Last months book club read took ages to read I felt that I was forcing my way through the Darien Gap. This month It took also as long a time but mainly because I kept stopping for picnics.[return]This really was a most pleasant walk in the park. There was no need to hurry. Orwell's [return]clarity and his ability to find the memorable phrase made for easy reading. [return][return]The book consists of two parts in the first he launches us without explanation straight[return]into a scene of the most squalid poverty. Then leads us around the towns and cities of the north illustrating the grim economic servitude that brings such conditions about.All the time [return]struggling to be fair in his description for this is no mere polemic, no need to preach since it was originally written[return]for the Left Book Club. Instead throughout he assumes that the audience is as they say on side. [return][return]Thus as outsiders it is only gradually by and by implication that it it becomes clear what Orwell thinks all reasonable men believe.[return][return]In part two Orwell addresses the problem of disseminating that message to a larger[return]audience. The obstacles are many: There are numerous cranks within the movement, that harm its reputation. There is lack of[return]solidarity amongst a people who's perceived social classes have little resembance to the economic groupings that Marxian theory envisioned. The fears of a dehumanising state and of course the spectre of Fascism.[return][return]To modern eyes many of the problems presented by these obstacles are overwhelming.[return]But Orwell continues with an idealistic naif intelligence. Urging a reformation in approach[return]and changes with the socialist novement This is "leak3ed Memo"stuff but he is uncaring as to how it might read outside the reading[return]circle of the left book club. As it is number of times I found myself wanting to tell him[return]He would be first against the wall when the revolution came.[return][return]I did enjoys his side swipes at other literary figures.Now if they were to do a series of [return]Big Brother where they locked orwell in a house with a christian apologian, say Chesterton[return]or Lewis and some reactionary, maybe Waugh. I might watch it.[return][return][return]In conclusion the historical pespective has inevitably removed much of the heat From this [return]book. The times when people from my home town would boast about dropping brownshirts[return]on their heads, when idealists went to fight in Spain are no longer with us. The work remains [return]urbane, informative and well written but there is no fire left no cause to rally. [return][return]The battle is lost and won. This battle flag just one more museum display.