Coming Up for Air

View other editions of Coming Up for Air.
View books by George Orwell.

a Middle class dude of the 1930s goes back to his old neighboorhood. - Rated
a funny story about a mans reminiscences of his home town where he grew up.

England your England - Rated
Nobody has ever claimed that this is George Orwell's greatest novel. Nobody except me - it is. Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm will always have more intellectual respect, but from an emotional standpoint, Coming Up For Air is in a class of its own. It is possibly Orwell's `softest' novel, as his concerns about poverty and politics feature less here than in any of his other books, fiction or non-fiction. But even today, nearly seventy years after it was written, the themes of Coming Up For Air apply to our ever-changing world more than ever. The England of George Bowling's childhood, a fading memory in 1939, is now gone, lost for ever after a hundred years of `progress'. Read this book and cry for England - its still dying, one day at a time.

Coming up for air- what air? - Rated
George Bowling,middle-aged, pot- bellied and unhappily married with two children, goes through a mid-life crisis which takes him back to Lower Binfield where he grew up. He discovers that the place had been modernised beyond recognition;there was no point in returning to his boyhood past and the futility of Coming Up For Air- when there isn't any air!

Although there is little to the story-line,Orwell compensates with a well-written novel with an ability to engage a readers interest through the clarity and wicked humour in his writing.

The future is all rotten - Rated
Orwell captures the spirit of a generation here. His central character sees salvation in returning to the happy environment of his youth, and with it some escape from a wretched existence. Yet, he finds nothing but change and is disillusioned by the experience. It's a novel that explores the theme of the modern world and a changing society. We often feel that in the present fast-moving world we have a monopoly on complaining about the world of the future. Orwell demonstrate's that unease about changing towns, cities, and nations has existed for as long as people have lived in communities.

oh yes! A must read! - Rated
wonderfully nostalgic and witty, i loved every page. Having read the majority of Orwell's work this one was beautifully simplistic and a joy to read.