"The whole body of policemen, military and civil, about a hundred and fifty men in all, had attacked the crowd from the rear, armed only with sticks. They had been utterly engulfed. The crowd was so dense that it was like an enormous swarm of bees seething and rotating. Everywhere one could see policemen wedged helplessly among the hordes of Burmans, struggling furiously but uselessly, and too cramped even to use their sticks. Whole knots of men were tangled Laocoon-like in the folds of unrolled pagris." Burmese Days 1934"It was in Burma, a sodden morning of the rains. A sickly light, like yellow tinfoil, was slanting over the high walls into the jail yard. We were waiting outside the condemned cells, a row of sheds fronted with double bars, like small animal cages." A Hanging 1931"With one part of my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny, as something clamped down, in saecula saeculorm, upon the will of prostrate peoples; with another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priest’s guts." Shooting an Elephant 1936It is interesting to note that the main distinction between these two great essays by Orwell, Shooting an Elephant and A Hanging, and his novel, Burmese Days, is length. All have plot, characters, vivid descriptions, the protagonist conveying his ideas and thoughts through the telling of a story. Where fiction becomes fact is not clearly defined. If the protest "but Flory is a character" has merit, one could say the same of the speaker in the essays. Did these events really happen? Was there a dog, does Orwell really remember exactly what was said? For that matter, did he ever shoot an elephant or see a hanging? There is some doubt. However there is no doubt of the truth of what is conveyed, even if one can pick apart each and every incident recounted. Fiction and soi-disant nonfiction both have their lies and truths, but which is which is not always apparent.To belabour the point:"Art is a lie I use to tell the truth." Picasso "The truth is more important than the facts." Frank Lloyd Wright "Is there anything truer than truth? Yes, Legend." Kazantzakis "These things never were, but always are." Sallust Burmese Days, as is often noted, is influenced by Of Human Bondage, Lord Jim and Passage to India. But combined with Orwell’s experience in Burma, and his sharp perceptions, it is a satire with beauty, heartbreak, cruelty and madness. John Flory, the protagonist, had been in Burma fifteen years. Orwell was there for five. The exoticness of Burma had captivated Orwell, and it is rendered quite wonderfully in this his first novel."The sun circled low in the sky, and the nights and early mornings were bitterly cold, with white mists that poured through the valleys like the steam of enormous kettles.""There was no lawn, but instead a shrubbery of native trees and bushes--gold mohur trees like vast umbrellas of blood-red bloom, frangipanis with creamy, stalkless flowers, purple bougainvillea, scarlet hibiscus and the pink Chinese rose, bilious-green crotons, feathery fronds of tamarind. The clash of colours hurt one's eyes in the glare. A nearly naked mali, watering-can in hand, was moving in the jungle of flowers like some large nectar-sucking bird.""Unblinking, rather like a great porcelain idol, U Po Kyin gazed out into the fierce sunlight. He was a man of fifty, so fat that for years he had not risen from his chair without help, and yet shapely and even beautiful in his grossness; for the Burmese do not sag and bulge like white men, but grow fat symmetrically, like fruits swelling. His face was vast, yellow and quite unwrinkled, and his eyes were tawny. His feet--squat, high-arched feet with the toes all the same length--were bare, and so was his cropped head, and he wore one of those vivid Arakanese longyis with green and magenta checks which the Burmese wear on informal occasions. He was chewing betel from a lacquered box on the table, and thinking about his past life."Orwell's own assessment: "The descriptions of scenery aren't bad, only of course that is what the average reader skips." Don’t skip them if you want to be in Burma with Orwell. Although it does get a bit out of hand occasionally, I would not call it *purple prose*. And there are so many scenes that are brilliantly handled, and often with a dash of dry wit and subtle irony. Orwell is Flory, almost as much as he is the shooter in the essay. He was part of the imperialist empire, yet an outsider too. He could not play the role of the pukka sahib. He was too admiring of the natives, the land, the language, the culture – and he hated the role of exploiter, hating how his fellow Englishmen were so intolerant and chauvinistic - these same ideas are found in Shooting an Elephant and A Hanging. Burmese Days is very visual indeed and I am surprised it has never been filmed. In 1936, Orwell wrote to his agent, "I don’t think personally the idea of dramatising 'Burmese Days' is much good, but it might be worth while getting an expert opinion."That expert might be Ralph Fiennes, who is looking at doing Burmese Days, based on an adaptation by John Henry Butterworth. Apparently he wants to be John Flory, and he’s sent the script to Roger Michell director of Notting Hill. Hmm. Luckily Fiennes has had some practise at playing the ugly guy."The first thing that one noticed in Flory was a hideous birthmark stretching in a ragged crescent down his left cheek, from the eye to the corner of the mouth. Seen from the left side his face had a battered, woebegone look, as though the birthmark had been a bruise--for it was a dark blue in colour. He was quite aware of its hideousness." "New-tick Flory does look rum, Got a face like a monkey's bum.""But Flory had lived down 'Monkey-bum' in time. He was a liar, and a good footballer, the two things absolutely necessary for success at school."Naturally Orwell is as droll as ever here. It’ll be amusing to see Fiennes made-up as Flory - and saying words like pyinkado, frangipani, longyi, thakin, tuktoo, pwe, sahiblog, dacoity, and thathanabaing. And not smiling.
At an early stage of his life George Orwell might have had serious problems in relating with women. It was probably a matter of not sharing the same interests. One can easily picture the twenty something Eric Arthur Blair talking about literature, poetry, politics with the wrong sort of women, assuming they were interested in what he said, but getting a half-bored reluctant feedback. I assume it was not easy finding the cultured literary type of woman the young writer aimed to in the deep Burmese jungle or in the gutter of London and Paris.This intellectual loneliness of young Orwell may be perceived in the very first novels by him. Gordon Comstock, the main character of "Keep the Aspidistra Flying", is a lone wolf, despising the rest of the world and toying himself with being a writer and, in doing so, sort of ignoring the rather plain but pragmatic and affectionate girl who seems to like him. Mr Flory, the protagonist of "Burmese Days" is another romantic chap. Like Comstock, he is a lonely dreamer whose ideals are misunderstood by most of those around him, but unlike Comstock, Flory would very much like having a sort of permanent relationship, a marriage with a woman who would redeem him from the dissolute life he led in colonial Burma.All that said, "Burmese Days" has very little in common with all that Orwell wrote. This is a well crafted novel which, unfortunately, aged way too quickly and with a setting so different from the rest of Orwell's production that cannot be compared with much else. Sure, there are some scenes of a local rebellion but they are portrayed in such a naive, almost funny way that they cannot really match the pages of "Homage to Catalonia".This was a novel sold to the American masses as "a saga of jungle, hate and lust". No surprises that there is very little politics here. Neither an explicit criticism of the British colonialism as one may expect from "Bolshie" young Orwell. It's true how the author shows his sympathies for the more culturally open minded Flory and draws at least five parodies of the typical Englishman dwelling in an Eastern outpost: the racist ill-tempered Ellis, the sport obsessed, self-concerned Verrall, the snobbish, queasy Elizabeth and the status seeker, hypocrite Mr and Mrs Lackersteen, but that's not enough.Even a decent fellow like Flory pokes fun at the "ugly concots" of traditional Burmese medicine, gladly goes whoring, kicks his native servant and treats like a beast his native mistress without feeling any guilty for his behavior but thinking he can pay her way off. And for a trivial British like Mr Ellis there is an Indian Dr Veraswami who - despite of his good nature - has smarmy manners, sweaty hands and a blind fascination for the superiority of the Whites. Not to mention the fatty, disgusting and manipulator magistrate U Po Kyin Po - a Burmese of course - who embodies all the worst vices from bribing to raping but takes back only honors as a metaphor of the ill-corrupted state of British rule over Burma. How much of this cast of characters is a mere parody and how much Mr Flory reflects how Orwell himself felt in the six long years he spent as a police officer in Burma? A young man with an awful Hitler-like moustache who was desperately longing for a young woman who could match his solitude? We cannot know this for sure. But, once again, the suspect arises. As Orwell/Flory puts straight here:"There is a humility aboute genuine love that is rather horrible in some ways".Let's talk a bit more of the humility affecting a non reciprocated crush. It's hard to ignore the careful attention the author dedicated to make Elizabeth, the girl Flory falls in love with, absolutely repellent to the reader's eyes. What struck me the most is how "revolting", for using her own words, this young lady is. Elizabeth is unbearable from her very first apparition in the novel to the very end of it, a bitchy capricious puppet of a young lady who gets the best fun of her life shooting at a leopard, complaining about the "horribly dirty" Burmese people and being irritated by "highbrow" talking about books, local traditions, feelings. Beware the girl! She's one of the most disagreeable characters Orwell ever created, although in such a obvious way that one never gives her much credit. In short, Elizabeth is the mirror of the British haughty colonialism in the Far East and the impersonification of that bourgeois Englishness Orwell hated the most.And you know what? "Burmese Days" is well written and somehow engaging. There are cliffhanging moments, much irony, a convincing setting in a half-forgotten provincial Burmese outpost engulfed in jungle and plenty of disillusion. It's not your usual Orwell, but it's a pretty good novel, an entertainment delivered in a capable manner from an author who really knew the places and the feelings he wrote about.
What do You think about Burmese Days (2005)?
While not as popular as his classics Animal Farm and 1984, Burmese Days is just as complex, just as politically motivated, and just as fulfilling. Orwell's ability to deliver a biting social commentary is supreme, and boy can he write with the best of them.Take this passage for example: She heard finality in his tone, and uttered a harsh, ugly cry. She bent forward again in a shiko, beating her forehead against the floor. It was dreadful. And what was more dreadful than all, what hurt in his breast, was the utter gracelessness, the lowness of the emotion beneath those entreaties. For in all this there was not a spark of love for him. If she wept and grovelled it was only for the position she had once had as his mistress, the idle life, the rich clothes and dominion over servants. There was something pitiful beyond words in that. Had she loved him he could have driven her from his door with far less compunction. No sorrows are so bitter as those that are without a trace of nobility. He bent down and picked her up in his arms.Few writers seem to have as much insight into the social psychology of the world we live in or deliver their insights using such vivid and rich prose. Would recommend to those who enjoyed Animal Farm and 1984 as there are some similarities in style and presentation. But even if you didn't enjoy those books, perhaps because you were forced to read them in school, I would still consider giving this a shot.
—Shaun
I’m on a bit of a George Orwell kick at the moment. Until a few months ago, my experience of Orwell’s writing was limited to the truly brilliant 1984. I’m not sure why I’d not read anything else he wrote, particularly given that I’ve read 1984 multiple times. In any event, a walking tour in Paris which took in the street where Orwell (then just plain Eric Blair) lived and which is evoked in the first scene in Down and Out in Paris and London led me to read that particular work and now I can’t get enough of his writing. First published in the United States in 1934 – Orwell’s British publisher Gollanncz having turned it down fearing libel suits - Burmese Days was inspired by Orwell’s time as a member of the Imperial Police in Burma in the 1920s, when Burma was a province of British India. The novel is set in the fictional town of Kyauktada, which is squarely based on Katha, a town located 150 miles north of Mandalay, where Orwell was posted in late 1926*. It's a fierce and articulate indictment of imperialism in general and of the mindset of the British Indian colonisers in particular - equal in passion to EM Forster’s A Passage to India, if rather less so in subtlety.Orwell’s main character is John Flory, a timber merchant. An outsider in the small British community in Kyauktada, the lonely Flory despises the attitudes and preoccupations of his fellow members of the local “whites only” club, but rarely has the courage to openly speak his mind. His only real friend is Dr Veraswami, the highest ranking “native” official in the town and an ardent supporter of the British Empire, whose downfall is being plotted by the corrupt U Po Kyin. Flory, whose unsightly birthmark symbolises all that isolates him from his fellow colonialists, is torn between loyalty to his friend and the desire to avoid conflict. In my view, the main weakness of the work is in the omniscient third person narration. At times detached and ironic, it is at other times – particularly in the first part of the novel – indistinguishable from Flory’s (and presumably Orwell’s) voice. While this contributes to the lack of subtlety of the narrative, at least you’re not going to die wondering what the author really thought. And it’s a relatively minor defect in what is otherwise a powerful satire. Orwell’s prose is wonderful and his evocation of time and place is superb. In addition, his characters are memorable. The characterisation of Flory in particular – who is not particularly likeable – is very well-achieved. In his portrayal, there’s a sense of a man who is much better than his surroundings and his lack of personal moral courage allow him to be. Flory’s love interest, Elizabeth, is thoroughly unlikeable. However, even she is still portrayed with sympathy and the reason for her shallowness is understandable. This is a novel which may particularly appeal to anyone who has had experience of living in a colonial society. As a child, I lived in a place which started out as a French penal colony and which is still effectively under French rule. I remember just how shocking it was to the local whites with whom my parents mixed that they made friends with and socialised with “natives”. This was in the mid-1960s. Things may have changed, but somehow I doubt that they’ve changed very much. The colonial mindset is very hard to shift. I listened to an audiobook edition narrated by English actor Allan Corduner. He was particularly good with the male voices. However, his voices for the two young female characters left much to be desired. Although they are not sympathetic characters, this doesn’t justify making them sound approximately four times their age. *According to this article, efforts are currently being made to preserve the house in which Orwell lived in Katha.
—Kim
I saw this book mentioned in a biography I read of Aung San Suu Kyi and Orwell was supposed to be one of the more tolerant, but after reading through the life of her father and the carnage of the generals who followed, I couldn't face reading about colonialism - although with hindsight they were a lot less cruel than the regimes that followed. I think their beliefs about class have a lot to do with the attitudes.
—Rowena
