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4.04 AVERAGE
4.04 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Really enjoyed the book for the most of it, but the ending appendices (one discussing the leftist infighting, the second revisiting the may conflicts) were incredible and took it to the next level. Massive respect to Orwell for presenting such insightful political commentary with the humility to repeatedly call out his own biases and attempt to argue a fair case.
Read this while on a trip to Barcelona. During the trip I was annoyed at a mistake I'd made - booking a visit inside the Sagrada Familia on the wrong day - but later I read the passage where Orwell writes, "I think the Anarchists showed bad taste in not blowing it up when they had the chance," and that made me feel better.
This is a classic of original writing about socialism: filled with first-hand reporting of the scenes shortly after a socialist revolution and wary of "the idealised 'worker' as he appears in the bourgeois Communist's mind"; suspicious of "glib" analysis of war by outsiders far from the front; and mostly devoid of any of the English conservative reactionary quality that comes with writing about times of peace. It sings the praises of heroic but ill-equipped soldiers and it's alive to the relative futility of frontline trench warfare too. The scale of war - the death toll, the destruction of land - might be great or small, but those are down to the cynicism of backroom Generals. Great or small, they bear no correspondence to the depth of feeling behind the cause fighters believe they are fighting and sometimes dying for.
This is a classic of original writing about socialism: filled with first-hand reporting of the scenes shortly after a socialist revolution and wary of "the idealised 'worker' as he appears in the bourgeois Communist's mind"; suspicious of "glib" analysis of war by outsiders far from the front; and mostly devoid of any of the English conservative reactionary quality that comes with writing about times of peace. It sings the praises of heroic but ill-equipped soldiers and it's alive to the relative futility of frontline trench warfare too. The scale of war - the death toll, the destruction of land - might be great or small, but those are down to the cynicism of backroom Generals. Great or small, they bear no correspondence to the depth of feeling behind the cause fighters believe they are fighting and sometimes dying for.
A timeless book that describes the upheavals of Spanish Civil war in utmost detail and also the intellectual and political formation of the George Orwell we know today. Here the reader will find a very complex war with described by a very self-aware author aware of his own biases, the authors ordeals during the war and also human stories of brotherhood beyond political affiliations.
The political aspects might be tiresome to new non-politcal readers but none the less the author devoted specific chapters to it so they can be skipped (but I don't recommend that).
The political aspects might be tiresome to new non-politcal readers but none the less the author devoted specific chapters to it so they can be skipped (but I don't recommend that).
informative
slow-paced
adventurous
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Things are done for when Russians come in.
Orwell's greatest achievement in this war, despite causing almost zero Fascist casualty.
And his sense of humour always strikes unexpectedly somehow.
Orwell's greatest achievement in this war, despite causing almost zero Fascist casualty.
And his sense of humour always strikes unexpectedly somehow.
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
The reason I enjoyed this so much was a) seeing life through candid and honest eyes, whether on the front lines of a civil war or in the middle of a coup, and b) learning about a topic I didn't know that much about. His reasons for writing animal farm are pretty obvious after seeing what he lived through. The candor with which he talks about the boredom and the horrors of war was stark yet welcoming. An Englishman worth admiring.