Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Burmese Days: A Novel

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Brilliant story centered on racism and colonialism

Reviewed in the United States on February 18, 2021

This is a brilliant and insightful story centered on the nature of racism and colonialism in Burma (now Myanmar) in the timeframe after World War I. Orwell spent considerable time in that country so he has a good understanding of the society he is describing. He also has a great deal to say about the subculture of the British colonists in Burma, and he portrays that subculture as highly insulated and at times nearly suffocating and it’s conformity and judgementalism..

Throughout much of this work people are grasping for status. It is particularly tragic that the status and prosperity of an indigenous person can well depend on a friendly relationship with even one of the British citizens in that country. In such a system, a lot of good people come to a sad end and a lot of small minded and even deeply corrupt and unethical people rise.

9 people found this helpful

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Judy S Kindle Customer

Superb writing, distressing story

Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2013

George Orwell beautifully describes the setting, the climate and the characters (although I had to create my own cast of characters at first to keep the Englishmen straight in my mind), but I couldn't get past the depressing story. The English men (and the two women) were shallow, and prejudiced against the natives, and also cruel. It may have been an accurate description of the times (1920's), but it was difficult to accept that the colonists were so indifferent to the lives of the Burmese who worked for & served them. The main character, Flory, who supposedly cared for those natives he knew, wavered when it came to defending them against the cruelty of his countrymen who were stationed there. I can't fault Orwell's descriptions -- I came to feel that stifling and oppressive atmosphere, and the soul-sucking isolation. The ending is a real downer. If I hadn't been reading the book for a book club group, I don't know if I would have read to the end.

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Onowhereman

Beautifully evocative of another time, another place, another way of life

Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2015

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Anyone who has lived in a remote location in the developing world will recognize the atmosphere and the types of characters Orwell creates in Burmese Days. He paints a rich picture of life in colonial Burma, focused on the effects it has on the Europeans trying to adapt to strange and difficult circumstances. Walk through the graveyard in Penang (Malaysia), one of the oldest colonial graveyards extant, and read the grave stones. The brief description of the history of the cemetery near the entrance notes that more than half of the souls there interred passed away before their 30th birthday. It was not an easy life. Very very few lived into their sixties.

Some will take offense at the treatment of the native Burmese in Orwell's novel. But note that the protagonist's very sympathetic attitude toward them and appreciation of their culture is the source of some of his greatest difficulties with his colonial counterparts.

Immerse yourself in this novel to get a sense of what it might be like to make a choice that takes you far far away from everyday routines of the civilized world and, for better and for worse, experience an entirely different way of life.

16 people found this helpful

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Kell

another side of orwell

Reviewed in the United States on August 14, 2013

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This Everyman's Edition is a handy compilation of three of Orwell's earlier novels. They probably have not been added very much to school course lists because I would think they have been unfairly over-shadowed by "Nineteen Eighty Four" and "Animal Farm". If you haven't read these-go ahead and do so. I personally enjoyed "Burmese Days" very much. Orwell spent some years in Burma as a British civil servant. He constructs a very interesting and compelling plot which underscores the problems of the British Raj at the time. Orwell's description of the persons, place and climate put you right there in the thick of it-this is a page turner all the way. Reminds me somewhat of the Somerset Maugham short stories set in the East which are very atmospheric. I was happy to read the "Aspidistra" novel and found it interesting but only slightly-the main character's irrational poses become very wearisome-perhaps Orwell was partially autobiographical here and was attempting to exorcise some demons. "Coming Up for Air" is much better-very humourous, stream of conscious narration by the main character as he goes through his life-crisis(as does England). The Everyman's series are also well made, very collectable volumes which you wish to keep in your permanent library-they are very low-priced for the quality offered.

13 people found this helpful

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Ken

Privilege Corrupts Absolutely

Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2012

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I discovered this book listening to a BBC podcast titled "Great Lives." Orwell was the subject of the podcast, and the moderator commented that, in his (the moderator's) opinion, Burmese Days was Orwell's best book.I had read 1984 and Animal Farm--indeed, who hasn't? Neither of those famous short novels is anything like Burmese, which contains no element of fantasy; rather, it's a novel of humans, human failings, emotions, and romance.

Romance, sort of. Perhaps the most telling feature of the book (for me) is the main character, Flory, being infatuated with Elizabeth. Flory is intelligent and thoughtful. He regrets his life serving English interests in Burma. He sees, roughly in the 1920's, the narrow intelligence and prejudices of his fellow Europeans; he finds imperialism elements of shameful exploitation. Flory is unfulfilled, guilt-ridden, and lonely. Elizabeth, the niece of a fellow worker, visits after her parents die, and Flory thinks he is in love with her.

His love would not be remarkable, but for Elizabeth being cut from the same cloth as the fellow workers Flory has no respect for--if she isn't worse. She thinks the Burmese are sub-human; she has no interest in culture or art. Flory would have nothing to do with her (in my opinion) if he weren't lonely and miserable in Burma. The people and concepts Elizabeth recoils from are people and concepts that Flory has a keen interest in; indeed, an affection for.

Burmese was a fast read to the end--not a happy end, although I found the end happier than it would have been had Flory's conscious wishes been gratified--life happily ever after with that miserable excuse for a human, Elizabeth. She wound up better off than she deserved; Flory, far worse off.

9 people found this helpful

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Robert E. Olsen

Not Your Ordinary Travel Book or Literary Masterpiece

Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2010

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There is something to be said for journalists who write novels, and although he was never on the payroll of The Daily Mail or The Guardian, George Orwell, the author of Burmese Days, was at bottom a journalist. Like Tom Wolfe, for example, Orwell creates fictional characters who are too riddled with insecurities, too motivated by class pretentions, too comical in their relationships with the world to serve to explicate matters of the heart, soul, and other conventions of literary fiction. As a result Orwell does not so much get into his characters as expose them for the weak, banal, conniving, self-deluded, semi-aware creatures that they are -- creatures of their times, never to be envied.

The times, in the case of Burmese Days, are the late-1920's, near the end of the British Raj in Upper Burma, then a backwater of the Empire inhabited by teak exploiters, Christian missionaries, and other expats imposing themselves uneasily -- economically, militarily, sexually -- on the local underclass. When they are not working, the Brits in Burmese Days, like their contemporaries in East Africa, pass their days drinking, gossiping, whoring, shooting, and encapsulating themselves in a club for foreigners. Into this mix comes Elizabeth Lackersteen, a fresh-faced young English girl of 20, recently orphaned, whose only real chance in life is to find a husband. Now. Pursuing her are James Flory, a lumber mill manager more than twice her age who has spent 15 desolate years in the provinces; a certain Verrall, a smooth dancing officer in the Military Police, in town on special assignment, who despises people but loves polo ponies; and Elizabeth's own libidinous drunk uncle, each for his respective end. Meanwhile a good-hearted Indian physician is opposed by a conniving Burmese politician and judge for the sole ceremonial local membership in the club for foreigners.

These two slender plots cross against a backdrop of lush descriptions of Burmese society, customs, architecture, and the greater outdoors. The plots lead eventually to an ending and forward-flashing epigraph, the thrust of which is that people get what they deserve. There is not much new there. It is the backdrop -- the travel writing, if you will -- that sticks with the reader. Orwell writes with a naturalist's disposition.

Here he is describing a hunt: "They set out. The side of the village away from the creek was protected by a hedge of cactus six feet high and twelve thick. One went up a narrow lane of cactus, then along a rutted, dusty bullock-cart track, with bamboos as tall as flagstaffs growing densely on either side. The beaters marched rapidly ahead in single file, each with his broad dah laid along his forearm. The old hunter was marching just in front of Elizabeth. His longyi was hitched up like a loincloth, and his meagre thighs were tattooed with dark blue patterns, so intricate that he might have been wearing drawers of blue lace. A bamboo the thickness of a man's wrist had fallen and hung across the path. The leading beater severed it with an upward flick of his dah; the prisoned water gushed out of it with a diamond-flash. After half a mile they reached the open fields, and everyone was sweating, for they had walked fast and the sun was savage."

In 2002 a Time writer went back to Upper Burma to look for the remains of Orwell's world and found it. That is an interesting enough travelogue in itself. But read the original first. It is a good read.

4 people found this helpful

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Peter Burrows

Not a bad first effort!

Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2021

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I’m a huge Orwell fan, but hadn’t read Burmese Days in many years. It’s a great story, with memorable characters and incisive social commentary. But it’s also fun to get a view of a style that had yet to fully mature. At times, he relies on tricks that you can find in many a high school essay, such as putting words in all-caps for emphasis. Knowing what a masterful thinker and writer he became, It was fun for this Orwell admirer to get a sense of what he was like as a young man.

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ReservedRealist

a lesser-known Orwell work

Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2010

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I, like many readers, first knew about George Orwell from his most famous novel, "1984", also reading "Animal Farm"
in high school. This novel was written before these, and is said to be a reflection of his service in the Indian colonial police. The main character John Flory reminds me of "1984"s Winston Smith, a man who is unsure of his place in society, and doubts the value and credibility of his profession. His "friends" prove to be uncaring, yet he has many flaws himself, that lead to two failed relationships with two very different women. I feel that this book has an anti-imperialst tone to it, and the ending was a bit surprising, if depressing. Definitely worth a read, as Orwell makes it easily accessible and reasonably interesting.

2 people found this helpful

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RPS

I was reacquainted all over again with his wonderful prose in "Burmese Days

Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2014

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Not having read any other George Orwell since "1984" and "Animal Farm" as part of high school required reading, I was reacquainted all over again with his wonderful prose in "Burmese Days." His droll sense of humor and keenly critical but empathetic rendering of human beings in various economic and political strata and situations comes across as thoroughly modern. He is able to put so much into story form as he reveals our condition to us. What a wonderful writer. I am now reading more of his work as I should have many years ago.

2 people found this helpful

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Mary A. Vermont

Interesting

Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2022

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My rating is three stars, I don’t really care to add to that but they force you. Orwell is a master

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John Fordice

Good

Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2013

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For those who might be interested in or curious about SE Asia before microchips were discovered, this is an excellent, one-man's opinion, about life way back then. Unbeknown to me, it is also a not-so-positive review about the habits and behavior of the British who, in the name of Empire, had descended on Burma, all but suffocating the native population. Of course Great Britain was not the only country guilty of these kind of crimes, and the practices of the British in the jungles bears some resemblance to suburbia now.

Search for this book on librarything.com ... there are several "good" reviews there.

One person found this helpful

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M. Newman

If you like Somerset Maugham you'll like this.

Reviewed in the United States on June 16, 2013

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I ordered this book when I saw it mentioned in the NY times. It was a revelation to me as I had only read the most famous of Orwell's books. This early novel made me call up his bio (which is also very interesting) and now I'm thinking of moving on to DOWN AND OUT IN LONDON AND PARIS. I was an English major from a very small town who, through World Lit discovered that there was a big world out there and I was more than ready to experience it. (I joined the Peace Corps.) I have also read every one of Somerset Maugham's stories.

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