George Orwell is an enigma to me - a very great one. I just get engrossed in anything he has written. He has the ability to be depressing, defeatist, morose - yet I can't put down anything he writes.
I've had never known anyone as compelling as this man was. This is another tale of his soul-searching exploits during the Spanish Civil War.
I think this is the pinnacle of his life time's endeavour. A real-life sacrifice for an alternative way of equal living via socialism. It is destroyed here in Homage to Catalonia.
This is the journey, through his remarkable life, where I believe he realised equality can't work, especially trying to fight in the anarchist's brigade during this terrible civil war in Spain. It is as though his whole point of view changed. He still had the same questions, but before this book, he had a glimmer of hope for a new alternative. After this, the glimmer died. There were no answers he could find.
Then great books like Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four came. Orwell's works are a stage through the journey of his deep thinking life. Sometimes via essays, biographical or fiction. This man is truly brilliant and you can see the development of his thinking if you read his publications in order. Homage to Catalonia is a very important book - a very important book indeed.
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