An Homage to Orwell

Last night, I wrapped up George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia in a last minute and sleep destroying push. While this blog is no book report blog, though the idea of such a thing sounds pretty awesome, I would like to discuss the book and what I liked and disliked about Orwell's account of the Spanish Civil War.

Much is made of the Spanish Civil War, due to the conflict between socialism and fascism (as well as the romancing of the war, thanks to Hemingway and other members of the "Lost Generation"). What I loved about this book was its almost newsreporter approach to the war and the factions involved. Just the facts, Ma'am. Rather than filling the book with broad tales from every front, Orwell focuses on what he went through, and no one else. He mentions several times that he is biased, he had chosen a side, but, in mentioning that, you notice in the book that he is careful to not push propaganda without concrete evidence. He even treats his enemies in the book with much fairness, lacking the poisoned view of the "loser."

This was the first time reading Orwell's non-fiction (I never actually finished Down and Out in Paris and London) and I find his approach fresh and modern. Coming from a book almost 70 years old this fact was a little surprising. Most impressive was his description of being shot in the neck by a sniper.

"Roughly speaking it was the sensation of being at the centre of an explosion. There seemed to be a loud bang and a blinding flash of light all round me, and I felt a tremendous shock—no pain, only a violent shock, such as you get from an electric terminal; with it a sense of utter weakness, a feeling of being stricken and shrivelled up to nothing. The sand-bags in front of me receded into immense distance. I fancy you would feel much the same if you were struck by lightning. I knew immediately that I was hit, but because of the seeming bang and flash I thought it was a rifle nearby that had gone off accidentally and shot me. All this happened in a space of time much less than a second. The next moment my knees crumpled up and I was falling, my head hitting the ground with a violent bang which, to my relief, did not hurt. I had a numb, dazed feeling, a consciousness of being very badly hurt, but no pain in the ordinary sense...

... They laid me down again while somebody fetched a stretcher. As soon as I knew that the bullet had gone clean through my neck I took it for granted that I was done for. I had never heard of a man or an animal getting a bullet through the middle of the neck and surviving it. The blood was dribbling out of the comer of my mouth. ‘The artery’s gone,’ I thought. I wondered how long you last when your carotid artery is cut; not many minutes, presumably. Everything was very blurry. There must have been about two minutes during which I assumed that I was killed. And that too was interesting—I mean it is interesting to know what your thoughts would be at such a time. My first thought, conventionally enough, was for my wife. My second was a violent resentment at having to leave this world which, when all is said and done, suits me so well. I had time to feel this very vividly. The stupid mischance infuriated me. The meaninglessness of it! To be bumped off, not even in battle, but in this stale comer of the trenches, thanks to a moment’s carelessness! I thought, too, of the man who had shot me—wondered what he was like, whether he was a Spaniard or a foreigner, whether he knew he had got me, and so forth. I could not feel any resentment against him. I reflected that as he was a Fascist I would have killed him if I could, but that if he had been taken prisoner and brought before me at this moment I would merely have congratulated him on his good shooting. It may be, though, that if you were really dying your thoughts would be quite different."

I realize that posting such a long quote from the book may dull some people, but read the text. It's such an honest and interesting approach to being shot and dying. To me, it seems as though the book was written recently, considering his style. He is very self-aware, very modern.

Orwell takes the time throughout the book to discuss the politics of the Civil War, but breaks these discussions into chapter long chunks, so the casual reader could skip them if uninterested. Chapter 5 begins with this comment:

"At the beginning I had ignored the political side of the war, and it was only about this time that it began to force itself upon my attention. If you are not interested in the horrors of party politics, please skip; I am trying to keep the political parts of this narrative in separate chapters for precisely that purpose. But at the same time it would be quite impossible to write about the Spanish war from a purely military angle. It was above all things a political war."

Again, this approach makes the book's readability skyrocket. I found even his description of Spanish party politics interesting, though I can understand the warning.

Through and through, Homage to Catalonia was an excellent read. I cannot recommend it any higher or more strongly. It is Orwell raw. He describes a war, often misremembered if remembered at all, with every detail from the front to the politics behind. It is painted in colors that sing in the imagination of the reader. A fantastic work from a fantastic writer.