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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
I would recommend anyone read this book it is very good and these are my thoughts:
George “massive bitter professional hater” Orwell is kind of a relatable queen, but in a good and a bad way. Like it’s sort of devastating that it’s been almost 100 years and he’s talking abt things that are relevant today in terms of leftists disliking each other lmao. I think it’s pathetic that he finds vegetarians to be such an abhorrent class of ppl, like get over it bro, learn to appreciate your fellow socialist, but it’s also so relatable, cos bloody hell it’s much easier to find people annoying when u think of their worldview as *almost right*…… and in-fighting on the left is so everywhere it’s so julia and idk he’s real for that, but yeah idk. This point is badly formed but I’m trying to articulate somehow that I think George Orwell was very much a man swayed by his emotions who didn’t want to accept that he was swayed by his emotions, like he wants to present his viewpoint as an objective truth but a lot of it just isn’t (like his caricature impression of what annoying socialists wear), it’s his personal feelings. But also looooove that u know, cos that’s low key me too and also like he would have done great on twitter. RIP George Orwell you would have loved tweeting.
George “massive bitter professional hater” Orwell is kind of a relatable queen, but in a good and a bad way. Like it’s sort of devastating that it’s been almost 100 years and he’s talking abt things that are relevant today in terms of leftists disliking each other lmao. I think it’s pathetic that he finds vegetarians to be such an abhorrent class of ppl, like get over it bro, learn to appreciate your fellow socialist, but it’s also so relatable, cos bloody hell it’s much easier to find people annoying when u think of their worldview as *almost right*…… and in-fighting on the left is so everywhere it’s so julia and idk he’s real for that, but yeah idk. This point is badly formed but I’m trying to articulate somehow that I think George Orwell was very much a man swayed by his emotions who didn’t want to accept that he was swayed by his emotions, like he wants to present his viewpoint as an objective truth but a lot of it just isn’t (like his caricature impression of what annoying socialists wear), it’s his personal feelings. But also looooove that u know, cos that’s low key me too and also like he would have done great on twitter. RIP George Orwell you would have loved tweeting.
Also fascinating to learn about the mines, the housing issues and how the gvt’s response to slums(?) was failing cos they won’t let the damn pigeons into the estates. I love love love his scathing yapping about the deranged idea southerners have about the inherent authenticity of northernness, and actually of northerners perpetuating this, cos it’s also so real and present! Like this stupid idea remains! The way that my pals with northern regional accents get spoken to and interpreted by middle class Southerners is rly funny and fucked
anyway i’m gonna rewrite this review at one point cos this is all just stream of consciousness bollocks but like yas great book. Learned so much abt the 30s, about Orwell’s hater energy, about those damn mines, about how things change so much and stay the same so much, etc etc
reflective
slow-paced
[b:The Road to Wigan Pier|30553|The Road to Wigan Pier|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1414451091l/30553._SY75_.jpg|1034643] is a very interesting book. For several reasons.
Personal to me is the reason that the first part of the book documents the poverty and squalor of working class life in Northern industrial towns in Britain. It feels personal because this is where I am from, and the people he describes could easily be my grandparents, who grew up dirt poor in Yorkshire in the 1930s and 1940s. My maternal grandfather was a coal miner just like the ones that Orwell describes in detail here. Horrendous conditions down the mines left him with a lifetime of health problems.
This book was eye-opening when it was first published, as many outside of the Northern industrial sectors had absolutely no idea how the other half lived.
The second part of the book is an analysis of socialism as a cultural and economic model and a suggestion for how we could convince sceptics to employ it. Anyone who read [b:Animal Farm|170448|Animal Farm|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1325861570l/170448._SY75_.jpg|2207778] and [b:1984|40961427|1984|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1532714506l/40961427._SX50_.jpg|153313] and imagined them as an indictment of socialism would better understand Orwell's views by reading this book. He is not against socialism at all. He is against Stalinism and totalitarianism, which any sane person should be, but he sees socialism as the way forward.
I found it especially interesting how he talks about the view non-socialists have of socialists, because it still seems relevant today. He explains how the working class-- those with the most to gain from socialism --are not "intellectual" socialists and are not what non-socialists imagine when they think of socialists. Non-socialists are often hostile towards socialists because they picture an eccentric, middle-class, "vegetarian" member of the intelligentsia, and they despise this.
This is certainly true today. Conservative pundits continue to sneer at the coddled, university-educated "socialist" with their fancy schmancy "woke" talk (or whatever it is the conservatives are waffling about these days), when socialism is actually most beneficial to the working class, not this imagined stereotype.
Anyway, another good Orwell book. If anything, part two goes on a little too long. Interested as I was, there's only so much theory analysis I can take.
Personal to me is the reason that the first part of the book documents the poverty and squalor of working class life in Northern industrial towns in Britain. It feels personal because this is where I am from, and the people he describes could easily be my grandparents, who grew up dirt poor in Yorkshire in the 1930s and 1940s. My maternal grandfather was a coal miner just like the ones that Orwell describes in detail here. Horrendous conditions down the mines left him with a lifetime of health problems.
This book was eye-opening when it was first published, as many outside of the Northern industrial sectors had absolutely no idea how the other half lived.
The second part of the book is an analysis of socialism as a cultural and economic model and a suggestion for how we could convince sceptics to employ it. Anyone who read [b:Animal Farm|170448|Animal Farm|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1325861570l/170448._SY75_.jpg|2207778] and [b:1984|40961427|1984|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1532714506l/40961427._SX50_.jpg|153313] and imagined them as an indictment of socialism would better understand Orwell's views by reading this book. He is not against socialism at all. He is against Stalinism and totalitarianism, which any sane person should be, but he sees socialism as the way forward.
I found it especially interesting how he talks about the view non-socialists have of socialists, because it still seems relevant today. He explains how the working class-- those with the most to gain from socialism --are not "intellectual" socialists and are not what non-socialists imagine when they think of socialists. Non-socialists are often hostile towards socialists because they picture an eccentric, middle-class, "vegetarian" member of the intelligentsia, and they despise this.
This is certainly true today. Conservative pundits continue to sneer at the coddled, university-educated "socialist" with their fancy schmancy "woke" talk (or whatever it is the conservatives are waffling about these days), when socialism is actually most beneficial to the working class, not this imagined stereotype.
Anyway, another good Orwell book. If anything, part two goes on a little too long. Interested as I was, there's only so much theory analysis I can take.
challenging
dark
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
medium-paced
The second half feels a little of its time, and very specific to 1930s England in its discussion about class. I enjoyed the first half though, which mainly centred on the conditions of the working class. While Orwell is right about a lot of things, his focus on the minutae of English colonialism and class kind of takes me away from it somehow.
Edit after finishing: The second half of Part 2 led to a strong finish! I bookmarked a bunch of it, and will paste them in here shortly. Basically, Orwell perfectly nails how people forever take the side of those who exploit them - ie the middle class worship the owners of capital in favour of solidarity with the working class. Accordingly, they vote against their own interests. See: elections all over the world. It’s nothing new.
Edit after finishing: The second half of Part 2 led to a strong finish! I bookmarked a bunch of it, and will paste them in here shortly. Basically, Orwell perfectly nails how people forever take the side of those who exploit them - ie the middle class worship the owners of capital in favour of solidarity with the working class. Accordingly, they vote against their own interests. See: elections all over the world. It’s nothing new.
I like George. I don't think this was his best work.
I liked his description of his chiseling, tripe selling landlords. They are awful, boorish, greedy, and mostly devoid of redeeming qualities. George tries to pin a lot of that on Britain's industrial society. I think that there were boorish, uninteresting cavemen. Industrialization has made some marks on humanity, but I am fairly confident that there have always been irritating, uninteresting people.
That the family was in the tripe selling business was kind of funny. I have been seeing tripe, and similar digestive tract based dishes from other cultures, on menus lately. George would be surprised to see it, but lots of foods for the poor eventually become trendy. Look at lobster.
I liked his description of his chiseling, tripe selling landlords. They are awful, boorish, greedy, and mostly devoid of redeeming qualities. George tries to pin a lot of that on Britain's industrial society. I think that there were boorish, uninteresting cavemen. Industrialization has made some marks on humanity, but I am fairly confident that there have always been irritating, uninteresting people.
That the family was in the tripe selling business was kind of funny. I have been seeing tripe, and similar digestive tract based dishes from other cultures, on menus lately. George would be surprised to see it, but lots of foods for the poor eventually become trendy. Look at lobster.
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
The first section of this book is an interesting report of how poor people in the north of England in the 1930’s. The chapter about the arduous job of mining coal is particularly fascinating . The second section of the book is less enjoyable. It is the author’s take from his own perspective on fascism, socialism, the rise of machines to do more labor, and the gathering power of the wealthy and its detriment to the poor. This section is more of a slog to read and is littered with so many vile statements that Orwell’s editorial felt compelled to include a prologue naming many of his disagreements. Orwell was prescient in at least one regard. He said the poor and downtrodden would wrongly side with fascists against socialists to their own detriment. That is exactly what is occurring with Donald Trump and his accomplices as I read this book. Of course, most Trump supporters don’t read books, so Orwell’s predictions seem to be coming true in the United States and many other countries, albeit later than Orwell thought.