Burmese Days (1934)

A not too subtle criticism of empire, ex-pats, loneliness, power and prestige, political maneuvering and human need. Set in post-WWI Burma, James Flory has felt trapped in this tropical hell-hole for the past 15 years. He's lonely and over the years has taken on a variety of "bachelor" vices: drinking, whoring and sloth. Yet, he would willingly give up this lifestyle for an opportunity to marry a woman (Elizabeth) with whom he could share his experiences living abroad and what these experiences have taught him and taken from him.

Considered a "Bolshie" by his fellow British, compatriots, Flory avoids conflict by betraying his friend, an Indian doctor named Veraswami, but a series of events provide him an opportunity and the impetus to make amends by supporting his friend's endeavor to become the first non-white, European club member. A local constable has it out for Veraswami, and when fate conspires to save the good doctor from his machinations, the official targets Flory with scandal.

Throughout the novel, Orwell clearly speaks to the reader in disparaging terms about the "real" nature of Empire abroad--both the rulers and the ruled become "less than"--the former made mad from undeserved power and privilege, the later relegated to a servile class, secondary citizens in their homeland. The British ex-pats, most of whom regard the Burmans as animals, live seemingly only to drink themselves into a stupor and complain about their situations. They are brutish and uncivilized--their affectations of civilized behavior fall short with each derogatory statement, each drunken pratfall, every violent gesture toward the Burmese and their Indian sepoys and laborers.

I appreciate the various levels in which one can consider this novel. On one hand it is a rather vicious critique of the British Empire. On another it explores the psychological effects of loneliness, prolonged and entrenched loneliness on the human psyche. Flory is not the only lonely British soul in the novel. In fact, all of the Europeans, are in their own way, lonely. The only characters with healthy families are the Burmans. The one married couple is steeped in dysfunction. Flory maintains a superimposed fantasy upon the "girl" who he would take for a wife, which finally comes crashing down when scandal erupts expectantly.

Orwell's women are controlling, sly, or vapid. They appear to rely on the men mostly for their own sense of power, to appeal to them for sex, money or other favors. Yet, I sensed something hidden beneath the apparently sexist layers--a depiction of the feminine as might have been learned by the British had they taken the care to learn: women, as symbolized by the Hindu goddess Kali, can create or destroy, and that power, unlike the political or economic abilities of the mass of men, is eternal. Flory becomes the "every man" who is repeatedly born of a woman only to be destroyed by a woman. Of course, he sets himself up for his own eventual demise because he fails to acknowledge the very kind of women his society has created and perpetuated. In this way, Flory and his fellow ex-pats embody the British Empire, and how they treat women and the locals, is how empires treat the lands they "conquer". I doubt this analogy was lost on Orwell (Empire=male; colony=female).

I'm looking forward to reading Emma Larkin's travelogue on Orwell in her more recent journey through Burma. ( )

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.

The book is essentially all about a load of dislikable, vapid people who belong to an extremely boring club where nothing happens except occasional arguments and a lot of drinking and the people who want to be members but can't be. Now why would anyone want to be a member of a club like that? Because it is a colonial society where the whites run everything and the native people, no matter what their status in the local community, have no overt power and can't even get into a club full of stupid men.

The club is told they have to elect one local member. Two men try and get in. One in an honest way via the main character of the story, a not very likeable but brilliantly drawn man, Flory, who isn't prejudiced and is his friend, but is unfortunately weak and so won't support him against the club members he so thoroughly dislikes but identifies with. The other is prepared to see many lives be ruined and people die in order to put himself in such a position with whites that he becomes the only possible candidate. Then there is the love interest, another vapid, dislikeable character who can't attract anyone back home so she's been sent husband-shopping into a place where any single white woman is a rare orchid. Even her.

I read the book very tongue in cheek because I also live in a colonial society (but I am either beyond the pale or have the right credentials depending on what side you are on, as I married into a local, black family. A top political family at that). The thing for locals to get into here was the yacht club and the local rescue association, neither of which would admit locals unless they were top politicians or lawyers and therefore useful or at least, best not to offend.

A while back, one of the islands, a private island resort, the sort you can helicopter into, wouldn't let blacks in as guests. The only ones there were the workers, none in managerial or even supervisory positions. A government minister sailed his very impressive 60' yacht there, anchored and dinghied to the beach. The beach staff (black, of course, but from poorer islands, so they didn't recognise him) wouldn't let him stay, told him it was against management policy, didn't believe he owned the yacht and threw him off.

The following week the island was sold to a company with quite different policies. Result! Now we can all sail up for Sunday lunch, or a very pleasant, if expensive, evening, hanging out with the millionaires and pretending to be one. Everyone is welcome.

And that is what happened eventually to the clubs in India too. They are all run by posh locals now who apply their own insular rules for membership. And we have the girls who come husband-shopping too. Admin staff and secretaries they are looking for the white guys far from home who don't mix with local women (the majority) and there they are the rare orchids with a two year plan contract in which to snag their man. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose*.

*The more things change, the more they stay the same

( )

Wry and a bit overblown with thickly-strewn symbolism. A lot of the action related to the mores and manners of British colonial culture looks silly from the current perspective, and is already faintly ridiculous to Orwell. It is interesting and useful to see that keeping and saving face matters as much to the British as to the Burmese.

Flory's penultimate action is histrionic and does not ring true. It seems to be driven more by the plot than by Flory's previously-described actions and character. ( )

Orwell draws on his years of experience in India to tell this story of the waning days of British imperialism. A handful of Englishmen living in a settlement in Burma congregate in the European Club, drink whiskey, and argue over an impending order to admit a token Asian. In this novel, Orwell comments on corruption and bigotry in society. He employs a slightly satirical tone to tell a fast-paced, gripping story.

I read this book after reading [Finding George Orwell in Burma]. I was curious about it, and if you want the ending to be a surprise, you should really read [Burmese Days] before reading Emma Larkin's memoir about retracing Orwell's life in Burma while he was stationed there. [Burmese Days] was Orwell's first novel, and you can tell that he wrote it after being witness to the effects of colonialism first hand. If it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, its because it's supposed to. Imperialism and colonialism aren't pretty and neither are the characters in this book, many of whom it is impossible to like. That it was Orwell's first novel shows, I think, but still, it is compelling and in the writing we see brief moments of what Orwell will achieve in later works.

"The real work of administration is done mainly by native subordinates; and the real backbone of the despotism is not the officials but the Army....It is a stifling, stultifying world in which to live. It is a world in which every word and every thought is censored. In England it is hard even to imagine such an atmosphere. Everyone is free in England; we sell our souls in public and buy them back in private, among our friends. But even friendship can hardly exist when every white man is a cog in the wheels of despotism. Free speech is unthinkable. All other kinds of freedom are permitted. You are free to be a drunkard, an idler, a coward, a backbiter, a fornicator; but you are not free to think for yourself." ( )