Homage to Catalonia

Page 127 the author states that while watching a “fat Russian” it was the first time that he had seen “ ...a person whose profession was telling lies - unless one counts Journalists” I wonder what the sublimely brilliant writer of this observation, George Orwell, would think if he was seeing the accusations of fake news (lies) that is routinely hurled around today. He himself warns against his own bias while writing about his time in Spain. Trust nothing is the mantra. Indeed.

I first read Orwell in my late teens. I have thought back hard in recent days and I think it was my parents that gave me, for what I think must have been my 17th or 18th birthday, a compendium of books that contained, Animal Farm, Burmese Days, A Clergyman's Daughter, Coming Up for Air, Keep the Aspidistra Flying and Nineteen Eighty-Four. I read Nineteen Eighty-Four first and was spellbound. Being very much a reader of Sci Fi in my youth this was something utterly different. It was beyond great and after several rereads over the years and a good few items as to Orwell's ideas behind it I have considered Nineteen Eighty-Four one of greatest piece of English language literature the world has ever seen. I read the other books in the compendium and found Animal Farm to be in the classic mold as well.

So where does Homage to Catalonia fit? In my opinion this is an exceptionally important book for those that have been admirers of Orwell's and look to understand why he wrote both Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. In Spain there was betrayal of the ideals that he held dear by those he thought he could trust. It is not a matter if I or anyone else agreed or disagreed with his political beliefs; he had his ideals but watched them literally gunned down. The narrative of his time in Spain shows an almost naive outlook as he went to the front feeling a part of a working class fight against fascism to a return to Barcelona to discover all he thought exemplar smashed by his own side of the political spectrum. Strangely through all this he could still write about humans being generally decent. Should all that Orwell wrote of those days in Spain be lessons for us all in not trusting those whose profession is telling lies? I think so. Read this book and read the genesis of ideas for the sublime Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Judge a book by its cover? Not generally but image of a bidding of farewell to the International Brigades near Barcelona 1938 by Robert Capa is certainly one of the most striking and apt I have seen.

In passing I would like to thank my great friend Gordon Wilson for his gift of this book on my 60th birthday. As I write may his Welsh team do themselves proud at the world cup and may we have a great time at the sevens.