (1954) Peter Cushing is Winston Smith
1984 (1956) Edmond O'Brien is Winston Smith
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) John Hurt is Winston smith

This comment concerns 1984 as narrated Richard Brown. It is not a review of the book.

Mr. Brown has such a thick British accent it's very difficult to understand him at times. If you turn it up too loud in an attempt to hear him through his accent, you'll hurt your ears when he hits the hard s's and t's. If you have trouble with British accents, I do not recommend this version.

An upclose and personal look at the experiences of the down-and-out in London and Paris. The reader gets a clear sense of what it's like to be out of work and out of luck. How to survive from day to day? These are men who want to work but have a hard time finding work. If nothing else, this book will make you consider how lucky you are.

In Down and Out in Paris and London, George Orwell, otherwise known as Eric Blair, introduces his readers to a compelling tale that loosely retraces his own life during the time he spent in Paris and London in the thirties. In this semi-autobiographical chronicle, he records the hardships that he faced as a Parisian "plongeur" (a restaurant worker at the very bottom of the industry's hierarchy) and as a voluntary "tramp" in London. Clearly, Orwell's account is a very personal one; however, it resonates the destitution of so many others who were equally unfortunate to have been the victims of the post-war social reform failure and the subsequent Great Depression that descended upon the world in the late nineteen twenties and thirties.
The author focuses on France and Britain in particular because these two countries, magnificent superpowers of the past, have abandoned their poor in order to pursue different agendas in terms of their political policy. During this era, France was much concerned with securing its borders with Germany. This was a reaction to the Great War, during which France suffered great losses in every aspect. Although Britain was not faced with similar issues as France, it struggled with its political instability that arose in the light of the economic hardship of the Great Depression. Orwell acknowledges the differences between the two countries but insists on the recurring similarities in the treatment of the lowest social class. In his account, Orwell presents several important issues that would most likely be overlooked or altogether unknown to those outside the lower social order that Orwell describes. He points out the invisibility of the lower classes, forgotten or made forgotten by those for whom hardship of this kind was unknown, the abhorrent conditions in which existence had to be made possible, and the practically inevitable maintenance of the same class order throughout their entire life. The presentation of these three main issues highlights Orwell's repudiation of respectable democratic society and outlines his disdain for this ideology that he believed to be a failure.

A book using 1984 to focus on totalitarianism in the 20th Century it has been broken down into three parts. The first part deals with the book and the author, Orwell, while the second part deals with many of the ideas within the book, like Big Brother, the virtue of the lie and totalitarianism. The last part deals with the future - is there anything beyond or after totalitarianism? Published in 1983 I don't think the writers foresaw many of the changes that were to happen, making for a very interesting read. While interesting it isn't really worth reading more than once, being somewhat dry. Get it used.

This book was a required reading for a course I'm taking, great reading.

The passion of Britain.
On overview of British Imperialism as found in George Orwell's book Burmese days.
By: David C. Eberhart II

After the mutiny, India had a taste of freedom. But this freedom was not true freedom. Instead it was a lethargic British Empire that just gave up the ghost. This feeling of hopelessness and despair is quite evident and you can feel this winding down in the book Burmese Days by George Orwell. The book is bitter sweet and is told from the vantage of both the natives and the British rulers. In the end not only has a masterful story been told but you are given a unique taste for the feel of what Burma must have been like during this transitional period. You are also told in brilliant imagery the struggle that existed between these diametrically opposed cultures. That being western thought as scene by the British and Eastern superstition as scene by the Indians. This was a constant dynamic as scene in both the book and the real word and it was the failure to integrate these two cultures that caused both nations to loose out in the end.
The concept of Empire was a pillar of strength to the British Empire. Yet something was lost in Burma. It was as if the economic gain of the individual companies was stressed over the desire for any human need. The extraction of resources from Burma, although vital, is scene as an after thought in the novel. Perhaps this was done on purpose, after all problems of India tend to be scene as an after thought with the Empire. The same can be said of the businesses sent to work here. The British citizens sent to Burma are expected to do their job well and make money for the Empire. But we are given a peculiar look into the workings of this puzzle. The British citizens go into the jungles, work closely with the natives, and extract the materials necessary for the Empire to function. They prosper yet are miserable. They are unhappy to be here and feel that their "sacrifices" are in vain. Truly all they, the British citizens, want is nothing more than to head into town and forget about where they are. To forget about India, alcohol is consumed in great quantities. This is also done to keep the memories of India at bay. Perhaps this is an analogy to the British Empire. Having grown wealthy off of the labors of her colonies and drunk in her success the Empire just wants to forget about her colonies and remember her glorious past. Living in the present is too hard for both the vain glorious Empire and her transplanted citizens to do. To live in the past is solace, to live in the present hell. So both the Empire and her citizens drown their sorrows in Gin and refuse to understand where they are.
This is the cruelty that the Empire has placed on her own subjects. The Empire has forgotten her subjects and as a direct result of this action her subject then idealize what they were and what they might have been. You would think that these citizens of the Empire would have embraced the local culture, since their own had forgotten them. But instead this longing to belong to the Empire, something that they have been isolated from, has instead made them fiercely British. To accept anything that would be foreign would be a wrong doing and instead would make them non-British. They would then be tainted and as tainted subjects they would not be able to return home to the Empire. This idea of taint is present in Flory on his return trip from England. Page 74 of the text shows us that," This country which he had hated was now his native country, his home." When Flory embraced the culture he became tainted by it and a prisoner here in India.
The other British citizens in the story are trying to maintain the illusion that they are British Lord and Ladies. As such they hold the dangers of the barbarians at the jungles edge. To integrate with the locals would destroy everything that they, the true citizens of the Empire, have done and would make their sacrifices to the Empire worthless.
This is a said state of affairs. Instead of learning to live together the ideal of the Empire has placed a wedge between the British citizens of the Empire and the local Burmese. Three camps then come about to tell their part in this story. The strongest and most passionate plea comes from a devout racist called Ellis. As scene on page 24 of the text you are told that Ellis," hated them with a bitter restless loathing". It is proper to know that the character feels this way. After all Ellis becomes the speaker for the most vocal of these lost souls. That being those citizens of the Empire who do not care about these native people and instead would rather rule over them with an iron fist. It is after all the proper British way to rule these sub - human people. And sub human is how they are perceived by these citizens.
To view them as human and as equals to the British would ruin the dream that the cast offs of the Empire have. Perhaps this is one of the many reasons that British rule failed in India. That being an inability of the local British to see the locals as anything other than sub- human beasts. The irony being that by treating the locals as subhuman the British became sub human. This was a self inflicted horror that the Empire emplaced on a population that trusted them for guidance. If the Empire had actually treated both parties with respect at the beginning of the occupation. Instead of setting up two different factions things could have been different. But instead the Empire placed its white citizens in charge of a population that did not want to conform to British ideals and British ways. The end result became a self fulfilling prophecy. The locals are lazy, superstitious, and ignorant because the British said they were and treated them as such. This did not have to be so. In fact we are told threw the eyes of Flory that the locals had talents and abilities that the Empire could have used. However these abilities were lost to the empire when the Empire told the locals that they were like children. The British removed the locals' ability to be industrious so that they could exploit them in the short term. Never realizing that by working with them they could have created something greater than the sum of its parts.
Ellis's view point was not the only one shared in Burmese days. Flory, the minority, fell in love with the mystic of the orient. But as we see threw Flory's eyes falling in love with a culture is not the same as understanding a culture. This was a gilded cage that the Empire fell into in Burma. Thinking that they loved the country they thought they understood it. Instead those who believed as Flory did continued to underestimate the differences between the two cultures and over estimate the brotherhood between the two cultures. Flory was typical of the Briton who embraced the Orient. They fell in love with the mystic and the passion of it. Never once realizing that they needed to understand the culture that they had fallen in love with to heal the rift that had developed between the two countries. But to heal the rift would have been to understand the cultural differences that divided the countries. As such this would have ruined the mystic of the Orient. These brave fools then lived in a fools' paradise. Enjoying the fruits of their fantasies while at the same time watching as ruin set in. Wailing against the decay they were unable and unwilling to stop.
The final camp presented from the point of view from the British is that of Macgregor. Macgregor is the moderate of the group and although he wishes the locals no true ill will he doesn't want them taking up any false pretenses. The complexities of this are at odds with each other but this is perhaps another British way of dealing with the self imposed exile to the Orient. By standing on the middle road you do not commit yourself to either side. When things fall apart it is then not your fault and you can deny the disaster that has come about. This middle of the road is another reason why British rule failed here. The middle road was not production nor was it proactive. Instead this mind set kept the British in a state of false happiness. A happiness that had come about by viewing themselves as superior to the locals while at the same time easing their guilt by wishing the locals no ill will. All that required was time and everything would right itself in the end.
But too much damage had been done between the empire and the Orient to have any true reconciliation. This is shown again and again in the text. The educated local boys are no longer afraid of their British masters. As such they do not view themselves as equal to the British but as superior. This is the cruel fate that has befallen the Orient. No one wants to see each other as an equal instead you are either a master or a servant. The local Indians who succeed see themselves as superior to the British and instead of working with them they work against their British Lords. U Po Kyin's rebellion is an excellent example of this inability to work together. U Po Kyin, a local governor, decides that he will gain more power and prestige by funding a rebellion against the British lords. Whether or not this rebellion succeeds is irrelevant it is the ideal of the rebellion that will gain him power.
This quest for power has run amok in the Orient. Instead of working together time and time again the citizens of the British Empire and the locals of India work in directly opposite manners and ruin any type of gains that could have been made. The senselessness of this appears over and over again in the novel and in real life. The government of India became so corrupt, during the Rule of Briton, that it would not be until the mid 1990's that India would be able to pull herself free of the legacy of the red tape bureaucratic Raj. It is maddening and frustrating that all that these two cultures were able to learn from each other was how to be intolerant of each other. Instead of playing to each other's strengths the age old game of dominancy and control was set up. The prize being India and the game being one of absolute conquest.
The dominance of the Empire is a pale shadow as scene in Burmese days. No longer is the Empire scene as strong and absolute instead it is scene as weak and unable to keep control of India. All aspects of India have become corrupted and the Pax Britannia has been lost. The energy and drive that the British Empire was able to maintain for centuries had waned. Sadly this was due to Empire's inability to recognize her fellow man as brother. Instead a nation of servants was sought and a nation of servants is what India turned into. The games of prestige, the master servant relationships, the politicking, all stem from the Empire's desire to uplift a nation of inferiors.
What was left was then a nation of contradictions and it is best scene in the ending of Burmese days. Flory, who had fallen in love with India, ultimately takes his own life as a direct result of the scandal that the country of Burma has placed on him. With Flory gone those that relied upon him self destruct. It was as if Flory's presence was able to guide the natives and protect them from their own destructive natures. When Flory is gone his friend, the doctor, is dishonored and can no longer find work at his level of expertise. Flory's man servant, although well provided for in Flory's will, falls to ruin and his one time native lover ends up in a brothel. Even Flory's enemy is affected by the death of Flory. The philosophy of the Orient and the laws of Karma come about to lay waste U Po Kyin before he can atone for his sins. Condemning him to their version of hell.
The ending of the book is also an analogy between the final days of the stewardship of the British Empire and India. While the British Empire was not the best thing to happen to India the Empire was better than letting India alone to herself. Under the rule of the British Empire hospitals were built, an infrastructure was put in place to westernize the country of India, and most importantly western education was introduced to the nation. Ultimately the superstitions and ignorant population of India was replaced with an educated minority. A minority that was skilled in medicine, government, and western thought. These skilled citizens of the empire became the new rulers of India. But it would take some time for these people to come about. Instead while the rebellion to throw British rule out was wages the India and her people suffered. Lost to her own whims the country of India was unable to unify her people and rule effectively. It was as if the one legacy that the British left was an inability of the country to govern itself.
The same excuses the British had about India, the Indians would also use to justify their hardships in governing their own nation. India a country of vast resources, diverse people, and a vast geography would have to learn the one lesson that the British were unable to learn. That lesson being one in which you had to understand the entire culture that makes up India in order to rule it. A culture that is a vast and diverse as her multitude of her people and one that is wonderful in its richness and complexity. If the British could have understood this perhaps things would have been different. Perhaps this is the true legacy that is shown in Burmese days. That being the confusion and resistance brought about between the two cultures. After all, all the problems inherent in Burmese days are self inflicted. Like so many of the wounds made between the British Empire and India.


Biography:

Orwell, George. Burmese Days. Orlando: Harcourt, 1934.