Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell: Book Cover

    Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, Lionel Trilling (Introduction)

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    Synopsis

    In 1936 Orwell went to Spain to report on the Civil War and instead joined the fight against the Fascists. This famous account describes the war and Orwell’s experiences. Introduction by Lionel Trilling.

    Annotation

    A first hand account of the Spanish Civil War. Introduction by Lionel Trilling.

    Customer Reviews

    good bookby Anonymous

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    April 09, 2007: I liked this book. It was a good book. It had a lot of action and some exciting events in it. It was a book about the Spanish Civil War, so it was pretty good. War was kind of hard, a lot of people suffered. There were some shootings in this book. My favorite part in this book was when they threw bombs. It was awesome reading that. The book was great. I was really interested in reading it.

    For Orwell Fans or Students of the Spanish Civil Warby Anonymous

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    September 12, 2005: It's not a wonderfully written book, but it is very honest, compelling, and interesting. In the book, he talks about his experiences volunteering for the Spanish militia during the war against the fascist Franco from 1936 to 1937. He initially arrived as a journalist, but could not help but get involved and enlisted with the closest militia. This happened to be a socialist group that was outlawed several years later. His membership almost landed him in jail and shot like many of his friends. Of course, had he been imprisoned and shot in jail, we would never have seen 1984 or Animal Farm, which are arguably Orwell's most important works. The non-chalant style of this book is one of its most surprising features. It is almost completely opposite that of All Quiet on the Western Front or A Farewell to Arms. Imagine a 250 page first-person livejournal entry about someone's experiences over the past year. This will give you a vague idea of how Homage to Catalonia is written. About half the book made the ennui of war almost unbearable. Unlike those other two books I mentioned, it is strikingly un-romantic. Another interesting quality of this account is that the politics are never crystal clear. Orwell does not dumb down the complex interplay of political parties and motivations as many books and movies about war tend to do. In some places, it was difficult to follow some of the politics, but I think this is because Orwell himself did not have a complete grasp of them. Of course, anyone who purported to have a complete understanding during the war or in several years following the war of the politics was lying. It's absolutely obvious that his experiences in Spain shaped the rest of his life and the rest of his writing. I don't recommend this book unless you have an interest in the Spanish Civil War, Orwell himself, or political ideas such as Communism, Socialism, Marxism, and Anarchy.


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