Burmese Days: A Novel by George
Orwell
Rudyard Kipling, Eat Your Heart Out
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 Orwells
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
Elliss 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 doesnt 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 Florys 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 hes 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
Personal Review: Burmese Days: A Novel by George Orwell
Port Out, Starboard Home----memsahibs---a chakker of polo---chhota
peg---solar topi---the veranda of the bungalow---natives---Gunga Din---
these are all faded images, pictures from an old magazine found in an
attic, words from books found in dusty secondhand bookstores. Still,
within one lifetime ago they formed the picture of India and the East that
people often had. Colonialism or Imperialism of the old kind didn't really
die till the 1960s. Even so, most people born in the last half century grew
up with Cold War images, talk about "underdevelopment", and "the Third
World". The relations between "sahibs" and "natives" grew far from
anyone's mind. Today, new topics exist. BURMESE DAYS is one of the
best novels ever to emerge from that now-disappeared time. George
Orwell, better known for "1984" and "Animal Farm", once served for five
years in the British police in Burma, so he was able to portray colonial
society much as it was, to set his novel in an authentically tropical
Southeast Asian setting. Vividly colorful description, added to a very well-
developed plot, make this a great novel, set in a small upper Burma town
called Kyauktada in the 1920s. Burmese and Indian characters appear,
but Orwell wisely chose to make the main characters British, a small group
of mostly arrogant, racist men isolated for years on end, far from home,
behaving with piggish closed-mindedness, refusing to learn anything about
their surroundings, intent on segregation to the point of utter idiocy. Into
this setting arrives Elizabeth, impoverished, poorly-educated and with
snobbish pretensions. Flory, the only Englishman who takes any interest
in Burma (even has a Burmese mistress), is attracted to the newcomer,

perhaps seeing her as the only way out, or as the one person likely to
understand what he felt about his fifteen years of loneliness. She is
horrified by everything. The novel is a pessimistic tale of his dashed
hopes, of nefarious plots, and even a revolt of sorts.
As a person who has spent five years in India and lived with Indians for the
last 45 years, I have always disliked Kipling because his Indian characters
(but not his British ones) are of extremely thin cardboard, though he
claimed to "know Indians" and millions of people believed he did. Orwell
was more perceptive, and in my opinion, a much better writer. His
depiction of colonial relationships, the arrogance that came with too much
power, and the internal sickness of colonialism ring very true. So, not only
is this a great novel, it is an antidote to Kipling's oh-so-imperialist attitudes.
Read it.
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