Join the HCSF Reading Group to discuss “Burmese Days" by George Orwell
in-person event
Sunday, January 8, 2023
4:30pm - 6:00pm Pacific
In-Person Meeting
SF location address emailed to registrants two days before meeting
HCSF Members: Free, but RSVP required
Non-Members: $10
Note: Meeting location will not be handicap accessible
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"Burmese Days"
by George Orwell
1934
320 pages
Before he set off to Spain to fight Franco's fascists, before he became enthralled by the plight of England's downtrodden, George Orwell's head was still in Burma. He'd been a military policeman there throughout much of the 1920s, but had grown disillusioned with the British Empire's 'corruption and imperial bigotry'. So he wrote Burmese Days, his first novel, to vent his disgust at the British colonial system as the sun was finally beginning to set on it.
It tells the tragic story of a jaded British teak merchant in Burma and his struggles with the hypocrisy of colonialism, its tools of oppression, and its exploitation of indigenous populations.
The book also proved such a cutting critique of imperial ambition that Orwell was forced to first publish in America amid libel fears in Britain. But more importantly, few other novels of the time better took the temperature of the British public's darkening mood towards its Empire. Burmese Days remains as one of the essential novels of the 20th century as well as a valuable historical record of the dying days of British rule overseas. (Penguin UK, “Books that Defined the 1930s”)
Meeting organizer:
Kirsten Miclau
readinggroup@harvardclubsf.org