Burmese Days [Hardcover]

George Orwell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 24, 1974

Set in the days of the Empire, with the British ruling in Burma, this book describes corruption and imperial bigotry. Flory, a white timber merchant, befriends Dr Veraswami, a black enthusiast for the Empire, whose downfall can only be prevented by membership at an all-white club.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Imagine crossing E.M. Forster with Jane Austen. Stir in a bit of socialist doctrine, a sprig of satire, strong Indian curry, and a couple quarts of good English gin and you get something close to the flavor of George Orwell's intensely readable and deftly plotted Burmese Days. In 1930, Kyauktada, Upper Burma, is one of the least auspicious postings in the ailing British Empire--and then the order comes that the European Club, previously for whites only, must elect one token native member. This edict brings out the worst in this woefully enclosed society, not to mention among the natives who would become the One. Orwell mines his own Anglo-Indian background to evoke both the suffocating heat and the stifling pettiness that are the central facts of colonial life: "Mr. MacGregor told his anecdote about Prome, which could be produced in almost any context. And then the conversation veered back to the old, never-palling subject--the insolence of the natives, the supineness of the Government, the dear dead days when the British Raj was the Raj and please give the bearer fifteen lashes. The topic was never let alone for long, partly because of Ellis's obsession. Besides, you could forgive the Europeans a great deal of their bitterness. Living and working among Orientals would try the temper of a saint."

Protagonist James Flory is a timber merchant, whose facial birthmark serves as an outward expression of the ironic and left-leaning habits of mind that make him inwardly different from his coevals. Flory appreciates the local culture, has native allegiances, and detests the racist machinations of his fellow Club members. Alas, he doesn't always possess the moral courage, or the energy, to stand against them. His almost embarrassingly Anglophile friend, Dr. Veraswami, the highest-ranking native official, seems a shoo-in for Club membership, until Machiavellian magistrate U Po Kyin launches a campaign to discredit him that results, ultimately, in the loss not just of reputations but of lives. Whether to endorse Veraswami or to betray him becomes a kind of litmus test of Flory's character.

Against this backdrop of politics and ethics, Orwell throws the shadow of romance. The arrival of the bobbed blonde, marriageable, and resolutely anti-intellectual Elizabeth Lackersteen not only casts Flory as hapless suitor but gives Orwell the chance to show that he's as astute a reporter of nuanced social interactions as he is of political intrigues. In fact, his combination of an astringently populist sensibility, dead-on observations of human behavior, formidable conjuring skills, and no-frills prose make for historical fiction that stands triumphantly outside of time. --Joyce Thompson --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review

U Po Kyin's campaign against Dr. Veraswami turns out to be intended simply to further his aim of becoming a member of the European Club in Kyauktada. The club has been put under pressure to elect a native member and Dr. Veraswami is the most likely candidate. U Po Kyin arranges the escape of a prisoner and plans a rebellion for which he intends that Dr. Veraswami should get the blame. The rebellion begins and is quickly put down, but a native rebel is killed by acting Divisional Forest Officer, Maxwell. A few days later, the body of Maxwell is brought back to the town. This creates a tension between the Burmese and the Europeans, exacerbated by a vicious attack on native children by the spiteful Ellis. A large riot begins and Flory becomes the hero for bringing it under control with some support by Dr. Veraswami. U Po Kyin tries to claim credit but is disbelieved and Dr. Veraswami's prestige is restored.

Verrall leaves Kyauktada without even saying goodbye to Elizabeth and she falls for Flory again. Flory is happy and plans to marry Elizabeth. However, U Po Kyin has not given up; he hires Flory's former Burmese mistress to create a scene in front of Elizabeth during the sermon at Sunday church. Flory is disgraced and Elizabeth refuses to have anything more to do with him. Overcome by the loss and seeing no future for himself, Flory commits suicide.

Dr. Veraswami is demoted and sent to a different district and U Po Kyin is elected to the Club. U Po Kyin's plans have succeeded and he plans to redeem his life and cleanse his sins by financing pagodas. He dies of apoplexy before he can even start on building and his servant envisages him returning to life as a frog. Elizabeth eventually marries Macgregor, the Deputy Commissioner. --Wikipedia

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Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Amereon Ltd (June 24, 1974)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0848806026
• ISBN-13: 978-0848806026
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (76 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,880,832 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

GEORGE ORWELL (1903-1950) was born in India and served with the Imperial Police in Burma before joining the Republican Army in the Spanish Civil War. Orwell was the author of six novels as well as numerous essays and nonfiction works.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pox Britannica, June 30, 2008

By 

H. Schneider "Hamlet" (Pandistan) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Burmese Days: A Novel (Paperback)

With his very first novel, Orwell earned an honorable position on the crowded shelves of Raj Lit. It was a kind of self-liberation, so he could drop the subject henceforth.
He had spent 5 years in Burma as a police officer. Why had he done that? His family was of the shabby genteel class, and his father's pension from the imperial service in India was barely enough to carry him through school. So he skipped university and did what the people in his novel do: sign up for the colonies in the hope of reasonable wealth and career.
When he quit after 5 years, he had some explaining to do. He did it with this novel.
Most first novels are autobiographic to some extent, but Orwell did something different: he figured out what he himself would have become had he stayed. His 'hero' Flory is an alter ego under the hypothical assumption of having stayed for 15 years instead of quitting after 5.
Flory has a different job, but that doesn't matter much. He is a deeply lonely and frustrated man without prospects. He is disgusted with himself and with his social crowd, the sahiblog, who enforce conformism in the most primitive way. They are generally a disgusting group of people.
Flory meets a young woman who seems the answer to his loneliness problem. For her, he might be the solution to her problem, which is the expectation of spinsterhood in poverty. They misunderstand each other thouroughly and make a huge mess of it.
The personal tragedy of Flory is framed by stories of imperial intrigues, by local officials playing Machiavelli and by the sahibs sinking into delirium tremens.
I read it first when I was working and living in other parts of the by then former Raj. I think everything would have been different if the poorpeople, the sahiblog, had had airconditioning. They might have been able to use their brains more.

41 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Biting satire; Orwell at his very best!, December 1, 2000

By 

Gerrit Ruitinga "gerrit ruitinga" (Antwerp) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Burmese Days: A Novel (Paperback)

It is a pity that all the attention on Orwell is always on Animal Farm and 1984, becuase he has in his short life written quite a few other brilliant books of which Burmese Days is one.

Burmese days is the strongest criticism of the colonial past I have read. It is a biting and cynical satire on the life of a bunch of worthless good-for-nothin's in the early part of this century in Birma.

None of the characters is in the least likeable. The main protagonist Flory has his moments but fails miserably at the only instances ( the membership for the Club for his Indian friend)in which he could have made a difference. In a way he resembles Saint Peter but withouth the remorse.

His collegues at the Club are at best an empty headed lazy bunch and at worst outright lower class racists. Ellis would have lived in the slums of London but here in Birma he feels superior to every "nigger"" ( That Orwell uses this word frequently adds to the dark and biting spirit of this novel).

The girl, Elizabeth Lackersteen, is more stupid than Daphne Manners ( Jewel in the Crown) or Adela Quested ( Passage to India) and in her "innocence" ( by Orwell, more than Scott and Forster, poignant depicted as ignorance and stupidity) and causes the same problems for the people around them in particular the Birmese and the Indians.

Is it clear that the Europeans are all sinners, the "surpressed" are certainly not saints. The birmese characters are extremely corrupt and the girls do not display very high moral values. The Indian doctor is wonderful; his whole life he has had only one ambition and that is to be part of the English class. In order to avoid embarrassment he assures the English, however, that when the membership is offered he will be deeply honoured but never use it!

All this is written in a wonderful prose and a very tight storyline; the hand of a master. It helps you to understand how incompetent Colonial Rule has been in some places and in what a mess that has resulted. One has only to visit Birma these days ( as I do from time to time) to see what Orwell meant

Reading the novel fifty years after the colonization ended gives you a severe feeling of embarassment and an everlasting impression of the Colonial past of the European countries. It will change the way you see things and that is what Orwell had in mind with all his social-realist work.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "...the sun glared in the sky like an angry god, then suddenly the monsoon blew westward...", August 23, 2007

By 

Douglas S. Wood "Vicarious Life" (Monona, WI) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Burmese Days (Hardcover)

'Burmese Days', George Orwell's first novel, was based on his five years' experience as a member of the British Indian Imperial military police in Burma, which was part of British India at the time (1922-27) and remained so until 1937. Orwell was born in Bengal British India where his father worked for the Opium Department of the Civil Service.

Orwell sets his rather sordid tale in a remote station of Kyauktada in Upper Burma.

Through Orwell's considerable literary skills the reader feels the heat and rains: "...from February through May the sun glared in the sky like an angry god, then suddenly the monsoon blew westward, first in sharp squalls, then in a heavy ceaseless downpour that drenched everything until neither one's clothes, one's bed, nor even one's food ever seemed to be dry. It was still hot, with a stuffy vaporous heat. The jungle paths turned to morasses, and the paddy fields were great wastes of stagnant water with a stale mousy smell...Through July and August there was hardly a pause in the rain."

Fictional Kyauktada station consists of eight whites in the midst of thousands of Burmese. Eight whites holding on to their cribbed vision of civilization with a social life centered around a cheap whites-only club and the once-every-six-weeks visit of the Anglican priest. Although he changed the names, Orwell's characters were based on real people he encountered. The corrosive affect of colonial rule takes a toll on everyone involved, British and Burmese alike. The Anglo Indians generally display racist attitudes that ranged from an accepted sense of one's own 'natural' superiority to raging hate. The Burmese are nearly as repugnant as they scrape and bow to curry favor with grater and lesser degrees of sincerity. The protagonist Flory is the only partial exception, but his maddening equivocation ultimately leads to dire results. Several of the British sink into booze to put away the malaise.

Orwell had difficulty getting 'Burmese Days' published partially out of fear that it would anger supporters of the British Empire (especially Anglo Indians) and also fear of libel suits. After reading Burmese Days you will agree that these reactions would not have been surprising. No one comes off looking very good, British or Burmese, but least of all the British Empire. Was it really as bad as Orwell portrays? Perhaps it was, after all Kyauktada was far from a plum assignment. In any event Orwell's `Burmese Days' portrayal is closer to the mark than any romanticized renderings.

Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in the Asian subcontinent.