Coming Up For Air

[The Atheist]

Orwell's whimsy, I guess this book is seen as.

A rare piece, rarely read and never given up as discussion in English classes, which is a pity.

The messages it contains are far more subtle than either Animal Farm or 1984, but many of them are the same.

Coming up for Air stands as a marvellous testament to the class Orwell never belonged to - the middle. Orwell's life was around the fringes of society and I'd be surprised if he ever really got to know a George Bowling in his own life, yet we know from familiar experience that George is as real as any of Dickens' characters. (I always wonder whether Orwell naming his main character after himself was a bit of a cry for never having experienced the life of a nine-to-fiver in the suburbs himself.)

George Bowling is a happy-go-lucky life insurance salesman with a nice semi-detached in the suburbs; wife, two kids and a steady job at the Flying Salamander insurance company. George, who on his better days, can pass for a stockbroker or bookie, is having a typical lost-youth mid-life crisis. Instead of looking to recapture his youth with fast cars and women, George seeks the solace of catching fish - a dream he's harboured since childhood.

Alas, the world has well and truly turned in the intervening years and his search is meaningless in the face of "progress". "Progress" being more industry, more houses, more roads, and of course, more loony-bins.

George's reflections on his youth, his army days and suburban life are a glimpse of a long-past, more innocent, England, when ten quid could buy a weekend away in comparative luxury.

If you manage to find a copy, sit down and give yourself a treat!

[ennison]

'Never belonged to'??? Orwell was born into the middle class and apart from a short sojourn with the proletariat and lumpenproletriat he remained middle class all his life.

[The Atheist]

No, Orwell was from a completely different type of family. He never had any involvement in the Nine-to-five set. There are more divisions within the middle classes, Horatio...

Probably should have made that clearer.

[ennison]

'The nine to five set' is a peculiar definition of class. Orwell was in the Burmese Police - that's a career structure occupation and is therefore middle class. He worked for the BBC. That's the epitome of middle class. He made his living as an author. That's middle class. He was frequently a member of television and radio panels discussing the 'political/cultural problems of the day. It's the middle class that indulge in that.
Of course he examined the working class with a sympathetic eye.
Deciding that he is middle class is no criticism. There's a quaint inverted snobbery that involves people decrying the middle classes when they themselves are clearly in that class. By the way it's not the parents class that matters. Today in the UK and most of the Western World the middle class have grown in number. It may appear that this creates a great deal of pressure on those below who have to do most of the 'work'. Frequently what it means is that the bargaining power of the proletariat has gone up. The response of the employing class is to seek cheap labour outwith national boundaries - with varying degrees of success.

[Logos]

There is a great bio on the site From Orwell's semi-autobiographical The Road to Wigan Pier (1993), a quote that he applied to himself is that he was born into the “lower-upper middle class”.

Indeed he was born into England's middle class, tried to follow in his father's footsteps etc. but he became quite disgusted with it all and English Imperialism, so, after resigning from the civil service he *chose* a shiftless life (see Down and Out in Paris) in order to get inspiration to write. You can read more in his essay "Why I Write".

[ennison]

Think I read that essay many moons ago Logos but it'll bear rereading. I'm just about to go out. The sun is splitting the stones here and I foresee a day of intense physical effort ahead. All around is yellow, pale green and thousands of bird calls. Quite the idyll.

[The Atheist]

Probably the class issue is my fault for not clearly delineating what I meant.

I'm well aware of Orwell's own history and the "lower-upper middle class" is mentioned in several places.

I'm referring to George Bowling's type [rather than class]. A type Orwell would have had minimal contact with. Comprehensive schooled people working for insurance companies, banks and middle-management.

Certainly he would have rubbed shoulders with the odd one at newspapers and Aunty Beeb, but his contact would have been tiny.

(See what happens when colonials use the word "class" as a simile for "type" when talking about English matters? Mea cupla)

[emitless]

I'm reading this book right now and I've found some of its ideas very interesting.

Orwell gives us a nice description how life of his family changed in those years before and in war, and how people changed. He writes about illusions that people had about the war and how those illusions changed during the war. I like that he wrote that if war hadn't killed you, at least it had made you think. And that u started to doubt about different things.

I'm looking forward to reading the other half of this book.

[Lumiere]

I read this book over the summer and was quite surprised that I had never heard of it before. In my opinion, it is highly underrated. It was simply a joy to read. It was hilarious, yet profound, and deeply nostalgic. I tend to be easily exasperated with war-themed novels in general, but this remains one of my favorite books.

Highly recommended!

[The Atheist]

Hey, two of you commenting on it on the same day - that hass to be a record!
And yes, it's a great book, worthy of a lot more attention than it gets.

Emitless, you will certainly enjoy the secong half as much as the first.

[emitless]

I did and I agree it's very good book. Too bad it's in the shadow of his two major novels. I think we didn't even mention this book at school.


Edit: What do you think about his ideas about marriage?