Burmese Days
by George Orwell
by George Orwell
If you last read Orwell back in high school and vaguely remember struggling through the political implications of assigned texts Animal Farm or 1984, you might be reluctant to pick up Burmese Days.
Don’t be! This fictional account of John Flory, a white British officer sent to an outpost of the empire in Burma, is extremely readable.
It follows Flory and his friendship with an Indian, Dr Veraswami, who wants to join the all-white social club and focal point of the tiny and rather tiresome expatriate community in the fictional town of Kyauktada. The town was actually Katha, today found 12 hours’ north of Mandalay by train in the Sagaing Region, where Orwell served in the Indian Imperial Police force in the 1920s.
Published in 1934 -- it was his first novel -- Orwell draws on his own experience and what’s so striking, perhaps, is how the uncomfortable echoes of that time still reverberate today among some expatriate circles in the region. While race and economic power are the obvious themes, the backdrop is a beautiful but ravaged Burma. A vaguely Austen feel permeates the romantic sub-plot; the ending is devastating.
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