Burmese Days, by George Orwell

Ok. This one is a cheat review – the book I read was a paperback; not a Kindle title. But it couldn’t be helped. I generally read while I travel, and I travel with a Kindle. Last week, however, I did some shopping in Chiang Mai’s incredible little backstreet bookstores, and so I’ll be reviewing at least a half dozen paperback titles in the coming weeks.

First up is George Orwell’s Burmese Days. I was attracted to this not because of its author but rather its title. Although I am of course a fan of Orwell’s work, I’m in Southeast Asia at the moment and I’ve always had a fondness for old stories from this part of the world. The very mention of Burma, the British colony, is guaranteed to intrigue me. Not that I am an apologist for colonialism; I just find it a fascinating time in history.

Orwell lived briefly in Burma, where he developed a healthy hatred for the British colonial system. This experience inspired his novel, about a man named Flory in a town called Kyauktada. Here we see the colonial Brits in all their awfulness – racist, gin-soaked society men and women, lording it over the “natives.” The plot largely revolves around the Club where these Brits get drunk and complain about “the niggers.” They are utterly contemptible, including our hero, Flory, although his somewhat progressive views about race put him morally above the rest of the English characters.  Flory’s love interest is the utterly loathsome Elizabeth – a hateful, shallow, anti-intellectual young woman who’s in Burma to find a husband.

No one in the book except, perhaps, Dr Veraswami, is without some major flaw. Dr Veraswami is Flory’s friend, a “native” who is the target of a hate campaign throughout the novel by local magistrate. Orwell’s disdain for corruption and manipulation, which would be evident in his more famous later works, is clear in Burmese Days, whose characters seek only from self-interest, caring little for the consequences of their actions.

Burmese Days is a wonderful attack upon colonialism and a very enjoyable novel. Despite taking the perspective of a cynical man in a hateful regime, Orwell’s love for Burma comes through in his vivid description of the place and the culture, at a time when it was suffering brutally from British rule.