Burmese Days
Burmese Days is set in 1920s imperial Burma, in the fictional district of Kyauktada. The story involves U Po Kyin, a corrupt Burmese magistrate, who works to destroy the reputation of the Indian Dr. Veraswami, so he (Kyin) can be admitted to the European Club instead of the more likely Dr. Veraswami. The Doctor's main protection is his friendship with John Flory who, as a pukka sahib (European white man), has higher prestige. U Po Kyin, however, succeeds and is admitted to the club. Racism and classism undergird the actions of the major characters. Kyin plans to redeem his life and cleanse his sins by financing pagodas. He dies of apoplexy before he can even start on building the first pagoda and his wife envisages him returning to life as a frog or rat. --modified slightly from www.wikipedia.com.
Stats for nerds
8recommend
27mentions
23people
2011–2026years
30% recommend67% neutral4% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Too bad those experience-seekers never read Burmese Days:
"Beauty unshared is diminished"
"Experiences" evaporate without being able to revive them with someone who experienced them with you. In my experience, at least
- What a great interview, with an unusual perspective … the son mainly knows Orwell secondhand, but understands him in a way that no scholar or fan or friend or journalist ever could.
I happen to be re-reading Burmese Days at the moment, which I think is his best after 1984. The movie 1984 with John Hurt is also very powerful - I watched it with my teenager a few years ago and he was transfixed.
- Burmese Days is my favorite Orwell. It captures the state of the colonies under British rule extremely well - the British new-arrivals who are derisive and at best ignorant of the local customs, the British who've grown up in the colony and are more sympathetic but stuck in a world where they'll never truly belong, the extremely corrupt rich locals, the poor mob who are easily misled, the endemic corruption in everything...
This novel could have been set in post-independence India and a lot of the themes would have rung true.
- > I happen to be re-reading Burmese Days at the moment, which I think is his best after 1984.
Better than Homage to Catalonia?!
- 1984 and Animal Farm aren't important for their historical allegories but their statements about the nature of society, and are just as poignant when applied to today's society as they were about the Soviet Union.
Homage To Catalonia is a wonderful book. I would also highly recommend checking out Down and Out in Paris and London and Burmese Days (two works of fiction loosely based on events from his real life experiences).
- The one that hit me like a thunderbolt was "Burmese Days". I need to reread "Catalonia" though.
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