Reading the 20th Century discussion

Hopefully, for our chosen Mod-Red lead, we have something that, even those of you familiar with all George Orwell’s books, will not have read. “The Last Man in Europe,” is a fairly recent novel by Denis Glover.

The Last Man in Europe

It is April, 1947. In a run-down farmhouse on a remote Scottish island, George Orwell begins his last and greatest work: Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Forty-four years old and suffering from the tuberculosis that within three winters will take his life, Orwell comes to see the book as his legacy – the culmination of a career spent fighting to preserve the freedoms which the wars and upheavals of the twentieth century have threatened. Completing the book is an urgent challenge, a race against death…

I've opened up this discussion a few hours early.


Here's to another wonderful shared reading experience.

I really enjoyed this book and it made me immediately re-read "1984," which has to be a good thing.

I've downloaded it onto my Kindle - just wondering whether to start it whilst reading another book, or to finish the other book first. I think I might start it sooner rather than later.

Choices, choices! I have just started the Graham Greene - and loving it so far.

Amazingly my library is going to furnish me with an audiobook edition of that on 18 March, just in time for the buddy read. Ain't life (and libraries) grand?

That's good to hear, Nigeyb.

Going back to "The Last Man in Europe," I will be interested to hear how correct the research is. I have never read a biography of Orwell, but this is obviously a biographical novel.

Susan wrote: "Choices, choices! I have just started the Graham Greene - and loving it so far."

I've been reading the Graham Greene novel as well and it is great. Apartheid is another part of history I don't know a whole lot about so that adds to the interest here.

I started The Last Man in Europe by Dennis Glover last night. So far I am very impressed. Very well researched (based on what I know) and incredibly evocative.

I really did love this novel and found it gave me such a vivid picture of the writing of "1984" and what it actually meant to Orwell. I didn't really know that he had not had that huge success, to his own mind, and that he still searched for the novel that would make his name. I felt sorry that, every time he wrote a wonderful, journalistic book, he felt he had just missed the boat and interest had moved on...

I am about half way through, and am enjoying it, but do wonder if Orwell would recognize his own life here. It just seems so bleak.

Well, it doesn't cover all his life, but is really mostly built around a few years. I had never thought about "1984" being more post-war than futuristic but, having now re-read it, it does an air of austerity about it.

I've just downloaded this - looking forward to it. I've read in the past that 1984 was largely a satire on current events, such as rationing, hence the year he chose, 1948 reversed.

Radiantflux wrote: "I am about half way through, and am enjoying it, but do wonder if Orwell would recognize his own life here. It just seems so bleak."

I'm only a quarter of the way through however, so far, I feel it's really credible. This has the ring of complete authenticity to me. Dennis Glover must have undertaken a lot of research, his Orwell seems fully imagined and understood.

I've just finished the Barcelona scenes which are just as memorable as Homage to Catalonia. The more you know about George Orwell, the more, I think, you'd enjoy it. An unexpected treat, and despite being a novel, it's perhaps the best biography we could hope for. I hope I'm not writing too soon.

I always love the way that one book leads you to another. I definitely want to read more Orwell and just downloaded Wigan Pier on Audible for 99p yesterday.

I'm only a quarter of the way through however, so far, I feel it's really credible. This has the ring of complete authenticity to me. Dennis Glover must have undertaken a lot of research, his Orwell seems fully imagined and understood.

I just finished it. There is definitely a lot of research in it, but it also seemed bleak in a way that I just couldn't buy.

Thanks Radiantflux. What was it about the bleakness that you found unconvincing?

I haven't got very far, but I'm noticing quite a few passages seem to be very closely based on Orwell's novels, such as the courtship with Eileen, which is very close to Keep the Aspidistra Flying. I'm not sure this really works, since Glover's writing inevitably suffers by comparison with Orwell's!

I did think the account of the Mosley meeting was good, and an interesting suggestion that Orwell gets the first idea for the Two Minute Hate in 1984 here.

Nigeyb wrote: "Thanks Radiantflux. What was it about the bleakness that you found unconvincing?"

I just got this feeling of sadness reading the book. There is very little discussion of joy in his life (either with people or food etc). The initial courtship with his first wife are touching (as is their meeting in Barcelona) but after that woman in his life are hardly fleshed out at all (or for that matter anyone at all).

I hadn't realized how much Orwell was shaped by the two world wars, first as a student at Eton during the first, and then of course the second in London.

One of my interests has the societal forment you had in Berlin after the end of the first world war. Can someone explain what was going on in London and England at the same time period?

Judy wrote: "I haven't got very far, but I'm noticing quite a few passages seem to be very closely based on Orwell's novels, such as the courtship with Eileen, which is very close to Keep the Aspidistra Flying...."

This happened through out the book. I found it a bit distracting after a while. It was sort of spot the literally reference.

Thanks Radiantflux. I will bear your comments in mind as I work through the book.


From what I know, I don't believe Orwell could be described as a happy person, this was partly informed by his personality; partly by his dissatisfaction with the problems he identified in the world and his gloominess about the future; partly about his own lack of success; and partly by his ongoing ill health. Could this help explain the bleakness?

Radiantflux wrote: "One of my interests has the societal forment you had in Berlin after the end of the first world war. Can someone explain what was going on in London and England at the same time period?"

Until I read 'The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End', about a year ago, I hadn't realised that my rather lazy and Anglo-centric view of the period following WW1, as a relatively peaceful era, was completely wide of the mark. Robert Gerwarth brilliantly describes how for many countries and regions, the Armistice on 11 November 1918, was just the start of five more years of violence and upheaval.

Four empires broke up in the aftermath of WW1: Austria-Hungary, Germany, tsarist Russia and the Ottoman empire. 'The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End' is a fast-paced, fluent and authoritative analysis of the turmoil in the territories of the four shattered empires, as well as in Greece and Italy. Civil wars overlapped with revolutions, counter-revolutions and border conflicts between emerging states, many sowing the seeds for WW2. This turmoil was frequently characterised by extreme violence and political disorder, with racial and religious minorities often suffering more than most.

In contrast, in London, although the population had to come to terms with the slaughter of WW1, the period was one of relative prosperity and is probably best known here as the era of the "Bright Young People" or "Bright Young Things" - a bunch of bohemians and blue blooded socialites (e.g. Cecil Beaton, Elizabeth Ponsonby, the Jungman sisters, Patrick Balfour, Diana and Nancy Mitford, Brian Howard, Anthony Powell, Evelyn Waugh, Cyril Connolly, Henry Yorke, and many more).

Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London and The Road to Wigan Pier give a good picture of what life was like for the less privileged, also English Journey by J.B. Priestley.
The First World War was expensive and Britain was technically bankrupt from 1915 until the mid-1960s. There were no civil wars or revolutions (although some of the press reported the General Strike almost as if it was). The economy did start to pick up a bit after the war, but the economic collapse starting in the US in 1929 soon spread to the UK and the rest of Europe and the 1930s saw very high unemployment figures.

The Last Man in Europe suggests that Gollancz decided to send Orwell to Wigan partly because of Priestley's English Journey - it would be interesting to read that one and compare.

Judy wrote: "The Last Man in Europe suggests that Gollancz decided to send Orwell to Wigan partly because of Priestley's English Journey - it would be interesting to read that one and compare."

It's great Judy. And yes, it was indeed Victor Gollancz who commissioned two pieces of English travel writing from two gifted but very different writers....

One was "The Road to Wigan Pier" by George Orwell, the other was "English Journey".

"English Journey" is subtitled...

"English journey being a rambling but truthful account of what one man saw and heard and felt and thought during a journey through England during the autumn of the year 1933 by J.B. Priestley."

...which sums it up very succinctly.

In 1934, J.B. Priestley published this account of a journey through England from Southampton to the Black Country, to the North East and Newcastle, to Norwich and then back to his home in Highgate, London. His account is very personal and idiosyncratic, and in it he muses on how towns and regions have changed, their history, amusing pen pictures of those he encounters, and all of this is enhanced by a large side order of realism and hard-nosed opinion. The book was a best seller when it was published and apparently had an influence on public attitudes to poverty and welfare, and the eventual formation of the welfare state.

The book also makes a fascinating companion piece to "In Search Of England" by H.V. Morton, which was published a few years earlier, and was another enormously successful English travelogue, however one that provides a far more romantic version of England, an England untroubled by poverty and the depression. Like H.V. Morton's book, "English Journey" has never been out of print.

"English Journey" is a fascinating account, and the edition I read, published by Great Northern Books, is also illustrated with over 80 modern and archive photos. It's a really beautiful book and one I heartily recommend.

The introduction by the always readable and interesting Stuart Maconie made me chuckle too...

"If, as a writer, J.B. Priestley had just been brilliant, humane, elegant, virile, intelligent, witty and technically dazzling, he'd be arguably considered the pre-eminent British literary talent of his age. Sadly for him though, he also laboured beneath the crushing burden of being accessible, engaging, crystal clear and enormously popular. The mandarins of the metropolitan elite like their 'provincial' voices to stay just that if possible, or at least to have the decency to be faintly troubled and attractively doomed, like say D.H. Lawrence or John Lennon, rather than rich, successful, boundlessly gifted and ordered like J.B. Priestley or Paul McCartney. The riches and success must have been some consolation."

Radiantflux wrote: "Judy wrote: "I haven't got very far, but I'm noticing quite a few passages seem to be very closely based on Orwell's novels, such as the courtship with Eileen, which is very close to Keep the Aspidistra Flying...."

This happened through out the book. I found it a bit distracting after a while. It was sort of spot the literally reference ..."

I've just come across one of these mentions which brought me up a bit short, where it is obliquely suggested that future West German Chancellor Willy Brandt inspired Orwell's poem The Crystal Spirit.

After reading The Crystal Spirit, George Woodcock's biography of Orwell years ago, I vaguely remembered the poem was inspired by a soldier who died, and have just confirmed that after a bit of Googling.

http://www.orwelltoday.com/orwellpoem...

The great bit of this poem is at the end:

Your name and your deeds were forgotten
Before your bones were dry,
And the lie that slew you is buried
Under a deeper lie;

But the thing that I saw in your face
No power can disinherit:
No bomb that ever burst
Shatters the crystal spirit.

Thanks for the information about English Journey, Nigeyb. It sounds well worth reading. I'm also interested in Stuart Maconie's comments about J.B. Priestley.

This reminds me that Graham Greene has a big-headed, loudmouth writer character in Stamboul Train who was widely considered to be based on Priestley, so he had to hastily change him from a northerner to a Cockney to avoid a libel writ! This lends an added interest to Maconie's comments here - I suppose Greene is one of the 'mandarins'!

"English Journey," looks good. I haven't read much Priestley and thought "Benighted," also looked really interesting. Has anyone read it?

Judy, I haven't read "Stamboul Train," but I have read two Greene novels this year and have really enjoyed them, so I think I certainly need to read more by him.

I'm about halfway through The Last Man in Europe now and still enjoying it. I don't think it's quite as convincing as I first thought. Dennis Glover is perhaps struggling a bit to keep the conceit going, however it is most certainly a great way to revisit Orwell's greatest hits, alongside key moments in his life, and credibly evoke what he might have been thinking and feeling at the time.

I love Greene, Susan - one of my very favourite authors. Stamboul Train is probably not one of his best, an early one and I think he wrote it as a bestseller, but I still enjoyed it.

It's fascinating that the young Eric was taught by Aldous Huxley , author of Brave New World at Eton - two authors of such famous dystopian novels. I don't find their conversation very convincing, though.

My reading of this may be helped by the fact that I knew virtually nothing about Orwell's life. I couldn't really spot the parts that may not have worked so well, but happily immersed myself in the story. I must say that I really enjoyed this - and that I found myself wanting to read more by Orwell after finishing it.

I have put this on hold for a while. The author has done some research on George Orwell, but he seems to have decided on a rather narrow interpretation of his life and stuck to it. I will come back to the book, but there are other things I want to read more.

I can see your point, Val - I am about halfway through now and will finish it, but I don't think it's very convincing and it doesn't really add much to reading biographies of Orwell.

I would like to read a biography of Orwell and compare the two. I do agree that my enjoyment was probably enhanced by not having read one before.

I thought Orwell by D.J. Taylor was good, but there are lots of biographies of Orwell to choose from.

Judy wrote: "I thought Orwell by D.J. Taylor was good, but there are lots of biographies of Orwell to choose from."

That's the only one I have read - and I liked it a lot...

Having read all of George Orwell's novels, and some of his essays and articles, I was keen to read a biography. This is the only biography I have read to date.

I previously enjoyed Bright Young People: The Rise and Fall of a Generation 1918-1940, also by D.J. Taylor. Click here to read my review. In common with Bright Young People: The Rise and Fall of a Generation 1918-1940, Orwell is thorough, well written and insightful.

A chronological approach is augmented by shorter chapters. One interesting chapter is entitled, "The Case Against Orwell" in which D.J. Taylor presents the evidence that Orwell's reputation is undeserved. Evidence includes: Orwell's novels are derivative, he was an unreliable reporter, he exaggerated, he was naive, deceptive, sent the names of 135 people he suspected of being "fellow-travellers" to the anti-communist Information Re-search Department at the Foreign Office, and was a serial adulterer. Whilst it is clear that D.J. Taylor likes his subject, admitting in the afterword that this did not change having completed the book, it is instructive to read such a compelling counter-argument. Another chapter looks at Orwell's alleged anti-semitism, and here the case against Orwell is pretty strong and, it seems to me, it was only towards the end of his life that he seriously realised how wrong these views were.

Most interesting for me, is the extent to which Orwell constructed his own myth, and the differences between that and the real person, who despite living in the twentieth century is a remarkably opaque individual. D.J. Taylor has done a marvellous job in sifting through the evidence, such as it is, to allow the reader to make up her or his own mind. Orwell is a nuanced and balanced assessment of a frustrating and complex man. My sense is that those who have read all, or at least most, of his key works would get the most out of this biography. If, like me, you have an interest in the English literary scene in the 1930s and 1940s then you will find it even more rewarding.

4/5

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Nigeyb has, correctly, pointed out to me that I HAVE read a biography of Orwell - oops! To be fair, though, I didn't give the book a huge rating and said I didn't feel I learnt much about him from reading it. I would like to explore more, but it is trying to fit everything in. I did manage to re-read, "1984," so that was good and I have the joint biography of Orwell and Churchill on Audible, for when I get time.

BBC Radio 4 did a series of programmes about George Orwell, some based on his essays, some dramatisations of novels and some by people talking about him. (I don't know if they are still available.)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/artic...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/artic...

I also like the essay I got from the library by mistake, but it is by no means a full biography:
The Last Man In Europe; An Essay On George Orwell

Less enamoured by this now, having read 80%. It’s a brave attempt to find a new way to write about a famous life however I conclude, on balance, I’d rather read a regular biography than a novelisation.

Finished!


Thanks for inspiring me to read it Susan. I am glad I did. It was not wholly successful for me however I would say, with confidence, anyone with an interest in Orwell will find lots to enjoy in it.

Click here to read my review

Although I had some misgivings about the book, I am glad to have read it. I would definitely like to read Orwell at some point in the future.

I will try to get around to finally reading Homage to Catalonia in the next week. English Journey sounds very interesting paired with The Road to Wigan Pier.

The obvious desire for Orwell to be part of the establishment is put on pretty thick in the book (whether that is true or not). It made me really wonder how he would have managed as a proper writer in Paris or Berlin in the same time period.

I'm struggling a bit with the book - I think perhaps the problem for me is that Orwell's own voice is so vivid in his writings, and the fictional version of his thoughts does not have that same vividness. I think really the author has set himself an impossible task here!

Rdiantflux, I would definitely recommend D.J. Taylor's biography. I also want to read English Journey before long. I still remember The Road to Wigan Pier fairly well, or at any rate bits of it.

Some mixed reviews. I think it would be a good introduction to anyone unfamiliar with Orwell. I haven't read that much and I really enjoyed it. Perhaps, if you have already read most of his books, it 'borrows' too much and you are aware of it?

I think you've nailed it there Susan. Initially I was very impressed by 'The Last Man in Europe' however, as I worked through the book, I started to find the novelisation technique intrusive. How did Dennis Glover know how Orwell was thinking or feeling?

Dennis Glover acknowledges at the end of his book. He explains how he had to imagine the scenes and make best guess approximations of what Orwell was experiencing. The book is obviously well researched however the reader is often left wondering where factual events end and fictional interpretation begin.

On the positive side though, if you are less familiar with Orwell's work, it does make you keen to explore more.

Absolutely. And that's got to be a good thing.

I've now finished this. I think my reaction was in a way the opposite to you, Nigeyb - I found most of the book a struggle, didn't feel it added much to the biographies and was heading for a 2-star rating, but then towards the end it caught my imagination more.

I thought the descriptions of the horrifying treatments he had to undergo for TB were powerful - the details of the treatments isn't usually something that is gone into much in biographies, so this part was new to me. The whole idea of him pushing himself on to finish 1984 was also compelling.

Overall, though, I agree that the novelisation technique doesn't work all that well, and I also kept noticing modern English turns of phrase which made me aware it had been written in the 21st century. (Obviously I knew that anyway, but it still jolted me out of the story.)

I'm glad you enjoyed this more than you thought you would, Judy. I really liked it.