Ginnie's review
Burmese Days (Penguin Modern Classics)
by George Orwell
Ginnie,
I take it you have read Conrad's Heart of Darkness? Wouldn't that qualify as the best criticism of the colonial past? (By a white man, of course. The best critics of colonialism tend to have colonized origins, I suspect.)
But we do agree that Burmese Days is really good.
I do indeed agree with you here, as you can see from my review.
Heart of Darkness (Conrad)
http://www.goodreads.com/book/...
Another book that I have read periodically over more than fifty years. Each time I find something new and and evaluate it differently. Since the print on the page stays the same while I have lived, thought about colonialism, reading the great recent book about Belgian King Leopold's horrific hold over the Congo. Thus this book remains a touchstone for my own maturity. A book that does this for me over time is one I place on my "treasure" book shelf.
In Heart of Darkness, Conrad attempts to come to terms with the brutal and exploitative nature of the European colonization of Africa, using as a backdrop the bloody history of the Congo Free State. His narrator, Marlow, travels into the heart of the Congo to retrieve Mr. Kurtz, a promising young agent who has disappeared into the bush. Throughout Marlow's harrowing journey, Conrad maintains an unflinching focus on the crassness and avarice of which human society is capable, ultimately revealing that "the horror" Kurtz fears lies within us all. The brilliance of Heart of Darkness lies in Conrad's ability to express the unspoken truths of imperialism in Africa
Ginnie's review
Burmese Days (Penguin Modern Classics) by George Orwell
Ginnie's review
rating:
bookshelves:
literature
I am embarrassed to admit that I had never even opened this book until I read Finding George Orwell in Burma by Emma Larkin, a journalist writing under a pseudonym. She traveled the police state of Myanmar (Burma) keeping a secret diary in the company of George Orwell via his book Burmese Days.
It is a pity that all the attention on Orwell is always on Animal Farm and 1984, becuase he had in his short life written quite a few other brilliant books of which <i>Burmese Days<i> is one, a strong criticism of the colonial past. It is a biting and cynical satire on the life of a bunch of worthless good-for-nothin's in the early part of this century in Burma.
It is a pity that all the attention on Orwell is always on Animal Farm and 1984, becuase he had in his short life written quite a few other brilliant books of which <i>Burmese Days<i> is one, a strong criticism of the colonial past. It is a biting and cynical satire on the life of a bunch of worthless good-for-nothin's in the early part of this century in Burma.
Ginnie,I take it you have read Conrad's Heart of Darkness? Wouldn't that qualify as the best criticism of the colonial past? (By a white man, of course. The best critics of colonialism tend to have colonized origins, I suspect.)
But we do agree that Burmese Days is really good.
I do indeed agree with you here, as you can see from my review.
Heart of Darkness (Conrad)
http://www.goodreads.com/book/...
Another book that I have read periodically over more than fifty years. Each time I find something new and and evaluate it differently. Since the print on the page stays the same while I have lived, thought about colonialism, reading the great recent book about Belgian King Leopold's horrific hold over the Congo. Thus this book remains a touchstone for my own maturity. A book that does this for me over time is one I place on my "treasure" book shelf.
In Heart of Darkness, Conrad attempts to come to terms with the brutal and exploitative nature of the European colonization of Africa, using as a backdrop the bloody history of the Congo Free State. His narrator, Marlow, travels into the heart of the Congo to retrieve Mr. Kurtz, a promising young agent who has disappeared into the bush. Throughout Marlow's harrowing journey, Conrad maintains an unflinching focus on the crassness and avarice of which human society is capable, ultimately revealing that "the horror" Kurtz fears lies within us all. The brilliance of Heart of Darkness lies in Conrad's ability to express the unspoken truths of imperialism in Africa
