Coming Up For Air...A Breath of Fresh (62-year-old) Air
Written: Jul 13 '01
Product Rating:
Pros: Excellent writing by a brilliant author and thinker.
Cons: Absolutely none.
The Bottom Line: Not as famous as other Orwell books, an exquisitely written novel about alienation and ennui, presaging both his later work and that of the post-war existentialists.
martineden's Full Review: George Orwell - Coming Up For Air
I have definitely been reading too much popular fiction lately. So much so that when I stumbled across George Orwell’s lesser-known pre-war tale, “Coming Up for Air,” I was pleasantly shocked at the quality of the writing. “This,” I said to myself, “is why I like to read.”
Orwell is, of course, best known as the author of “1984” and “Animal Farm,“ two classics inevitably relegated to the slag heap of pre-p u b e s c e n t required reading. While both these works are more than worthwhile returning to at a more mature age, if they have formed your total impression of George Orwell, then you don’t know Jack...or in this case, George...or in reality, Eric Arthur Blair, as his parents called him at his birth in 1903.
His little-known books never cease to surprise and delight me. I had a similar revelation as a youngster when I pulled “Burmese Days” off the shelf, largely because I liked the color of the cover. This account of life in a British colony was fascinating, and no doubt drawn largely from his own memories of his early years in India and Burma.
First published in 1939, “Coming Up for Air” presages both his more famous 1949 novel “1984,” and the ultra-self-absorbed introspection of the post-war existentialists.
We first meet George (Tubby) Bowling, the novel’s erstwhile protagonist, shaving in the bathroom of his tract house in Ellesmere Road, where every home has the “same back garden, same privets, and same grass...”
Bowling, a "fat, middle-aged bloke with false teeth and a red face," sells insurance, and must cope with a world that has become increasingly meaningless. The very act of shaving has been achieved only by outsmarting his two children for the morning bathroom rights.
Like the later existentialists, Bowling is alienated from his children, his wife, and ultimately himself. His separation gives him a kind of omniscient clear-sightedness with which he views the strange world with a clarity blessedly denied his fellows. His alienation is partly the result of having fought in the first World War, and partly due to the absurd blandness of his present condition. He is the personification of Thoureau’s everyman, living a life of “quiet desperation.”
Bowling’s razor-sharp observations extend to his memories as well. Though he fondly reminisces about life as it was when he was a boy, his memory is devoid of nostalgia or sentiment, and when he finally decides to return to his hometown, he is neither shocked nor surprised by the changes that have occurred.
While Bowling revisits his past, the world is once more preparing for war. As usual, Bowling’s sharp eye sees through the propaganda of both sides, and at a speech by a famous “anti-fascist,” he ponders not the speech, but what it means to be a person identified as a famous anti-fascist. He closes his eyes and listens to the man’s voice, producing a real-world image that eerily foreshadows Big Brother’s hate sessions of “1984.”
“It was a voice that sounded as if it could go on for a fortnight without stopping. It’s a ghastly thing, really, to have a sort of human barrel-organ shooting propaganda at you by the hour. The same thing over and over again. Hate, hate, hate. Let’s all get together and have a good hate. Over and over. It gives you the feeling that something has got inside your skull and is hammering down on your brain. But for a moment, with my eyes shut, I managed to turn the tables on him. I got inside his skull. It was a peculiar sensation. For about a second I was inside him, you might almost say I was him....”
“I saw the vision that he was seeing...What he’s saying is merely that Hitler’s after us and we must all get together and have a good hate. Doesn’t go into details. Leaves it all respectable. But what he’s seeing is something quite different. It’s a picture of himself smashing people’s faces in with a spanner. Fascist faces, of course. I know that’s what he was seeing. It was what I saw myself for the second or two that I was inside him.”
This book is a must read, not just for Orwell fans, but anyone who loves good literature and excellent writing style. Combining the political flavor of his later, more famous, work, with the insightful, and detailed descriptions of his non-political writing, “Coming Up for Air” is a breath of fresh air, even if it is 60-odd years old.
Orwell - was born on June 25,1903, at Motihari, Bengal. He attended Eton, and from 1922 to 1927 served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma. After two years in Paris he returned to England, where he worked as a private tutor, schoolteacher, and bookshop assistant.
He was wounded fighting for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, and served in the Home Guard during the Second World War.
Orwell was producer for the Indian Service of the BBC, a reporter for the “Tribune,” and a special correspondent for the “Observer.” He died in London in January 1950.
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