By: George Orwell Publisher: Harvest Books Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Harvest Books Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 232 Publication Date: October 22, 1980
In 1936 Orwell went to Spain to report on the Civil War and instead joined the fight against the Fascists. This famous account describes the war and Orwell’s experiences. Introduction by Lionel Trilling.
Amazon.com: "I wonder what is the appropriate first action when you come from a country at war and set foot on peaceful soil. Mine was to rush to the tobacco-kiosk and buy as many cigars and cigarettes as I could stuff into my pockets." Most war correspondents observe wars and then tell stories about the battles, the soldiers and the civilians. George Orwell--novelist, journalist, sometime socialist--actually traded his press pass for a uniform and fought against Franco's Fascists in the Spanish Civil War during 1936 and 1937. He put his politics and his formidable conscience to the toughest tests during those days in the trenches in the Catalan section of Spain. Then, after nearly getting killed, he went back to England and wrote a gripping account of his experiences, as well as a complex analysis of the political machinations that led to the defeat of the socialist Republicans and the victory of the Fascists.
A Supplement and an Obituary "Homage to Catalonia" has long passed from the shelf for current events to the shelf of primary historical sources. No one can study the Spanish Civil War without encountering it. On that basis, it's a five-star book; all primary sources should get five stars. As a reading experience, it's not without weaknesses, which the earlier review by H. Schneider examines cogently. I refer you to that review.
Today's newspapers (7-11-08) carried extended obituaries for David Smith, who died in Berkeley, CA, at age 95. Mr. Smith was one of the only 30-some veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the volunteer contingent of Americans who joined the republican cause in Spain to stop fascism before World War II. The defeat of the republican forces, due at least partly to their own turmoils as described by Orwell, allowed the dictator Franco to suppress the 20th Century in Spain until his welcome death in 1975. David Smith was wounded in Spain in 1938. He returned to America, settled in New York, and married Sophie Kaplan, a marriage that lasted 59 years. Smith worked as a machinist, a union organizer, and for 18 years as a public school biology teacher in New Rochelle, where he campaigned for school integration. David Smith and his wife were active Communist Party members in the 1940s and 1950s, but left the party in disillusionment in the early 1960s. He was one of the victims of blacklisting in the McCarthy era. He retired to Vermont in 1977, and then to California two decades later. During his long retirement, Smith was a dedicated campaigner for peace, a familiar personage at anti-war demonstrations, and an active raiser of relief funds for Central American countries hit by civil strife.
I knew David Smith reasonably well. He was a man of sincerity and integrity; I doubt that he ever did anything in his life that failed to meet his standards of conscientious humanity. He meant to do well, and he did what he believed was right. His support for the welfare of working people and for oppressed people everywhere was unwavering. He had no lust for power or fame. Like several other grass-root American Communists I've known, he was above all a decent guy. That he was naive about Stalinist Russia is clear; that he wasn't always right about his positions seems clear also, but who is? But to portray such a person as a menace to free society, an unscrupulous plotter, a pawn in the game of Kremlin masterminds is libel and foolishness, and a self-deception honorable people in America cannot afford.
Homage, Take 2: what about Aragon? After re-reading Catalonia, some 20 years after my first encounter, I am disappointed. I do not think that this is Orwell's best work. It has many of his strengths, mainly the elegant, efficient and straightforward prose that he developed so impressively, but there are some flaws. Main flaw in my view is the fact that the main political theme has become dead and irrelevant. Stalin died some decades ago, the Soviet Empire collapsed, we don't need to dig in the little details of their abominable strategies any longer. Of course we can't blame Orwell for the fact that his concerns are not ours any more. But it shows that the book was not timeless in the sense of surviving its immediate subject, as his other non-fiction did. Second main weakness of the book: the narration of the Barcelona street fighting and the attempts at understanding them are rather boring. On the strong side: the tales from the Aragon front are much more interesting. Orwell saw less fighting than he was keen to experience, but he describes the trench routine with the same livelyness that he brought to Wigan coalmines and Paris restaurants previously. He did see enough fighting to get dangerously injured. People said to him that few men survive a shot through the neck, so he was lucky. He thinks he would have been luckier if he had not been shot at all. Orwell published the book a few months after his adventure, and before the Spanish Civil War was over. Surprisingly the book was a commercial failure then, and equally surprisingly it has later been named as one of the best non-fiction books of the century. Why was it ignored in the early time? Possibly because he told the world things that the world didn't want to know. He busted the myth that there was a confrontation of the good and the bad in Spain, that democracy fought fashism. Orwell shows us that there were at least 3 camps, not 2. The most vicious fighting that he experienced was among the 'good guys'. The government side was influenced strongly by the communist party who had secured the support from Russia. Since no other country provided weapons to the government side, that secured a lot of mileage. Orwell was a hopeless romantic, who loved the feeling of working class rule that he got when he first arrived in Barcelona. That must be the reason for the otherwise incomprehensible book title. That basically socialist attitude must also have put quite a few potential readers off at the time of publication. Orwell later saw the few months in Spain as his political training period. It put him off communism and Stalin for good, but confirmed his socialist attitude, which however never found a political home in a party, though he did support Labor in his remaining years, from the outside.
Might be his best work he's realy got an amazing way of turning a phrase. if you are at all interested in the Spanish Civil War this book is a great introduction.
War, famine, Comedy Homage to Catalonia This book is a great read for anyone out there who likes to read. I normally don't read nonfiction books but this one kept my interest throughout the entire book. Orwell describes things in a way that kept my attention the entire time. He even added some selected humour throughout which seemed to lighten the mood. Overall this is a great book that's worth every penny. I'd say go and read it right now if you're looking for a great read.
If It Weren't Orwell, It Would Be Five Stars This is one of the most complete and well-thought-out reports of the Spanish Civil War written in the English language. Considering the importance of international fighters in the war (debatable, but certainly in a political sense, noteworthy), and the effect of the war on socialist myth in the latter half of the 20th century, it is a book not to be missed by anyone interested in either World War II, modern socialism, communism, and/or anarchy, Spain, or George Orwell.
The personal narrative was wonderful and typically vivid Orwell. His complaints about the politics going on behind the scenes, however, were sometimes dull. He admits (repeatedly) that he is biased and perhaps does not know all of what is going on. However, after reading _The Battle for Spain_, I got the sense that his complaining was actually very revealing from an historical perspective.
I read _Homage to Catalonia_ and then _The Battle for Spain_ to get a basic idea about the Spanish Civil War, which I had previously known mainly through punk-rock songs and revolutionary anthem anthologies. I wish I had read them the other way around, though. Although I think this book is indispensable for English-speaking people to understand the Spanish Civil War, it is also a narrow view and very biased (as most works on the subject are). If it were anyone else, my expectations would be lower and I would probably have given it five stars. But compared to other Orwell works (including _Down and Out_) I would give it four.
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