Burmese Days
George Orwell
Burmese Days
Orwell's first novel (1934), drawn from his five years as a police officer in Burma. John Flory, a timber merchant who has come to loathe the Raj and its European Club, is caught between a scheming local magistrate and his hopes of marrying a newly arrived Englishwoman.
About the book
Published in 1934, Burmese Days is George Orwell's first novel, drawn from his five years as a police officer in British Burma. In the small town of Kyauktada, the timber merchant John Flory despises the racism of the European Club but lacks the courage to say so, while a corrupt local magistrate schemes to damage Flory's friend, the Indian doctor Veraswami. The arrival of a young Englishwoman, Elizabeth Lackersteen, seems to offer Flory a way out of his loneliness. Orwell depicts colonial life without romance: the heat, the drink, the petty snobberies of the club and the corruption on both sides of the imperial divide. The novel is an early statement of his conviction that empire degrades the rulers as well as the ruled.
Characters
John Flory — Timber merchant
A lonely Englishman in Burma, marked by a birthmark on his face, who despises the club but cannot defy it.
Elizabeth Lackersteen — Newcomer
A young Englishwoman just arrived from Paris, who wants a comfortable and conventional life.
U Po Kyin — Magistrate
A corrupt and patient Burmese official who plots his way towards membership of the European Club.
Dr Veraswami — Flory’s friend
An Indian doctor who admires the British Empire and hopes to be elected to the club.
Ma Hla May — Flory’s mistress
The young Burmese woman who lives in Flory’s house and depends on him.
Ellis — Club member
A timber company manager whose hatred of the Burmese sets the tone of the club.
Mr and Mrs Lackersteen — Elizabeth’s uncle and aunt
Elizabeth’s relatives in Kyauktada: he drinks, and she wants her niece married.
Lieutenant Verrall — Military police officer
An aristocratic young officer who arrives in town and looks down on everyone in it.
About the author
George Orwell (1903–1950) was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, an English novelist and essayist who turned plain, exact prose into a political act. Born in India and schooled at Eton, he served five years in the imperial police in Burma, then lived among the poor of Paris and London, and was shot through the throat fighting Franco's forces in Spain — and each of those became a book. He wanted prose to be "like a window pane", and distrusted any language built to hide what it meant. Animal Farm made him famous; Nineteen Eighty-Four, finished on a Scottish island while tuberculosis was killing him, gave the world Big Brother and doublethink. His work also includes Burmese Days, The Road to Wigan Pier and Homage to Catalonia.