George Orwell, “Burmese Days”
I don’t think I’ve ever waved back and forth on a book so much – loving parts of it, hating others, and being totally indifferent with still other pieces. This was a really weird read for me, and I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that at least four people who saw me reading this had never heard of this book.
I’m really having a hard time thinking of anything to say about it, because I can’t think of how to put my thoughts into words — every statement I think of is thrown into a direct opposite reaction.
For instance, I could say that one of the things I disliked was that every, and I mean EVERY character was totally unlikable. You have the main character (who is obviously fashioned after Orwell himself) who is so indecisive and namby-pamby that you want to smack him. He has a gold-digging, mean spirited girlfriend who is so full of venom that you not only want to smack her, but you want to smack Orwell’s character for being with her. Then there’s the pompous proper lady who is trying to set up her equally pompous and proper niece who you want to smack just on general principle. And I’m going to stop talking about the characters, as I’m sounding like Henry Rollins.
But so what? Who says the characters need to be “likable?” Are the characters in Goodfellas likeable? Or the characters in any Jim Thompson novel? How about that book on Nixon that I just finished? So I suppose it’s not so much that the characters in this novel are unlikable, but that they’re so damn irritating.
And the irritating scenes go on and on until I’m just totally sick of them, hence why this book took so long in finishing. Still, every time when I was almost at my wits’ end, something would happen to bring the book back to an interesting level and I would relax just long enough for the characters to turn caustic again.
Finally, the intertwined characters came to a head, and the book finally became interesting, and what’s more, it even became good. But I couldn’t stop thinking that having to wade through 181 pages for the story to get anywhere was not the sign of a great novel.
I also heard a rumor, as yet unconfirmed. If it turns out to be true, then we have a whole new category of how to rate books, so hopefully somebody can let me know. What I heard is that Barnes and Noble have a standing policy not to interfere with anybody shoplifting at one of their stores.
And so, if this is true, I would say the rating for this book is that it is worth stealing from Barnes and Noble.
