Orwell’s ‘Burmese Days’ follows British timber merchant Flory who is stationed in British-colonsied Burma. He regularly frequents the European Club and spends much of the novel campaigning for the admittance of his native friend Dr Veraswami, met with much objection. Orwell shines a light on the injustices of British colonialism in Burma, heavily inspired by his own time stationed there as an officer and consequently this is a novel full of exploitation and racism. 

Though Orwell’s motives are to critique colonialism and the racist system of power in place, I don’t think it was done in the greatest of ways. Women are extremely sexualised and Orwell uses the N-word what must be upwards of 50 times and yet there are occasions where ‘fuck’ is censored to ‘f——‘. The line therefore becomes a little blurred between what is a point of criticism that Orwell is highlighting his opposition to and what is problematic writing, especially knowing his track record in the writing of female characters. 

Beyond the problematic elements, the plot was just fine. Flory’s relationship with Elizabeth had no real grounding and the love between them is practically non-existent. It is a very fractured and distracted relationship in terms of the plot but also it was just generally unconvincing. A greater issue is that absolutely none of the characters were likeable. Every last one was a douchebag to some extent and I wasn’t rooting for any of them, protagonists or antagonist, which left me as a reader with no idea where I stood in relation to the novel. 

‘Burmese Days’ was far from my favourite of Orwell’s works and having now read all of his six novels, to only say I enjoyed three of them (though two are some of my favourite books ever) is not overly convincing for the man I consider to be my favourite author.