Literary Picks

Author: Edward Pickering

In search of overlooked but deserving books, I have sometimes read the early or lesser-known works of famous authors. Robert Penn Warren's debut novel "Night Rider" was a recent treat. George Orwell's early novel, "Burmese Days," on the other hand, proved a great disappointment.

We are all admirers of Orwell, devotees of his prose and ideology. You'll be hard pressed to find a man or woman who doesn't profess admiration for Orwell and for his masterpieces, "Animal Farm" and "1984." It was with great expectation that I picked up "Burmese Days." I envisioned an exciting drama full of Orwellian insight and attack. However, in comparison to Orwell's more renowned writings, I found the novel crude and unconvincing. Though it has its moments, "Burmese Days" ultimately proves grotesque, depressing, at times even farcical.

The novel takes place in Kyauktada, a remote town on the banks of the Irrawaddy River in northern Burma. Here lives a population of four thousand Burmese, a handful of Chinese and Indians and seven Englishmen who commercially and administratively oversee the region. The protagonist, 35-year-old Flory, is a timber merchant. Flory has not left the country since his arrival 15 years earlier. The novel opens with Flory on the verge of self-realization: his youth has elapsed in drinking, whoring and lazing about, and now he is lonely, remorseful and unhappy. The plot concentrates on the intrigue and uproar caused by an executive memo sent to Kyauktada's European Club - it proposes that the club members elect a token native. This club, the last all-white club in Burma, is a bastion of bigotry, a refuge for drunken louts and pretentious fools united by nothing more than a common disregard for the native population. In reality, they all hate each other and hate their lives. Through these sorry figures Orwell exposes the vileness of imperialism. It is a disease affecting the imperialists and imperialized alike. Indeed, nobody- not a single European or native-escapes Orwell's excoriating pen.

Of his countrymen, Flory, alone, befriends the natives. His innate cowardice is put to the test when he promises to nominate his Indian friend, Dr. Veraswami, for club membership. At this moment, as he is steeling himself for the upcoming trial, Flory meets Elizabeth, the niece of a club member and an exceptionally beautiful specimen of English womanhood. Yet, as Flory soon learns, her contempt for the Burmese knows no limit.

In this novel the natives are dumb, avaricious and petty, the Europeans, loathsome. One can't even sympathize with Flory, whose status as an outsider is symbolically confirmed by the hideous birthmark on his cheek. As you read the novel you pray for the deaths of these Europeans, for a universal tide of comeuppance to sweep them away and cleanse the land.

The novel's chief fault lies in its infelicitous transitions. Many of the events are unconvincing and a number of the scenes lack a vital and necessary life of their own - they are flat and dull. The ending itself lets the reader down. Orwell's conclusion seems like a cop-out, so simple and foreseeable is it.