George orwell

The complete novels of George Orwell

Starting the summer break, i picked up this handy collection, having had my eye on it for a while, the task gave me more than enough reason to grab it. As the name would suggest, it contains all of the Orwell novels, those being:

-Animal Farm
-Burmese days

-A Clergyman's Daughter
-Coming Up for Air
-Keep the Aspidistra Flying
-Nineteen Eighty-Four

Of this collection i have read both Animal farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, and am currently working through burmese days.

Animal Farm

Of the two main Orwell titles (the other being Nineteen Eighty Four), i'm definitely a bigger fan of animal farm, its so damn good. Doesn't overstay its welcome in length, presents its point in a setting that a wide range of ages can get in to, an despite doing so, is still incredibly effective at conveying its cautionary message. The ending paragraph left me with such a sinking feeling. As i mentioned with my Kafka write up, I love good characterisation, and this story does so masterfully, using different animals as an analogy for the different classification of the socioeconomic status', whilst also in keeping with the traits of said animals.

Nineteen Eighty-Four

The second of the big hitters, i do really appreciate the book, but didn't quite grab me like Animal Farm. The story did tend to drag from time to time, but that was necessary exposition to build such a distinctive world, so I do understand. The real standout element of this book are the numerous aspects of the world that have come to be in reality, its eerie really, and worrying, but thats why we love Orwell, his ability to communicate and warn. One of my favourite lines from the book actually covers that, "How could you communicate with the future? It was of its nature impossible!" I was taken aback reading this line, for even though Orwell probably wrote the line in an immediate sense, this is exactly what he achieved with this story.

Diaries

This started with great promise, the days accounted by orwell, homeless on the streets of london. Informal and insightful to both the state of things at the time and the personality of orwell. There's a lot of gems within these stories, the characters he encountered and things he had to do to survive, they were really engaging entries. Sadly once the entries jump to a different time, he starts to write more formally, every entry matter of fact, abridged, i cant help but feel they become soulless. So i lost interest in this book pretty fast, and realised there was more material from his homeless days, 'Down and out in London and paris' so I've got that on the way and will do a write up once i finish that.