Homage to Catalonia

[Delta]

Just finished it and enjoyed it immensely. I was very impressed in Orwell's understanding of the nature of capitalism, mass media, and the church. I didn't expect that from a writer who is so popular.

[Vargha Poralli]

Orwell was a great writer. His works often will put you through his mind. Even though he had been a socialist he became greatly disillusioned in his later life with almost everything. His disillusionment is the outcome of 1984 and Animal Farm IMO.

[shadowed by the secret police]

Orwell was for a true worker state. He said the Soviet Union was not socialistic! Homage For Catalonia is a wonderful book. Whoever does not read it is a fool. Read also Orwell's Preface to Animal Farm.

[The Grey Blur]

I got my cappie friend this for Christmas, hopefully it will show him the errors of his ways. :)

[Ander]

I've been meaning to read this book for awhile but was unable to find it last time I was in a bookstore carrying literature written in English.

[Pawn Power]

Originally posted by Permanent [email protected] 05, 2007 03:10 pm
I got my cappie friend this for Christmas, hopefully it will show him the errors of his ways. :)
Probably not

[YSR]

To be perfectly honest, it was the book that made me stop being a democratic socialist and start looking at anarchism.

'Course, I wasn't really a "cappie," just more of a shitty socialist. But it's the general idea. That passage where Orwell describes walking into a town in Catalonia (maybe it's Barcelona, or just some little town? I don't remember) is truly fantastic writing and inspiring.

[The Grey Blur]

Originally posted by Pawn Power+January 06, 2007 05:11 am--> (Pawn Power @ January 06, 2007 05:11 am)
Permanent [email protected] 05, 2007 03:10 pm
I got my cappie friend this for Christmas, hopefully it will show him the errors of his ways. :)
Probably not [/b]
Why?

I thought it was a really inspiring book at times, when Orwell describes the collectevised villages, the workers militias etc

[RebelDog]

Fantastic book, I recomend it to all.


That passage where Orwell describes walking into a town in Catalonia (maybe it's Barcelona, or just some little town? I don't remember) is truly fantastic writing and inspiring.

Yes I think you mean at the start when he arrives in Barcelona (the revolutionary city) and he talks about all the red/black flags, the revolutionary spirit and the truely equal society. It makes one want to weep when things go wrong at the end.

Up the POUM and the CNT!

[shadowed by the secret police]

Yes that passage you describe is very early on in the book (about 2 pages into it).


I had come to Spain with some notion of writing newspaper
articles, but I had joined the militia almost immediately, because at that time
and in that atmosphere it seemed the only conceivable thing to do. The
Anarchists were still in virtual control of Catalonia and the revolution was
still in full swing. To anyone who had been there since the beginning it
probably seemed even in December or January that the revolutionary period was
ending; but when one came straight from England the aspect of Barcelona was
something startling and overwhelming. It was the first time that I had ever been
in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building
of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with
the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the
hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties; almost
every church had been gutted and its images burnt. Churches here and there were
being systematically demolished by gangs of workmen. Every shop and cafe had an
inscription saying that it had been collectivized; even the bootblacks had been
collectivized and their boxes painted red and black. Waiters and shop-walkers
looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial
forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said 'Senior' or 'Don' or
even 'Usted'; everyone called everyone else 'Comrade' and 'Thou', and said
'Salud!' instead of 'Buenos dias'. Tipping was forbidden by law; almost my first
experience was receiving a lecture from a hotel manager for trying to tip a
lift-boy. There were no private motor-cars, they had all been commandeered, and
all the trams and taxis and much of the other transport were painted red and
black. The revolutionary posters were everywhere, flaming from the walls in
clean reds and blues that made the few remaining advertisements look like daubs
of mud. Down the Ramblas, the wide central artery of the town where crowds of
people streamed constantly to and fro, the loudspeakers were bellowing
revolutionary songs all day and far into the night. And it was the aspect of the
crowds that was the queerest thing of all. In outward appearance it was a town
in which the wealthy classes had practically ceased to exist. Except for a small
number of women and foreigners there were no 'well-dressed' people at all.
Practically everyone wore rough working-class clothes, or blue overalls, or some
variant of the militia uniform. All this was queer and moving. There was much in
it that I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I
recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for. Also I
believed that things were as they appeared, that this was really a workers'
State and that the entire bourgeoisie had either fled, been killed, or
voluntarily come over to the workers' side; I did not realize that great numbers
of well-to-do bourgeois were simply lying low and disguising themselves as
proletarians for the time being.

http://www.george-orwell.org/Homage_to_Catalonia/index.html

[Global_Justice]

why was tipping banned?

[YSR]

Originally posted by Orwell
There was much in
it that I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I
recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for.

Bingo, that's the best part.

[Angry Young Man]

It's strange because my dad got the complete works of Orwell for xmas, so I naturally tried to pike the copy, unsuccessfully. I'll get a copy at the library.
Has anyone read "Road to Wigan Pier"? That'd shut up the conformist fascists who use Orwell to their own ends! ^_^