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Title: The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell ISBN: 0-15-676750-3 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: September, 1973 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.25 (16 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Misguided on the road to Wigan Pier
Comment: A politically niave and socially ignorant work of at least admirable intentions. A worthy read, but one should approach it with a cynical and open mind. Do not let Orwell spoon feed you with his prejudice. He attacks the entire middle class for being of one particular type and seeing the working class as another diametrically opposed type without seeing that he himself is guilty of the same crime, although the victims may be less 'worthy'. There is no blurring of the line, no consideration for specialist cases. Orwell's world is black and white, but mostly black. His views of socialists are appalling, as is his argument in favour. The heavy-handed emotive poignancy of the first half of the book is excessive in parts, although Orwell's descriptions of various wives in the same half of the book are utterly beautiful and make the book a must-read on their own. Any would-be socialists should read this, just for the feeling of indignant rage it gives you. Students of social policy or economic conditions in 1930s Britain will need to take it with a whole sack of salt.
Still, a massively entertaining and thought-provoking read. Go on, try it.
Rating: 3
Summary: The novelist, not the analyst, speaks...
Comment: This 1937 book is a political and social commentary about aspects of working life in 1930s England, and an endorsement by the author of socialism as the best way forward.
The title is 'The Road to Wigan Pier'. But at the end of Chapter 4, we are told: 'Alas! Wigan Pier has been demolished, and even the spot where it used to stand is no longer certain.' Presumably the book title is the author's joke, and was intended to mean, 'the road to nowhere certain'?
The book:
Part 1 (of 2): Images. We are told that many 1930s working people are dreadful people, and that many live dreadful lives. We are shown how unpleasant 1930s lodging houses are, how hard the life of a miner is, how poor the quality of British housing is; we are told about overcrowding, about the horrendous 1930s unemployment situation in England, about the poor diet of the working classes, trying to live on a budget, and about poor people having to scramble after pit trucks to get coal; we are told of the north-south divide. The writer does not spare his criticisms of the nature of working people, as well as criticising their situations.
Part 2 (of 2): Endorsement of socialism. We are told about the division of British society into 'classes' in the 1930s: that people are brought up to perceive themselves as divided into certain 'classes' in which they tend to stay; we are told the history of the author's life as a policeman in Burma as part of the machinery of oppression there, and of his experience living as a pretend-tramp. We are told that the future, for the worker, lies in socialism (despite many socialists being an unappealing lot), and that workers ought to unite against the 'bourgeoisie', through socialism, by reference to their common status as exploited workers, rather than by reference to other factors (i.e that all paid workers should unite as one group against those controlling/paying them).
This peculiar book is interesting, thought-provoking and intelligently written, but it is somewhat half-baked in places, rants a lot, is very rude about a lot of people, especially about manual workers; is unfocussed and unclear in what it wants to say, and the book leads nowhere certain except to endorse some vague form of socialism as the appropriate way forward, at the end. Noticeably absent from Part 2 is any analysis of how economics work, or consideration by the author of any impracticalities inherent in socialism. The book is a rant rather than a more incisive analysis.
A lot of people will probably find themselves reading this book after reading some of Orwell's fine fiction works. If so, they will probably find this book a little disappointing. His fine style of writing and his brilliant mind shine through, but the analysis itself disappoints, particularly in Part Two, the second half of the book.
Rating: 5
Summary: The bookshop clerk hid it from the other customers
Comment: I found this book when I was living in Sydney, Australia. When I brought the book to the front to pay for it, the clerk kept tucking it under a paper bag, hiding it from the other customers milling around the desk. Everytime I took it out from under the bag, the clerk hid it again. This happened several times, until I finally left. It gave me the immediate feeling that I was buying something a little bit illegal, a little dangerous, something that I shouldn't have, because the clerk had never done that to me before or after.
The first thing I noticed about my little copy of the Road to Wigan's Pier is that is said it was not for sale in the U.S.A.. I recognize now that it was because of copyright issues, but at the time, I thought maybe the reason I had never seen this book in the States, is because it was somewhat suppressed for some reason.
I was expecting more 1984, not a documentary of life in Northern England, not a political commentary. Since then, I have read the book perhaps ten times. It seems that Orwell (Blair) wrote the populist 1984 and Animal Farm simply to get readers to read his earlier works, like this one. Orwell is clearly a master of words, of pacing and of emotion. He can manipulate the reader transparently. By about the fifth reading of Pier, I began to feel that Orwell could have written bestsellers like 1984 and Farm much more easily than this one.
So why is the book important, if for half of it he simply analyses the now-historical beginnings of the Socialist movement? Maybe because it doesn't matter in what direction Socialism has headed since he wrote this book, he wasn't analysing socialism or class issues as much as was busy digging up the truth of socialists, of the unemployed, of the homeless, of the middle class and the upper class. This analysis is still just as valid in 2004, as it was in 1930, even if the names of the political parties and the occupations have changed.
This book was witten by a truthful person, who perhaps stretched the truth a bit, or condensed it, or altered it. These are literary devices. But the meaning of the book, as is most valuable today, is about a poverty-stricken middle class that gets itself into debt to keep up the appearance of a higher class. And it is about a lower class that is essentially better off, even with the hungry belly and the dirty rooms, than this affected middle class from which Blair came.
Maybe this is the message that is so dangerous, the one that bookshop clerk tried to hide from the other customers. This book brings the poverty to light, and finds that the poverty-stricken can redeem themselves. But when Orwell unearths the truth of the middle class, the true subversive nature of this book spills all over the floor like a drunk puking on stage. What has not changed in almost a century is that the middle class may never be redeemed so long as we think that a "plate of strawberries and cream" is somehow our key to salvation. It fills our guts with something other than what we genuinely hunger.
To toss that plate onto the floor and stomp around the house for a piece of black bread with hard crust will wake the babies. But more dangerous, it may force the owner of the strawberry farm and the owner of the dairy farm to get their own hands dirty. "And what of the farmhands, if these soft-hands are doing the work they once did?" As Blair points out, it can only get better when you're already living at the bottom.
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Title: Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell ISBN: 015626224X Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: March, 1972 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell ISBN: 0156421178 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: October, 1969 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Burmese Days: A Novel (Harbrace Paperbound Library, Hpl 62) by George Orwell ISBN: 0156148501 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: May, 1974 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Coming Up for Air (Harvest Book) by George Orwell, George Crwell ISBN: 0156196255 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: October, 1969 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell ISBN: 0156468999 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 19 March, 1969 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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