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Jul 04, 2008

Chris rated it:

Orwell left England in 1936 and spend six months fighting fascism in Spain - actually fighting fascism, like, throwing grenades and living in trenches, and being shot at, and crawling across 'no man's land' in the mud. He was a member of P.O.U.M., 'Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista', or the Workers Party of Marxist Unification. Orwell was not a Marxist, but a strident opponent of Franco's fascist forces. The book, like his 'Road to Wigan Pier', is a collection of Orwell's observations told More...

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Oct 08, 2009

Steve rated it:

HEADLINE: For students, here the politics is explained.

For you students who have this great book imposed upon you in a syllabus, here is the best help I can give you with regard to Chapters V and XI, which are in some editions included only as Appendices.

It is interesting to note that at the outset Orwell himself was nonplussed by the alphabet soup of the political situation in Spain. At first he was at a loss when confronted with the idea of right wing communism as you p More...

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Dec 17, 2009

David rated it:

A glimpse into a pocket of war as various conflicting powers (try to) take claim of a newly set anarchist state, following a popular uprising in 1936 Spain.

George Orwell conscientiously; and later coincidently, sets himself among the more anarchist faction (P.O.U.M), working his way through the ranks of a rag-tag organisation battling off Fascism (Franco), Communism (directed by Russia), the Nazis and British imperial interest.

Tedious and uneventful trench warfare add to More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jan 30, 2008

Matt rated it:

The classic Orwell memoir. Orwell seamlessly blends his experiences as a soldier on the Communist front during the Spanish Civil War with shrewd insight into the political machinations fueling Spanish revolution (and the resulting apathy of the non-Fascist world). One of the better books to demonstrate how wars are fought by the poor and ignorant, while controlled by the obtuse and powerful. A timely read given the strong parellels to the current US Middle East policy.

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Aug 29, 2011

Lorenzo rated it:

Reading anything by Orwell is always worth and rewarding.
And "Homage to Catalonia" makes no exception.
As someone pointed out somewhere the way Orwell understood and described Spain surpasses by far what Hemingway wrote pretty much in the same years about the same country.

But while Hemingway spent his Spanish time in a sort of cosmopolitan way drinking, waking up late, watching bullfighting, munching tapas and generally having fun (Fiesta!), Orwell was freezing in More...

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Jan 11, 2012

Bill rated it:

This book is justly famous for its disillusioned account of how the Communist Party—in its eagerness to defeat Franco's fascism--betrayed the successful anarchist experiment in Catalonia for the sake of expedience, how it executed and imprisoned its anarchist and socialist comrades for the sake of a temporary alliance with the bourgeois. I found all this very interesting, but have to admit that the real reason I liked the book so much was for its gritty account of war on the cheap, where More...

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Aug 09, 2011

Will added it

For some reason I was expecting 'Homage to Catalonia' to remind me of Stephen Crane's 'The Red Badge of Courage', despite Crane's book being fiction, but I was wrong. While both deal with the effects of civil war, Orwell's memoir of his time in the Spanish Civil War (1936-9) probably captures better the boredom and frustrations of war, as opposed to the action and excitement of it.

With great English understatement, Orwell manages to convey a great deal of the complexities and often unintended hu More...

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Mar 19, 2009

Kevin rated it:

Review – Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

Homage to Catalonia is the best war book I’ve ever read. It is both entertaining and honest, and has little to do with the partisan bickering that composes much of the book’s background.

Orwell went to Barcelona in 1936 to report on the Spanish Civil War. He was so struck with the progress of the workers’ revolution there, the camaraderie and the hope, that he decided this state of affairs was worth defending, and enlisted with More...

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Feb 24, 2009

W.H. rated it:

You don't need me to tell you that “Animal Farm,” and “1984” are George Orwell’s two best known books. I consider them his two weakest;-- further evidence that irony is the ruling principal by which God constructed the world. To my mind they are not novels but pamphlets written by one of the great political essayists of the last century. “All art,” he wrote somewhere, “is to some extent propaganda.”
Oh?
Lashing out both right and left, Orwell is tough to categorize. Whi More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Dec 04, 2008

Johnny rated it:

Homage to Catalonia is the fourth Orwell book I've read, after 1984, Animal Farm, and Burmese Days, and I've come to the conclusion that Orwell is an interesting, provocative writer, just not a particularly great one. Homage to Catalonia is a scattershot book, careening between political and historical analysis and personal episodes during the Spanish Civil War; without a doubt, the personal sections are much more compelling. For instance, the long (read: very long) chapter breaking down the var More...

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Jan 12, 2012

Arjun rated it:

I am a neophyte on Orwell, though massively impressed by him, so I am not qualified to say how important this work is on his overall work and life. This is a critical analysis of the Spanish Civil War, which can be considered a prelude to WWII and the battles that would pan out in that conflict. Spain is often forgotten as a country when discussing and studying modern Europe because it did not participate in the world wars and did not have the same development trajectory as other nations, such a More...

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Mar 05, 2011

Mark rated it:

On a recent trip to visit relatives Peru, I had the pleasure of meeting a Catalan named Jordan, who married my wife's cousin. They live in Cuzco and while we stayed over at their apartment, we were able to carry on a literary discussion because his English is much better than my Spanish.

Jordan recommended I acquire two books "Homage to Catalonia" by George , and "A Poet in New York" by Federico Garcia Lorca. I am, ever so slowly, working my way through the More...

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Jun 19, 2010

Colleen rated it:

Good history of Spain before WWII. I didn't realize there were so many Anarchist and Communist factions. And so little weaponry. Part of his narrative is set in the Catalonian trenches - the anti-Fascists are holed up on a mesa across from the mesa where the Fascists are holed up - neither side has heavy artillary so it's a stand-off. The actual fighting is sporadic and intense. He goes back to Barcelona to rest up and is swept up in the fighting between the workers groups and the government gua More...

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Apr 07, 2010

Anastasia rated it:

Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell's account of his experiences as a volunteer on the republican side during the Spanish Civil War. But it's not just another memoir. No, it's far more. For it marks a decisive stage in his progress as a writer and a thinker. Indeed, if one wanted to understand the roots behind the major themes in both Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four this book is essential reading.

Orwell, who had developed a general but rather unfocused sympathy for sociali More...

9 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 01, 2010

Billie rated it:

This is a surprising book. Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell's recollections on his involvement during the Spanish Civil War in fighting against Franco's fascists. Also, he details his discovery of the differences among those who were fighting against the fascists. He severely rebukes Communists for wanting to suppress the revolutionary nature of their war--and for their authoritarian rule and being beholden to Russia. In addition, he learns about anarchism, and he becomes more sympathetic to More...

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Feb 04, 2010

Andrew rated it:

Goddamn I love Orwell's nonfiction. I've been wanting to read this forever and finally just got around to it. This book, which covers Orwell's time fighting against Franco with the anarcho/socialist/communist coalition during the Spanish Civil War, is great. The narrative parts cover his boredom and frustration at the front (as boring as getting shot through the neck by a fascist can be anyway) and captures some fascinating glimpses of what a worker-run society might be like. There are also a c More...

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Dec 23, 2009

Joe rated it:

This book reminds me of that saying that I read somewhere about books not kissing on the first date. Is there any other author that can be read and digested as routinely as Orwell can? Who has a longer shelf life, I challenge.

On the second time around I realized how little action Orwell actually saw until his was shot in the throat by a sniper and carried out to recuperate, somehow surviving with little or no long-term injuries. I have to quibble with the rearranging of sections More...

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Nov 01, 2009

Mateo rated it:

Homage to Catalonia

Here's my favorite quote from Homage:

"I had dropped more or less by chance into the only community of any size in Western Europe where political consciousness and disbelief in capitalism were more normal than their opposites. Up here in Aragon one was among tens of thousands of people, mainly though not entirely of working-class origin, all living at the same level and mingling on terms of equality. In theory, it was a perfect equality, and even

More...

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Oct 03, 2009

Michael rated it:

The story of about six months Orwell spent as a soldier in one of the Spanish Republican militias in 1936-37. The fighting was almost nonexistent -- chiefly holding action through the winter -- and so most of the book is a dutiful chronicle of a dull time. Descriptions of lice and soldier bathroom habits are mingled with discussion of the many splinter groups of the anarchists, socialists, and other workers' parties that were trying to wrest power from both the then-current leftist government More...

5 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 28, 2009

Gail rated it:

Orwell's clear, direct prose proves to be the perfect medium for this brief war memoir. As others have mentioned, the Spanish Civil War with its many factions is, at best, hard to understand. I did a tiny amount of research before reading the book so that I'd have at least a minimum of information on it. I think that's a good idea for anyone reading Orwell's book.

The best parts are, of course, his own experiences of the war, with its alternating boredom and fear, its cameraderie, and More...

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Oct 09, 2011

Scott rated it:

In Homage to Catalonia Orwell recounts his personal experiences in the Spanish Civil War and also discusses the politics surrounding the conflict. I usually wouldn’t read a book of this sort, as I have never been all that interested in war – but it was Orwell so I figured I would give it a shot.

While it seems (from other reviews I have read) that people seem to prefer either the political or the personal chapters – I enjoyed them about the same.

The personal sections dea More...

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Aug 08, 2011

Kevin rated it:

This is a re-read of Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell’s autobiographical adventure of experiencing the Spanish Civil War during late 1936 till mid-1937. George Orwell managed to get to Spain to fight for the Republicans against the Fascists with the British Independent Labour Party (the ILP) as he was refused by the Communists in Britain to go and fight with the International Brigades. I think this is one of his best journalistic novels; his descriptions of the Aragon front in Catalonia are re More...

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Feb 08, 2011

blake rated it:

Orwell's account of his experience fighting for the Anarchist group POUM during the Spanish Civil War is surprisingly compelling. This is mostly due to the understated way in which he narrates the book. To be sure, he is recounting extraordinary events, but in a voice so modest and casual that you can't help but be seduced. His political analysis and truth-seeking are refreshing, and in the midst of several acrimonious factions he appears uniquely able to maintain objectivity.

Ov More...

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Apr 05, 2009

Ryan rated it:

I was unsure when I bought this if it was classified as Fiction or Non-Fiction, and I believe it's Non; really, what this book reads like is a 232-page Newsweek article. It was a bit hard to follow with all of the organizations involved with the Spanish Civil War -- and all of the loyalties and ties that were always being made and broken -- but I think that's kind of Orwell's point. Although it wasn't exactly the most "interesting" "page-turner" with gripping plot, and full o More...

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May 18, 2009

sdw rated it:

George Orwell’s memoir of the Spanish Civil War captured one perspective of what it must have been like to be in Barcelona during the early part of the Spanish Civil War, the same way I felt the movie Reds captured what it must have been like in the immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution. The story line centers on a movement to and from Barcelona and various parts of the front line where Orwell fought.

Orwell mixes his personal story with his later reflection. The travel e More...

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Aug 06, 2011

Giovaennchen rated it:

Doloroso relato de las peripecias de un soldado voluntario durante la guerra civil española. Movidos por los ideales de la época, tras una naciente Unión Sovética, y posterior a la Primera Guerra Mundial, muchos voluntarios fueron a pelear a la guerra civil que se estaba llevando a cabo en España. Pobres españoles... pobres guerreros. Desde la perspectiva del guerrero voluntario extranjero se ven las cosas muy distintas. Recuerdo muy bien las escenas que George Orwell describe de los guerreros More...

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Jul 13, 2011

المتمرد rated it:

رغم أن كاتبنا شارك إلى جانب الجمهوريين أو الروخوس، إلى أنه كاتب موضوعي يعترف بأخطاء الجبهة الشعبية والشيوعيون واللاسلطويين،

قبل قراءة الكتاب يستحسن المطالعة على الأحداث التي عرفتها الساحة الدولية قبل الحرب العالمية الثانية، خصوصا الساحة الإسبانية والبريطانية

أعجبتني طريقة وصف أورويل للجنود المورو المغاربة، الذين ترجمهم المترجم بالمراكشيون. ويدلعهم أورويل ب"الأبالسة الأشقياء

أكثر ما أضحكني طريقة وصف أورويل للمجاعة والفقر في إسبانيا، وحبه لبساطتهم وسخائهم ع More...

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Apr 07, 2011

Marks54 rated it:

I got this book as a follow-up to some of the other histories I had been reading that mentioned the Spanish Civil War, for example Scammell's biography of Arthur Koestler. I know of Orwell through Animal Farm and 1984, but I had heard that his nonfiction was superb and that his perspective of being an honest and reasonable socialist was worth reading. Homage to Catalonia is about his experience fighting for the POUM (Trotskyite) group for the Republic and against Franco in the war. The book i More...

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Sep 12, 2010

Adrian rated it:

I read this book because I was interested in dealing with a personal account of the events of the Spanish Civil War, the topic I will be researching for my dissertation in my final year of university. I was rather intreagued by it. Orwell was able to capture the violence and suffering in his vivid and detailed descriptions of combat during the Spanish Civil War. I really appreciated his fresh, outsider perspective in discussing the politics of the conflict. I also identify myself as an anarchist More...

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Sep 13, 2009

Grace rated it:

Was quite tempted to follow Terry's suit and just use some great quotes here about war being bloody and beastly. I really had no idea about any of the strife between different parties supporting the Government. As Orwell says in the one of the excellent (and clear) chapters on the politics of these internal disputes, I thought the war for against fascism and for 'common decency' and that was it. The two politics chapters have been relegated to an appendix in my penguin modern classics edition - More...

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