The Road to Wigan Pier by George
Orwell
The Road To Wigan Pier
Although George Orwell grew up in the relative comfort of the English
middle class, his socialist convictions and general sense of fairness led
him to hate his countrys deeply ingrained class structure. That perspective
permeates this book, but the most striking elements are the quotidian
details of life that Orwell observes in his first-person account of the lives of
coal miners and others in the poor north of England. Wigan Pier is almost
too realistic at times, as Orwell brings his unparalleled powers of
observation to portray the wretched conditions of the working class. That
Orwell may have slanted his reporting to make things look worse than
they were is a question that does not lessen the books interest.
Personal Review: The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell
Contrary to my expectations, this is Orwell's most personal book. He bares
his soul to us. At least I think he seriously tries to be perfectly honest, if not
complete.

After his success with Down and Out in Paris and London, Orwell got
commissioned by the influential Left Book Club (Victor Gollancz one of the
editors)to write a book about unemployment in the industrial and
empoverished northern part of England. This was the mid 30s, the recent
depression had led to high unemployment and endless misery in England
as elsewhere.
GO went there and dug in and lived with workers and in boarding houses
and crawled through mines (though he was about twice as tall as a miner
should be) and talked to people and read statistics and reports.
The outcome is an oddity. Part 1 is a solid piece of investigative reporting
and journalistic sociology. Chapter 1 is along the lines of Down and Out,
an account of life in a boarding house in the North. Start with chapter 2 if
you are squeamish. The hygienic conditions are worse than anything in
Down and Out.
The following chapters in part 1 give us decsriptions of the life of miners
and work in the coal mines, of the miners' leisure time, health, work safety,
accidents, the housing conditions in the fearful northern slums (worse than
the slums in India and Burma, says GO, because of the cold dampness),
of unemployment and malnutrition, of food and fuel, of the uglyness of
industrial countries at the time. The strongest chapter in this part, in my
opinion, is the one on unemployment and its psychology. This subject is
timeless. Even if the slums have changed, the essential condition of
unemployment is surely unchanged.
So far so good and in line with the job description.
But then the man went and added a second part which deals in first place
with himself, an autobiography and history of the thought of GO. Having
grown up as a son of shabby genteels, he was raised on contempt for the
working class. Public school education enforced the attitude. After school
and after WW1, GO took a job in the imperial police in Burma and there
learned to hate the system. He quit after 5 years and went into a personal
crisis, a kind of horror vacui and hatred against his self. He goes on search
of redemption as told with some embellishment in Down and Out. He tries
to anihilate his social persona, but learns it does not work that way. The
North England job gives him a chance to reconsider his position. He
philosophizes about socialism and the classes. Interesting to us (at least to
me), but shocking to the Left Book Club.
They decide to publish it anyway, but Gollancz adds a foreword where he
thinks he needs to warn his club members that here is somebody who
does not walk the line of good doctrinarism. Very odd.
By the way, did you know that quite likely fish and chips and the football
pools have averted revolution in England by providing 'panem and
circenses'? Says Orwell, and I love him for that kind of insight.
(This concludes my Orwell cycle, unless I decide to re-visit Burma and
Catalonia.)
For More 5 Star Customer Reviews and Lowest Price:
The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell 5 Star Customer Reviews and Lowest Price!