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jackieeejw's review
4.25
A very insightful piece of cultural commentary. I think Orwell’s polemical style leads to some unfounded and overgeneralised conclusions, but this is still incredibly valuable in the picture it paints of England circa 1940. It is kind of amazing how many of the analyses and trajectories he points out are still relevant 80 years later, and there are some beautiful sections of prose (this is most effective where he uses personal experience to make his argument about England) including his descriptions of coming back to England and what it means to belong to a nation early on page 4 & 5.
jenn756's review against another edition
4.0
This is a very short (and small) book which I bought because I didn't have much room in my rucksack!
Written during WWII it is laying out a vision of a post war England, one where we could finally lay to rest Rolls Royces and Tatler and tax evading company directors. He was tuning into the zeitgeist of the time, because there was of course a huge labour landslide in 1945.
Some of it he gets very wrong, or reflects the outlook of the time. For instance when he says India would be incapable of governing itself, a common stereotype. But mostly he hits the nail on the head as you would expect from Orwell. Pity he never got to see much of the post war world, I would have loved to hear his perspective on the 1960s for instance.
Even if had survived TB he would never have lived long enough to witness the neoliberal society we live in now. And he would have despaired if he had seen it I am sure. Back to square one, tax evading and obscene wealth and a new threat he never knew of climate catastrophe. We have learnt nothing.
Interesting he focuses on the patriotism of the ordinary British person, which is something many left-wingers miss. And he reserves a lot of scorn for left wing intellectuals, he must have had an inkling of the Kim Philby brigade.
Written during WWII it is laying out a vision of a post war England, one where we could finally lay to rest Rolls Royces and Tatler and tax evading company directors. He was tuning into the zeitgeist of the time, because there was of course a huge labour landslide in 1945.
Some of it he gets very wrong, or reflects the outlook of the time. For instance when he says India would be incapable of governing itself, a common stereotype. But mostly he hits the nail on the head as you would expect from Orwell. Pity he never got to see much of the post war world, I would have loved to hear his perspective on the 1960s for instance.
Even if had survived TB he would never have lived long enough to witness the neoliberal society we live in now. And he would have despaired if he had seen it I am sure. Back to square one, tax evading and obscene wealth and a new threat he never knew of climate catastrophe. We have learnt nothing.
Interesting he focuses on the patriotism of the ordinary British person, which is something many left-wingers miss. And he reserves a lot of scorn for left wing intellectuals, he must have had an inkling of the Kim Philby brigade.
tohko's review against another edition
3.0
Am reminded of how sharp, insightful and timelessly relevant Orwell's writing is. Aside from certain ideas which I thought were slightly outdated ("Europeanised Intelligentsia", English "anti-militarism"), I found that this 40pg essay, written during WW2 in 1943, could have just as well been written in 2017 (the year it was re-published, and of Brexit) and been as important, treating the issues of national identity, class divides and the meaning of patriotism.