The Road to Wigan Pier (Penguin Modern Classics)

The second half of the book is a long argument by Orwell of the negative aspects of socialism. He does this in order to provoke a serious discussion over how socialism can be implemented in our society. He understood well, as demonstrated in 1984, that many political parties use propaganda as a means of convincing the public that theirs is the right way. But, by taking the opposing view and criticising his own beliefs, he is able to bring the issues of the party into an open forum to consider implementations of change rather than party rhetoric. He does this most sincerely and in no way tries to hide the faults of the socialist political system of thought. In doing so he proves himself to be quite dignified in his system of beliefs. The juxtaposition of these two sections provides a striking idea of the immediate need for political reformation. He did not need to defend socialism because the need for a political change that could effect the lives of the lower class he investigated was obvious. This showed that Orwell's political ideas didn't exist on some ideological utopian plain, but were firmly rooted in the immense danger a political system could inflict upon a large population. It would be wise to remember this in reading the more popular 1984 and Animal Farm as well.

This book is compelling not just for people interested in politics, but also for anyone interested in history and the human condition. It is something you will be able to learn much from and provide you with inspiration.


unflinching look at social conditions and Orwells politics   July 2, 2002
 42 out of 44 found this review helpful

George Orwell, commissioned by the Left Book Club, tours the recession hit mining areas of Lancashire and Yorkshire in 1936 and his report on the harsh social conditions he found there (the first part of this book) pulls no punches. No-one before or since has done reporterage like George Orwell and the vividness and directness of his prose with its underlying blazing committment to social justice strikes the reader, even at this remove of time. Orwell's descriptions, couched in his superb prose, will remain in your mind for ever and should be re-read by everyone as a reminder of just how harsh life was for many people, within living memory. Orwell is particularly good about the desperation, the struggle with respectability and the terrible psychological and social toll of unemployment and poverty.

The second part of the book charts Orwell's personal odyssey from public schoolboy and officer of the Indian Imperial Police in Burma to crusading Left-wing author and journalist. Along the way Orwell expounds his personal strategy for Socialism. Although dated, his insights are fascinating, describing as they do the origins of the class struggle ideas that infested and inflamed British politics right up to the 1990s. Orwell is bitingly caustic about many of his fellow Socialists, castigating the obsession with mechanical progress, the worship of Russia and the crank tendencies (still evident in the British Labour Party) - "...the dreary tribe of high-minded women...and the bearded fruit-juice drinkers that flock to the idea of 'progress' like bluebottles do to a dead cat". With incredible prescience Orwell identifies the factors that would eventually kill the traditional "Old" Labour Party - firstly - the dichotomy between the Labour voter in the street (who, by and large, wanted/wants a better standard of living from better working and living conditions), and the "orthodox" hierarchy and activists of the Labour Party (who, by and large, at least in theory wanted a complete change in society), secondly - the accretion on to socialist politics of a huge amount of crank ideas (Orwell's acerbic and caustic put-downs of crank thought forms some of the book's most memorable, and funniest, passages).

What Orwell cannot have forseen was that the second war, the moderate 1945 Labour government, the end of the British Empire, Baroness Thatcher and the rise of a knowledge, finance and service based economy would change the face of England permanently. But however dated the social and political conditions under which he wrote, George Orwell is always worth reading, always hard-hitting, always vivid and detailed, always committed and honest, often hilariously funny.

Read this book, read everything that George Orwell wrote.


Its Grim up North!   April 13, 2002
 16 out of 20 found this review helpful

Quite how Orwell can manage to make the price of groceries in pre-war England compulsive reading is a little puzzling, but this essay compiled on a protracted journey around this country's northern industrial towns is once again a shining example of Orwell's uncomplicated and conversational style. Though the reportage is characteristically charged with Orwell's socialist dogma, it should have appeal far beyond the socialist reader for its vivid renderings of these towns and their inhabitants. The passages describing the work and living conditions of these people are particularly enlightening and Orwell really colours the north of the past for those who - like Orwell at the time - rarely stray beyond the Watford Gap. The essay, while only really a record of the past, still manages somehow to be an eye-opener, and is tinted with that irresistible darkness, present in so much of Orwell's pre-war work of a world and a society teetering on the brink of a disastrous but necessary changing of the order.

Perhaps predictably, Orwell never arrives at the symbol of escape from the difficult lives of his characters, Wigan Pier.