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Summary: Riveting
Review: In pithy prose Orwell seamlessly describes frontline warfare in oftentimes humorous detail. This is an excellant read.
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Summary: A Great Book
Review: I could not put down Orwell's gripping story of his involvement in the Spanish Civil War and the politics behind the Republican side. His tale is fascinating, and even the political discussions read as smoothly as his novels.
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Summary: Orwell tells of situation that gave him his basic focus.
Review: In 1936 Orwell fell in love with worker-Anarchist controlled Catalonia. Of course, he was on the Loyalist side. But he did not realize, at first, the nature and extent of the conflict within the Loyalist side. The reactionary press was saying the Loyalist's side was Communist. But the truth is that the Communists originally had very little influence at the beginning. The Communists were able to gain power because the Soviet Union was the only country supplying the Loyalists with arms. In addition to his experience as a memeber of the P.O.U.M (Workers Party of Marxist Unification) militia and his nearly fatal shot wound through his neck, Orwell recounts the small civil war--within the civil war--following the Communist action to take over the Anarchist-run telephone exchange in Barcelonia in May 1937. He and his wife escaped into France when the Communist-controlled police of Barcelonia outlawed the P.O.U.M. But, most important, are chapters five and eleven, where Orwell sorts out the politics on the Loyalist side.
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Summary: Well, this book is not a masterpiece, but worth of reading.
Review: You can see what was going on in Spain in 1937. But, this is not fair because Orwell did not like communists especially who were related to the USSR. You'll get to know this point if you read 'Animal farm'.
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Summary: The definitive account of the Spanish Civil War
Review: This amazing book demonstrates Orwell's remarkeable gift to understand the momentous events occuring in Spain as they were rapidly occuring around him. Orwell makes you fell the dynamic between the misery of war and the triumphant feelings of fighting for what is right. This book is a must read for anyone even remotely interested in the Spanish Civil War!
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Summary: a must read for any student of politics or military history
Review: this book is a personnal favorite of mine. It manages to attain the balance of politics and frontline action in a very smoooth fashion. This book also gives an idea to the political arena just before the second world war. if you enjoy political writing stripped of BS. He states his opinions on the situation on the frontline and political turmoil within the Republican party. My review doesnt do the book justice buy it or check it out from the library youll be thankful you did.
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Summary: a marvelous book of war and politics
Review: This is a masterful book about Orwell's service with the anarchists and socialists who attempted (and failed) to defend their egalitarian society from a Fascist rebellion. A third of the book conveys the feel of the trenches: rats, stench, comradery, and shoddy weapons. Much of the book delves into the politics of the time, and though it can be tedious, Orwell tells us about the ideological differences on the Left which helped to defeat their cause. This experience helps to understand his _1984_ and _Animal Farm_, as he witnessed good people abused at the hands of power and politics. Some readers will tire of the politics, but most will find that Orwell's treatment of this fascinating, complex war is exceptionally clear and engaging. The war, and Orwell's book, provide clues to the rest of the century.
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Summary: Extraordinary account of the Spanish Civil War
Review: I was put off Orwell at an early age by reading 1984 and Animal Farm, both of which I found terribly depressing. Thirty years later, I finally got around to reading 'Homage to Catalonia' and I wish I hadn't waited so long because it is absolutely fascinating. Orwell's account of fighting on the front line during the war is really reamrkable. It is astonishing to earn what an absolute shambles the war was, with soldiers armed with hopleessly antiquated weapons. The Republican and Nationalist front lines were so far apart that most of the time they can't even fire at each other, being too far apart to score a hit, so they are reduced to shouting propoganda at each other through megaphones. I had no idea Orwell could be funny, at times reading this book is like reading a scenario for a farcical comedy. You get a good sense of the privations and squalor of life in the front line, also, surprisingly, the cold (it had honestly never occured to me that Spain was ever cold). There is an incredibly vivivd description of how Orwell felt when he got shot in action. Away from the front, Orwell is shocked to discover that the Republicans seem to be more interested in fighting each other than the Nationalists. The Communists begin to act vindictively towards the Trotskyists and members of POUM, the organisation under whose banner Orwell had fought. He describes his horror as he sees men who had given up everything to go and fight for the Republic, treated as criminals by the Republican army. There is a very funny scene where he describes how his hotel room is searched by police looking for evidence of subversive activity. they search the room for about an hour, looking everywhere, but they never touch the bed, because his wife is lying in it, even though,as Orwell reflects, there could be a ton of Trotskyist literature under the pillow, and machine guns under the mattress. Hilarious in parts, heartbreaking in others, this is an unforgettable book.
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Summary: Shattered Bodies, Shattered Ideals, or: Revolution Redux
Review: In the essay that prefaces this publication of *Homage to Catalonia*, Lionel Trilling declares that George Orwell was "not a genius [...] but a figure," in other words, an individual who presided over certain historical ideas and attitudes and was able to express these conceptions in a simplistic, general way, seeking and finding the truth of the matter and subsequently scribing it without undue embellishment, overt bias or brain-taxing philosophical meta-quandary - making difficult issues palpable for mass comprehension. I cannot say I fully agree with this hypotheses, though it certainly does make for an interesting read after completing Orwell's account of the Spanish Civil War - introductions, it seems, should always be read _last_ in order to avoid spoiling the interior text - for in my definition, 'genius' is one who is able to perceive, in some fasion, the patterns and cycles generally unseen by the common multitudes, even (especially) if focused on a particular path; more importantly, genius is how this perception is then channeled and reflected to the world at large, and in that regard, Orwell's ability to penetrate the pompous falsehoods and intentional ambiguities of political discourse, via hard truths and internalized experiences, especially given the chaotic era in which *Homage to Catalonia* was written: to pierce through and then pen a novel such as this, simple but oh so telling, 'easy' but incredibly effective - this certainly takes a particular type of genius. All of Orwell's novels share this sort of rolled-up-sleeves ethic. Trilling may find *Animal Farm* to be over-rated (as do I, with reservations), but as a metaphor it is one of the greatest of the first half of the 20th century - easily the most influential and public-schooled - and certainly the product of a genius perception internalized and painstakingly realized. Of course, I have the hindsight benefit of half a century, whereas Trilling wrote his essay a mere two years after Orwell's death... such is the advantage of time! Orwell makes note of this as well, concluding that his theories would either stand or fall when re-examined from afar. Time has tested his experiences, indeed, and the breadth of clarity and caustic recognition is just as pertinent now, at the beginning of the 21st century, as it was in the late 1930's. When the Spanish Revolution broke out in 1936, the country was torn between the utopia-seeking leftist radicals/anarchists and the old-form power structure still fighting for control, allied with the notorious Generalissimo Franco and his Fascist-funded army. Although Orwell initially traveled to Barcelona as a journalist, he was so impressed with the fact that the Spanish were fighting Fascism - something incredibly rare in that pre-WW period of European history - that he hung up his press-cap and picked up a rifle, impelled by what he called "common decency" to naïvely join one of the many leftist factions without a hard inquiry into the political realities of the conflict. Luckily he did not put down his journalist's pen: after the fallout, Orwell scribed his experiences in concise, articulate form, remarkably free of the prevalent propaganda shrouding the fiasco...and that is why this book has lasted, while the forked tongues and tabulations of that period have all 'withered on the vine,' so to speak. *Homage to Catalonia* describes two experiences of violence: the outer violence, being Orwell's wry, almost nostalgic reflections of serving in the trenches for some five months in 1937 - coping with starvation, winter cold, boredom and the occasional pot-shot from the opposing side; and the inner violence, being his eventual disillusionment of Communism as a political ideology. The first violence is, naturally, the most entertaining to read, with its adventures and unexpected conflicts, its hardships and absurdities all lovingly infused with Orwell's dry wit, set in stone via his very-English style, full of humility, human awareness and healthy skepticism. The second violence is more complicated, convoluted (due to the political particulars), and both harrowing and illuminating in detail. Already a committed Socialist, Orwell was stunned and gratified to discover how, under extreme duress and remarkable isolation, his militia-sect of revolutionaries achieved, for a short time, a truly "utopian" society, Marx's theory made true: and how this was betrayed and irrevocably shattered by opposing forces, namely, the rest of the world. Revolution was not in the interests of anyone outside of Spain, as it threatened vested interests and stability; even Stalinist Russia, so-called bastion of the left, sabotaged its red brethren with shoddy munitions and double-dealing. After defending Spain from Fascism for month after bloody month, Orwell returned to Barcelona to find he and his fellows demonized by journalists, called "traitors" and "pro-Fascists," transformed in the public eye from men fighting for 'common decency' to pawns maneuvered by power-brokers, via their propagandist lap-dogs, into a stalemate position. This internal fracas climaxed with pitch battle in the streets of Barcelona; after the smoke cleared (physically, at least), all members of the radical sect, be they native or foreign, were rounded up and jailed as insurgents. Forced to flee the country in disguise, Orwell left behind the ruins of a once-potential anarchistic prosperity, but his memories of that brief, classless equality among men, amidst the bullets and bombs of confused carnage, linger tellingly in the text. *Homage to Catalonia* warns us to take all information with a grain of salt, to look behind the curtain and view the puppeteer jerking the strings of those talking-head mouths - a message most important in this complex, (mis)information-glutted era. The book also serves as a vital element in Orwell's oeuvre: *Homage* can be seen as a continuation of the Socialist ideals espoused in *Down and Out in Paris and London*, and the framework experience that inspired the allegory of *Animal Farm*. Highly recommended for enthusiasts of both history and literature.
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Summary: A well told true story
Review: Unlike 1984 or Animal Farm there is a constant upbeat current in this revealing account of his participation in the Spanish Civil War. Although a very political affair, Orwell's participation is not tied to the tenets of one particular party as much as his desire to do good in the world by helping to stop Fascism. So he brings his wife to Spain, enlists in the militia, is sent to the front, wounded, chased by the police, engaged in street fighting gun battles between different political parties that are on the same side of the war. An amazing account so very well told. There is a chapter in the middle that has to do with the complexities of the political parties at the time, at the very end of the previous chapter Orwell writes that if you are not interested in the politics to skip the chapter, so I skipped the chapter, preferring to stay with the adventure story. It is an adventure story, a war story, a comedy, a sad tragedy, but heartfelt and so real. Great book if you like good writing, or war stories, or politics or Spain. Above all, a well told story made more interesting that when Orwell finishes he is still assuming Franco would be defeated, which was not the case at all.
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