A review by lynecia
Coming Up for Air by George Orwell

4.0

Senior-itis and a way too busy schedule prevented me from finishing this book when it was assigned to me in a college English course -- I most likely used Cliff Notes to get me through my exams. Such a shame I was too above it all to enjoy it then, I really missed out on a delightful, rich, and funny satire about the sometimes meaningless of middle-class life. The protagonist, George Bowling, a middle aged insurance salesman in pre war London is bored to death with his job and home life and decides to "come up for air" by stealing away to the small village he grew up in only to discover its not quite the place he remembered. Narrated by George himself, in his early 20th century English, with his hilarious observations and witty opinions about his society's values and culture are spot-on. It's a bit uncanny (or maybe just prescient on the part of Orwell) that those same critiques and predictions that Bowling had for his society, apply to 21st American life today.