George Orwell's first novel is a damning indictment of British Imperialism and the bigotry that allowed it to be in the first place. As you might expect, it's very well written and the prose carries you along effortlessly. It's wonderfully descriptive without being overly flowery and you really feel transported to that time.

My main problem with the book is that it isn't damning enough. Perhaps it's my modern perspective or perhaps it's Orwell's often weak-chinned protagonist but I often felt Orwell was pulling his punches. It's entirely possible I'm judging the novel unfairly based on his later, more seminal, works but I often felt myself thinking 'oh, stop messing about, George; give the bastards BOTH barrels!

A lesser issue was that I just couldn't see what Flory could possibly see in Elizabeth. I mean, she was awful and it drove me up the wall that he couldn't see it. Oh, well; they do say love is blind, I suppose...

Edited because my spell-checker changed the word 'bastards' to 'Asgards' for some strange reason.

Cross cultural life in the days of the British Raj.



Coping with racial differences, cast ranks and social standing in the multi-cultural Burma of the 1930s is Flory, a middle aged bachelor trying to overcome all these obstacles.

He is a timber merchant for a teak wood company owned by the British charged with extracting wealth from the Burmese forests. His life revolves around the wood camp, his Burmese mistress and the European Club. The Club's members are all British and determined to keep all other races out. But Flory secretly disagrees.

His best (non British) friend is Dr Veraswami, who supports the British rule in Burma no matter what atrocities may have happened in the past.

U Po Kyin, Sub-divisional Magistrate who wished to fight on the side of the British and become a parasite upon them. This was his ruling ambition.

Finally there is Miss Elizabth Lackersteen recently from England and in search of a husband.

The spark that would turn Flory's world upside down was the notice from the Commissioner . . .

“It has been suggested that as there are as yet no Oriental members of this club, and as it is now usual to admit officials of gazetted rank, whether native or European, to membership of most European Clubs, we should consider the question of following this practice in Kyauktada. The matter will be open for discussion at the next general meeting."



This story was written in the 1930s - time very different from our politically correct times. Readers are advised not to be too shocked with words that now-a-days we cannot bear speak.

Enjoy!

There's something about the way George Orwell writes that draws me into the story and keeps me reading, even though I can see everything going wrong and most of the characters are unpleasant, which could be because all of them are trapped in the colonial system and none of them are strong enough to get away from it. The story takes place in Burma, on a small station where only a handful of white people live, in the early part of the twentieth century when Britain was still an Empire and everyone had to keep to their place. The main character is Flory, a middle-aged man who works for a timber company, and he's dissatisfied with his way of life and lonely, but too weak to really try to change anything. His best friend is an Indian doctor, but there can't be any real friendship between a white man and a man of color, and so when the doctor gets into trouble and Flory easily could have helped him he doesn't want to, because it would have made the other white men annoyed with him and he doesn't want to have an argument. Then a young white girl, Elizabeth, comes to stay with her aunt and uncle and Flory becomes obsessed with the idea that by marrying her he can be saved from his loneliness and the feeling he has of being trapped by life, that he could have one person who understands him and that he can talk to, but the problem is that he doesn't know Elizabeth and even if he married her his life wouldn't magically change and become everything he wants.

The rest of the book consists of Flory trying to woo Elizabeth (very clumsily), Elizabeth wanting to marry so she won't have to go penniless and alone back to England but not being sure about Flory, and everyone else being caught up in the machinations surrounding the European Club and the threat that for the first time they will have to elect a member who isn't white. No one wants to do this, for reasons which range from full-on racism to the feeling that it would be to let their side down and it's better if everyone keeps to their places. The feeling I came away with is that institutionalized racism isn't good for anyone - it's obviously bad for people of color, but that it has a very bad effect on white people as well is made obvious by Orwell's characters and the way they are shaped and trapped by the system. A good book, but a tragedy.

I'm a big Orwell fan, largely because he had one of the world's great bullshit filters. He stuck by his socialist guns, something conveniently ignored by the army of libertarian retards who use 1984 to prop up their juvenile worldview.

And he produced a terrifyingly accurate account of life as an outsider in Southeast Asia. Translate Burma in the '20s to Thailand in the '00s:

1) Hopelessly corrupt local officials
2) Lazy, alcoholic white people who do nothing but grouse about the natives, except for maybe the Siamese nubiles they get to suck their members
3) A sense of desperate isolation from the rest of the world, and a permanent entrapment between cultures

Colonial Burma brought out the worst in everyone, which is why none of the characters are sainted. Flory is a pathetic misanthrope, Veraswami is a desperate Uncle Tom, Elizabeth is the worst human ever, and so on. Fucking A.

“'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 lie enough. But it corrupts us, it corrupts us in ways you can’t imagine.’”

In Burmese Days, Orwell makes his readers feel the corruption he refers to, and I must say it is a distasteful experience.

This is a story of the days when Burma was under the rule of British India, and British administrators flaunted their power over the native Burmese while lounging, drinking and dissing the locals and their customs from inside the hallowed walls of their European Club. The main character is John Flory, an English timber firm manager who at heart respects Burma and its people, but hasn’t the guts to stand up to his countrymen.

There is a power struggle set in motion by a conniving magistrate. There’s a love story involving a British woman who practically drools at the idea of killing animals and is trying to get herself married to the best animal-killer available to her. There is a local doctor who believes the British can do no wrong, and a slave who calls his master “the holy one.” The only likeable character is a lovely dog named Flo.

In the Introduction to my edition, Malcolm Muggeridge says:
“There were two Orwells. Or rather, there was the original Eric Blair, and the George Orwell into whom he transformed himself after he adopted this pseudonym. Orwell tried hard to obliterate Blair, but he never quite succeeded in disposing of him. Blair, peeping out from behind Orwell’s austerely critical countenance, loved England dearly: its countryside, its red pillar boxes, and its schoolboy heroism in wars and in far-off places drenched in monsoon rains, sweltering in tropical heat.”

Perhaps it’s that love Orwell is struggling with here that creates the palpable, gut-churning tension of this novel.

It’s excellently written, and artfully makes its point about the evils of empire. Not an enjoyable read, but if Orwell’s aim was to make readers uncomfortable, I’d say he succeeded.

A sad, fierce and ambitious novel about the emptiness and loneliness of the waning days of the British Empire. It shows the ugliness and corruption of British class-based social structure, cultural bigotry and the harsh individual fantasies that are needed to keep the whole system afloat. It shows the future potential of Orwell, but lacks the restrained grace of his later novels. There are, however, definite glitters and shadows of both E.M. Forster and Joseph Conrad throughout. It is worth the read for those interested in early Orwell or the decline of the post-WWI British Empire.

It is a surprise to read George Orwell's "other books", those well beyond his 2 most famous works. Sometimes, I feel as if Orwell writes as if he is in the mode of an anthropologist, as in The Road to Wigan Pier and at other times someone who has just gone undercover to gather evidence of a crime, as in Burmese Days. Obviously, George Orwell changed a great deal while representing Great Britain in Burma, most unhappy with the role of his government's stance while working in Burma but also, seemingly quite unhappy in his own skin.



There are frailties with this novel and while I did enjoy the context of Orwell's tale set in colonial Burma, it does not seem all that well developed, particularly the ending. I kept wondering what Graham Greene or Somerset Maugham or Rudyard Kipling would have done with this setting & my conclusion is that they would have made the characters rather more complex and the story considerably more memorable. There were, one supposes, colonial types who were more even-tempered, who found the people they were living in the midst of to be marginally interesting, at least not being completely antagonistic toward the Burmese.

Life as a colonial administrator in Burma presents many ups & downs for Flory, the main character in this story & the presence of Elizabeth does seem to change him somewhat. Ultimately however, he seems almost beyond redemption. I have lived in a post-colonial, formerly British & recently independent country and while there was definitely residual evidence of remaining British who continued to feel completely superior to the folks they had governed, there were also many who wished the new country and its people good fortune and enjoyed being in their presence, even if at times rather like a parent cautiously watching a former child come of age. I seemed to sense only extreme condescension & intolerance in Orwell's tale of Burma. Here is just one comment on the Burmese profile, from Elizabeth:

Aren't the Burmese too simply dreadful? Such hideous-shaped heads! Their heads slope up behind like a tom-cats. And look at the way their foreheads slant back-it makes them look so wicked. So coarse looking, like some kind of animal. Do you think anyone could find them attractive? That black skin--I don't know how anyone could bear it!

Flory responds by suggesting that..."one gets used to it after a few years in these countries", also mentioning that in places like Burma a brown skin seems more natural than a white one and that in much of the world pale skin is considered an eccentricity.



I found the character of Dr. Veriswamy captivating and kept thinking that I would not have wished to be a part of a club that barred him from membership. All clubs do seem to have a hierarchy and bylaws seldom change quickly once in place but I hoped for at least a greater show of support for Veriswamy, given that he appeared to be what the British hoped to develop in their colonial subjects. Instead, there was almost nothing but gross insensitivity & racism, though perhaps my attitude is unrealistic, given the time & place.

Lastly, I was disappointed by the ending, even if it may have mirrored something that happened in the author's own life. But in spite of my misgivings, the novel pulled me forward and I was glad that I'd finally taken the time to read it, so much so that I would very much like to make my way at some point to the sleepy port town in lower Myanmar where Burmese Days is set.

36th book for 2019.

This first fiction I have read by Orwell—and the first he wrote—leaves me disappointed; informed by Orwell's time in the Burmese military police, it paints a vivid picture of a rotten, racist imperial Britain dominating through sheer might over the local people, but while Orwell's writing is as precise and crisp as ever, much of its enjoyment is lost as the story swerves every more completely into the melodramatic.

2-stars.

كانت عودتي للقراءة مع جورج اورويل و ما افضل من هذه العودة ؟!
لكن ايام بورمية كانت سيئة جدا ، فبرأيي المتواضع ان مثل هذه الروايه لا تستحق ان يفرد لها اكثر من ٤٠٠ صفحه ،لوصف اوضاع البورميين في بورما ابان لاحتلال البريطاني ..
و كان لاورويول تاكيد اخر بان ما يدمر البلاد هم الخونه من ابنائها و ليس المستعمر وحده فحسب .. لا اعلم كيف لشخص ان يخون بلاده في خدمه مستعمر اجنبي !!
اللنقود كل تلك الاهمية في هذه الحياة ،لتستغني عن دينك ووطنك و مبادئك ؟!
ربما ما فاجأني ان نهاية هذه الرواية على عكس اسلوب اوريول بان النهاية سعيده ،بالقصاص الرباني من يو بو كين و بزواج اليزابيث من السيد ماغريغور نهاية ..

What specific psychological roots of market domination were explored in the novel? From oriental dream to colonial nightmare
From this first work, Orwell is a fine portraitist of social reality. Here, English colonialism in Burma after the First World War.
This work is an unflattering but, indeed, very lucid portrait, which shows the deeply corrupting character of the spirits of this form of domination.
This novel teaches us more about some of the psychological roots of market domination than many laborious books of history and sociology.
It is generally unknown that Orwell was born in India, where his father belonged to the colonial administration, and that even if he returned very quickly to England, where he studied, his dreams of the Orient were brooding in his youth. To accomplish this dream, he did not hesitate to take the uniform and assign it to the imperial police in Burma.
This novel captures the height of his disappointment and awareness of colonial life's terrible mediocrity, pettiness, and the nuisance of British imperialism. Understanding that was undoubtedly the foundation of its evolution and subsequent choices. It is, therefore, from his own experience that Orwell describes this ossified universe where frustration and racism go hand in hand and which contains within itself its destruction. What this book published in 1934 already announced quite clearly.

Second Reading:

Today (2016.12.18) I came across some underlined sentences in this novel as one of his six novels published in "The Complete Novels of George Orwell" (Penguin, 2009) and thought it would be OK to post some of his interestingly witty, quotable quotes out of his seemingly flowing writing. I wonder if he has meant them to be a sort of tip of thought or entertainment, the page numbers are from the mentioned six-novel volume, not from the one showing its front cover on this web page.

Happiness is not in money. (p. 88)

Living and working among Orientals would try the temper of a saint. (p. 103)

Beauty is meaningless until it is shared. (p. 122)

Envy is a horrible thing. (p. 259)

There is no armour against fate. (p. 308)

My criterion is selecting his quotes is that I like them at first sight/reading because they inspire me and are unique, that is, I have never read/heard them before. I know some or all could be arguably debatable but, accordingly, they should need another academia requiring those brilliant students to fulfill their thirst of knowledge, pursue their formidable theses and be awarded the degrees.

First Reading:

From my notes.
1. There should be a section of 'Glossary Terms' for those Latin, French or Burmese (in italics) so that the readers fully understand their meanings in each context.
2. It seems to me U Po Kyin is too literate for his academic background, I don't think he knows Latin (e.g. p.273) and from the novel context, he is not a great reader and there is no information in the novel on his British university education (if any).
My queries:
1) Where has he learned such Latin words/phrases?
2) What is the point of his Latin show-off among his colleagues?

However, this novel is, I think, still worth reading for those admiring him as well as Orwell newcomers who would see how he has since revealed how colonialism -- the power that be -- was like to govern Burma as observed by himself as a British police officer there.

Sunt mai mult decât uimită ce bijuterie e romanul ăsta. Poate nu la fel de mare ca 1984 și Ferma animalelor, dar splendid ca subiect - Birmania în timpul Imperiului Colonial Britanic - și deosebit de bine scris, într-un stil rar, fără niciun cuvânt în plus, demn de invidiat de orice scriitor sau amator de scris literatură. Foarte atmosferic și scris cu același cinism specific autorului, nu are pur și simplu defecte, dar are, din nefericire, ghinionul de a se afla pentru totdeauna în umbra a două mai-mult-decât-capodopere.