Completely misleading - Rated 
See my review for "1984" - I'm surprised this writer ever got a publishing deal.
Road to Wigan Pier - Rated 
The Road to Wigan Pier: Vol.5 (Complete Works George Orwell)
An interesting account of the conditions of working class life only a generation ago and a reminder of the fragility of the glabal economy.
Looking back from our present perspective at Orwell's prediction of society in the machine age is also instructive and thought provoking.
Very well written, although some of the paragraphs are dauntingly long.
Will read more Orwell.
Here we go again? - Rated 
I think it pays to have a hard look at the cover of this book - the boy to the right of the picture is possibly still alive, and having lived through the depression of the 1930's, the oil shock, the recession of the 1980's and the GFC he may have a thing or two to say about the world.
The Road to Wigan Pier is a book that cannot fail to have an impact on the reader. The first half of the book is an account of the conditions experienced by working people in Yorkshire and Lancashire during the middle 1930's. The truly shocking conditions that these people lived in is described with little attempt at gloss. This is of course the reality of the "land fit for heroes" that many of the returning servicemen from the First World War encountered. This book is worth reading even if you pause at the end of Part 1.
Part 2 of the book is far more opinionated in nature and deals largely with Orwell's ideas on class, politics and economics - this section seemed much less relevant today than the first. Maybe I am out of touch, but the analysis of events based on class seems to be an echo from the past.
However, poverty, deprivation and lack of opportunity still seem rife in some communities, and while we may now explain their origin with different language, the impact on people remains the same.
This book remains relevant today, and comes highly recommended.
Not what I expected. - Rated 
Having been bitten twice (see The Man who was Thursday), I have made a new rule not to buy or read a book without having a good look at the Amazon reviews first.
What I was expecting from this book was a report of the lives of the working class in early 20th century industrial England - Down and Out in Preston and Lichfield. The first few chapters are just this, written in Orwell's characteristic limpid style, and are terrific.
However the bulk of the book is a collection of essays on subjects such as the class system, the North-South divide, British socialism and Fascism, industrialisation and unemployment. All interesting, well written and with plenty of relevance 70 years later. But crucially not what I wanted to read.
Incautious buyer beware - do not judge a book by it's cover or even what your friends tell you (they probably haven't read it).
Thougts on "The Road to Wigan Pier" - Rated 
As mentioned by other reviewers, the book is divided into two parts. Part one provides a journalistic style of social observation, when Orwell spends time visiting and most importantly living amongst mining communities in the north of England during the mid-1930s. Even though many years have passed since its writing, Orwell's descriptions are vivid and moving. Further, his analysis of the economic plight of the miners still rings true today for all exploited peoples. As well as the social and economic observations, Orwell captures the real sense of working down a coal mine; reminding the reader that the working day might involve 3 hours crawling or at best proceeding along in a crouched posture to between the coal face and the mine shaft elevator; or that the living conditions of some unfortunates was such that he says "The dirt and congestion of these places is such that you cannot well imagine it unless you have tested with with your own eyes and more particularly your nose." Overall, the first part takes the reader back in time and place to witness some of the economic and social realities of mining communities in pre-war Britian. However, I had to keep reminding myself that this was not the Victorian period or a Dickensian novel.
The second part of the book shifts gears entirely. Here Orwell let's loose his views on the "class system" prevalent at the time. From observations of other social histories I have read from this period, it would appear to be a very astute set of observations. In particular, I was struck by the deep honesty of Orwell's writing in this part of the book. He is not struck by sentimentality or political arm waving, athough his sponsors were apparently less than pleased with his comments. Rather, Orwell provides the reader with a look at the values and attitudes of Britain in the late 1930s on the eve of a war which Orwell seems to sense is coming. In particular, Orwell explores the failings of the then modern day Socialist movement and in particular its failure to offer a meaningful alternative to those individuals who can sense an unfairness in the capitalist system. Orwell express his fear that the lack of emphasis upon "justice" and "liberty" with too much emphasis upon economic and class differences could very well drive ". . . a middle class crushed down to the worst depths by poverty and still remaining bitterly anti-working-class in sentiment; this being, of course, a ready-made Fascist Party."
Orwell also expresses concern about the association in some people's minds between Socialism and technical progress. Orwell provides an interesting (particularly with the benefit of seeing how things have transpired technologically since the book was written over 70 years ago) summary of his view regarding the ultimate demise of technological progress; reviewing the thoughts of science fiction writers like H.G. Wells and their utopian ideals with the absurdity of some of their outcomes in terms of human fulfilment.
Yet Orwell is no traitor to the Socialist ideals. Rather his writing in the second part of this book is more a call to arms by people of various political persuasions to join together for the greater good in the fight against the rising tide of nationalism and fascism that was already sweeping Western Europe. A call that he himself was soon to act upon when he went to fight as a Republican volunteer in the Spanish Civil War.
|
