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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
A novel that boggles the mind, to think that the good people of our supposedly great nation lived this way a mere century ago, it makes hard reading, not least because we so quickly forget and vote headlong for the reimposition of our chains! The sacrifices made and suffering endured in the name of capital remaining comfortable at the expense of the rest is not so far gone, and blinkered by neoliberalism, the bastard child of the factory owners and the landowners and the mining magnates, we clamour for our own impoverishment at the polling booth and throw all those hard won freedoms onto the bonfire of rights as though they were a hateful curse.
A must read; unfortunately, nobody who truly needs to read it ever will.
A must read; unfortunately, nobody who truly needs to read it ever will.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
dark
informative
fast-paced
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Good read for aspiring socialists
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Orwell manages to write so specifically for the time he's writing in, and also in a way where the ideas and arguments are as applicable today. Throughout I was amazed at his eerie foresight of how society would change and evolve.
challenging
informative
slow-paced
This has been my least favourite of Orwell's writings (of which I have now read quite a few).
The writing style felt much less engaging than in his other non-fiction, and I found a lot of his arguments far less persuasive.
Likewise the pace and organisation of the book is a bit off. The first part focuses on observing the living conditions of miners and other industrial workers, and reporting on them. The second part is much more ideological, focusing on Socialism's failure to grab the imagination of the general public. The lurch between the two with little to bridge the gap feels odd.
The thing that really put me off, though, was that his anti-feminism is most in evidence here. I've noticed it more and more as I've read Orwell's work, and here it's explicit. It's disappointing, because in many other ways he's very observant, and interested in the lives of others, and often able to notice the prejudices he's picked up over the years, and usually makes a conscious effort to rid himself of them. Somehow, the opinions he's inherited about women seem to have escaped that treatment.
I mostly disliked the book because it has forced me to acknowledge a glaring imperfection in the thought process behind the writing of someone I have always admired.
The writing style felt much less engaging than in his other non-fiction, and I found a lot of his arguments far less persuasive.
Likewise the pace and organisation of the book is a bit off. The first part focuses on observing the living conditions of miners and other industrial workers, and reporting on them. The second part is much more ideological, focusing on Socialism's failure to grab the imagination of the general public. The lurch between the two with little to bridge the gap feels odd.
The thing that really put me off, though, was that his anti-feminism is most in evidence here. I've noticed it more and more as I've read Orwell's work, and here it's explicit. It's disappointing, because in many other ways he's very observant, and interested in the lives of others, and often able to notice the prejudices he's picked up over the years, and usually makes a conscious effort to rid himself of them. Somehow, the opinions he's inherited about women seem to have escaped that treatment.
I mostly disliked the book because it has forced me to acknowledge a glaring imperfection in the thought process behind the writing of someone I have always admired.