The Road to Wigan Pier (George Orwell)

[Abdul Alhazred]

Who else here has read The Road to Wigan Pier?

George Orwell was a socialist.

Various neocons and the like claim him based on his anti-Communism. But he was a socialist.

Orwell was anti-totalitarian, but he was unquestionably a socialist.

But no one beats up on socialists better than a socialist, as shown in this book.

Orwell says that the main objection to socialism is that it entails being governed by socialists.

Comments, JREFers?

[Zep]

Yes, I read it many years ago.

Wasn't this also the same book that diarised his life as a penniless dish-washer and waiter, and also as a drunken hobo?

The guy had head problems at the time...

[Abdul Alhazred]

Originally posted by Zep
Yes, I read it many years ago.

Wasn't this also the same book that diarised his life as a penniless dish-washer and waiter, and also as a drunken hobo?

The guy had head problems at the time...

You're thinking of Down and Out in Paris and London.

He had it more together when he wrote The Road to Wigan Pier. He'd already published several novels by then.

Down and Out in Paris and London memoirs 1933
Burmese Days novel 1935
The Clergyman's Daughter novel 1935
Keep the Aspidistra Flying novel 1936
The Road to Wigan Pier memoirs and essays 1937

More later if you need it.

[Zep]

Yes, you're right! I have, in fact, read most of those books, but I'm darned if I can remember them too well at all. Memory like a sieve... {creaking noise of brain straining...}

Is there not also one about when he was a soldier in the Spanish Civil War? Or am I thinking of another author...

[Abdul Alhazred]

Originally posted by Zep
Yes, you're right! I have, in fact, read most of those books, but I'm darned if I can remember them too well at all. Memory like a sieve... {creaking noise of brain straining...}

Is there not also one about when he was a soldier in the Spanish Civil War? Or am I thinking of another author...

Homage to Catalonia 1938

I'm not a socialist myself, and I don't try to claim Orwell as one of my own as the neocons do.

He's still my favorite author.

He always told the truth as he saw it, and he always spoke up for ordinary human decency.

If the socialists of today would do the same, I might consider being a socialist.

[a_unique_person]

Love Orwell, and the way the conservatives have laid claim to hid body is moral relativism at it's worst.

He always was, and always will be, a socialist. He just didn't like the way the Communist experiment turned out in Russia any more than he liked the way homeless men were treated in England.