Reviews
Grim description of the life of British expats during the colonial era. Most of them hated the people, country and language yet stayed in their cushy position, bickering over nonsense at the club.
#Asia - I really 'enjoyed' this book, although enjoy is not really the right word, as Orwell has a way with words and a turn of phrase that can make you squirm. His characters are real and flawed. They do stupid and irrational things and have to live with the consequences. No neat and tidy ends here. Which is actually quite refreshing. A good dose of reality of the colonial times and accompanying superiority and racism inherent in it all.
** spoiler alert ** ""But, my dear friend, what lie are you living?" "Why, of course, the lie that we're here to uplift our poor black brothers instead of to rob them. I suppose it's a natural enough lie. But it corrupts us, it corrupts us in ways you can't imagine."" "Everyone is free in England; we sell our souls in public and buy them back in private, among our friends. But even friendship can hardly exist when every white man is a cog in the wheels of despotism. Free speech is unthinkable. All other kinds of freedom are permitted. You are free to be a drunkard, an idler, a coward, a backbiter, a fornicator; but you are not free to think for yourself." "In the end the secrecy of your revolt poisons you like a secret disease. Your whole life is a life of lies." "For, au fond, what do you care if the Indian Empire is a despotism, if Indians are bullied and exploited? You only care because the right of free speech is denied you." "So he had learned to live inwardly, secretly, in books and secret thoughts that could not be uttered... but it is a corrupting thing to live one's real life in secret. One should live with the stream of life, not against it... [should not] live silent, alone, consoling oneself in secret, sterile worlds." Flory's journey - blindly entering imperialist structures, becoming self-aware but also powerless to escape, thirsting for someone to share this with and placing his trust in someone who could never reciprocate his awareness or loathing, and eventually killing himself (and his dog) because he can not stand the thought of returning to solitude - hits close to home. It's interesting that Orwell, rather than having a running commentary from Flory about the despotism and imperialism he hates, chooses to allow Flory to embrace a self-interested commentary that is primarily concerned with his experiences with the deficiencies of the British Raj, rather than concerns with the overall structure and how it affects his Burmese friends. These overall concerns only break-through once or twice, and even then are largely self-focused. This is why I gave the book a lower score. Though it may be true that many are driven by, and day-to-day only think of localised, self-affecting matters, I would've expected more insight on the larger picture to tie into the narrative and Flory's stream of consciousness.
