“All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.”
George Orwell is one of my favourite writers. 1984 and Animal Farm were game-changers for me when I first picked them up at 12 years old, and they fostered an interest in politics that would stay with me for the rest of my life. Homage to Catalonia never quite affected me in the same way, but I decided it was time to do a reread of it as an adult. In July, I will be visiting Catalonia-- again, my first time doing so as an adult --so it seemed especially appropriate.

Orwell is a great writer, but it's just a shame that the material here is not that exciting. I found it interesting reading about how his experiences fighting Franco and the fascists during the Spanish Civil War shaped his personal and political beliefs; it's just that his extensive detailing of trench life is repetitive and largely uneventful.

The place where Orwell was stationed actually saw very little action. He describes a bunch of raggedy boys stood around shivering in the cold, smoking any cigarettes they could get hold of, and mostly just waiting for something to happen. All Quiet on the Western Front documents trench warfare - the filth, the cold, the rats - and it is a far more compelling account. Here, it gets quite tedious, even with Orwell's accessible and conversational style.

It's not just a memoir, though. He also attempts to explain the history of the conflict, and separate out the different groups involved. He explains how the Anarchists and Communists were in conflict with one another but were, in this case, technically on the same side against Franco. How well Orwell understands this history is not clear, and his explanation of all the political differences is rather convoluted (he packs a lot of information into a couple of chapters), especially when he turns his attention to the trade unions involved.

What it is possible to gather from the complex web that Orwell portrays is that the political landscape at this time was a complete mess. He often uses his trademark humour to comment on the ridiculousness of the war, and it was indeed a ridiculous situation. I did some outside reading on the Spanish Civil War, and it is easy to see why Orwell's two chapters of background info are lacking. It was such a complex conflict that had in part been building for close to a hundred years.

One of my favourite aspects of the book - and, in truth, probably why I Orwell quite a lot - is that he never really portrays any person as his enemy. His enemy remains fascism throughout. He speaks highly of those he meets and claims that while his memories of Spain were "most evil" he had “very few bad memories of Spaniards.” He was, as far as I can tell, a humanist. And in the midst of all that chaos, that was no small thing.

Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Youtube2019 classics memoirs-or-bios ...more393 s2 comments Bill KerwinAuthor 3 books83.3k


This book is justly famous for its disillusioned account of how the Communist Party—in its eagerness to defeat Franco--betrayed the successful anarchist experiment in Catalonia for the sake of expedience, how it executed and imprisoned its anarchist and socialist comrades for the sake of a temporary alliance with the bourgeois.

I found all this very interesting, but have to admit that the real reason I d the book so much was for its gritty account of war on the cheap, where guns are poor, marksmanship is worse, and the lack of food, matches and candles is more important than any threat by the enemy. In spite of the generally poor marksmanship, however, Orwell did manage to get himself shot in the neck, and his first-hand account of what it is to be wounded is vivid and completely absorbing.

The only thing that keeps this book from being superb is its detailed discussion of each of the various left-wing parties and their responsibility—or lack of responsibility--for the internecine battles on the streets of Barcelona that contributed to the subsequent purges, arrests, and imprisonments. Orwell clearly realizes that this account may be a problem for his narrative, for he apologizes for its length, arguing that previous accounts in the international press have been so deceptive that it has become necessary to set the record straight. Now, however, more than seventy-five years later, such a precise accounting is indeed unnecessary--at least for the general reader--and Orwell's book suffers as a result.biography history319 s1 comment Ahmad Sharabiani9,564 148

Homage To Catalonia, George Orwell

Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell's personal account of his experiences and observations in the Spanish Civil War. The first edition was published in the United Kingdom in 1938.

The book begins in late December 1936. Orwell describes the atmosphere in Barcelona as it appears to him at this time. "The anarchists were still in virtual control of Catalonia and the revolution was still in full swing ... It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle ... every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle ... every shop and café had an inscription saying that it had been collectivized."

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??? ?? ???: (??? ?????: ??????? ?? ???? ??? ?????: ???? ??? ????? ??? ?? ???????? ?????? ????? ????? ?? ?????? ?? ??? ??????? ??? ????? ?????? ?????? ????? ??? ???????? ? ??????? ????? ? ??? ?? ?? ?? ?? ???? «???????» ?? ????? ????????? «????????? ? ????» ??? ?? ?? ?? ?? ??????? ??????? ?????.? «????? ?? ?????» ???????? ????? ?? ?? ???? ????? ???? ?????????? ? ????????? ?? ???? ????? ????? ? ??? ?? ?????? ???? ?????? ?????? ?? ???????? ??????? -????? 1931??????- ??? «??????? ???» ?? ???? ??? ??? ?????? ? ?????? ???? ??? ??? «?????? ??????» ??? ?? ??????? ??? ??? ??????? ????? ?? ??? ???????? ????? ???? ?? «?????????» ????????? ?????? ??????? ?? ?? ???? ??????? ???? «??????» ?? ???? ???? ? ??????? ?? ???????? ??????? ???? ??? ??????? ?? ????? ??? ??????? ????? ??? ??? ??? ??????? ??????? ?????? ??? ?? ?????? ?????? ?? ??????? ????? ?? ?????? ????? ??? ?????? ????? ?? ???????? ????? ???? -1933??????-? ???? ????? ?? ??????? ????? ?????? «?????????» ?? ????? ??? -1934??????- ? ??? ??? ?? ????? ????? ???????? ?? «????????» ????? ?? ?? ???? ???????? ?? ???? ??? ????? ???? ?????? ???? ? ??? ?? ???????? ????? 1936?????? ?? ???? ????? ?? ?? ?? ?????

???? ??? ??? ??????? ?? ?????????????? ?? ?????? ??????? ?? ?????? ??? ?????? ????? ??? ?? ?? ????? ?? ???? ??????? ??? ??? ????????? «?????? ??? 1939??????» ????? ?????? ?? ??? ??? ?? ???? ?? ?? ?????? ?? ?? ??? 1936?????? ???? ???? ???? ????? ???? ?????? «??????» ???? ???? ???? ?? ?? «??????? -? ????-» ????? ? ?????? ????? «??????» ????????? «?????????» ?? ??? ???? ? ???? ?? ?? ???? ??? ?????? ????? ? ???????? ??? ?? ?? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??? ???? ??????? ?? ??? ????? «???????» ?? ??? ???? -???????? ? ??????- ????? ???????? «??????» ?? ??? ??? ??? ????? ????? ????? ????? ?? ????? ?? «???????» ????? -????? 1939??????-? ????? «?????» ? «??????» ?? «????? -????? ???1940??????» ?? ????? ?? ?? «?????» ??????? ?? ??? ??????? ? «???????» ?? ??? ???? ???? ????? ??? ????? ??? ?? ?? ???? ???? ????????? ?? ???? ?? «??????» ?? ??? ????? ???? «??????» ???? ?????? ???? «??????» ???? ?? ???? ?? ?? ????? ? ???? ????? ?? ?????? ???? ??? ?? ????? ????

??? ?? ????? ????? ???? ???? «??????» ?? ??? ??????? ????? ? ????? ???? ???? ?? ??? ???? ?? ??? ???????????? ???????? ? ????? ????? ??? ???? ??? -??? ???? ?? ?? ??? ????? ??????? ????? ???? ????? ????? ?? ?????? ??????? ?????? ??? ? ????? ?? ?? ?? ?????????- ? ?? ???? ??????? ??? ???? ???? ?? «??????» ?? ????? ???? ??????? ?? ??? ??? ?????? ?????? ????.? ?? ??? 1942?????? «??????» ???? ?? ???? ???? ??? ??????? ?????? ?? ??????? ???? -?? ??? 1945?????? ????? ? ???? ???? ?? ???? ????? ? ??????? ????? ??.-? ??? ????? ? ???? «??????» ????? ?????? ???? ?? ??? ????? ???.? ??? ????? ?? ??? ??????? ????? ?????? ?????? ?????? ?? ???? ?? ????? «??????» ?? ???? ??????? -1947??????- ???? «??? ????» ?? ?? ?? ??? ???? ????? ????? ? ?????? ?????? ?????? -??? ?????????- ?????? ??? ?? ?? ?????? ?? ????? ???? ?????.?

???? ??????? ?? ??? 1950?????? ????? ????.? «??????» ???? ??? ??????? ????? ?? ?? ???? ??? ?? ???? ?????? -«??? ????» ????? ???? ?? ??? «??? ???? ??????» ???- ??? ??????? ?? ??? 1969??????? «??? ????»? «??????» ?? ?? ??????? ??? ??????.?

?? ??? 1959?????? ???????? ? ??????? ???? ????? ??????? ????????? ?? ????? ?????? ? ?? ??????? ??? ????? ?? ??? ??? ?? ??????? ????? ???? ???? ??????? ?????? ???? ?? ?????? ???.? ?? ????? 1960?????? ????? ?? ??? ?? ??? ????? ?????? ????????????? ?????? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ?? ??? ???? ???.? ???? ? ???? ? ???? ???? ???? «?????»? ?? ???? ?? ?? ?????????? ?? ????? ??????? ? ???????? ???? ?? ???????? ????? ?????? ?????.? ??? ?????? ?? ?? ???? ???????? ??? ????? ??? ?? ?? ??? 1962??????? ?? ?????? ???????? ??? ????.?

????? ????? ?? ??? 1966?????? ?? ????????? ????? ??.? ?? ???? ??? ????? ????? ??????? ????? ?? ???? ???? ?? ????? ???? -???? ?????? ??? ?? ???? ??? ?????- ??? ???? ??? ???.? ?? ?? ??? ????? ???? «???????» ?? ????? ?????? ??? ?? ????? ?????? ????? ??? ? ?? ?????? 1946??????? ?????? ?? ????? ??? ????? ?? ????? ? ????????? ??? ??? ?? ?? ???? ??? ???.? ????? ??? ??? ?? ??? ?? ???? ??? ? ??? ???? ???? ???? «???????» ?? ?? ?????? ??? ?????? ???? ?????? -1950??????- ? ?? ??? 1955?????? ?????????» ????? ?? ????? ?????? ??? ??????? ??.? ?? ??????? 1953?????? ?? ?? ?????? ?????? ??? ??????? ? ?????? ?????? ??? ???? ?? ????? ????????? ????? ? ?????? ?? ????? ??????? ?? ?? ??? ???? ? ?? ????? ?????? ????? ?? ?? ??????? ?? ?? ??? ????? ? ??????? ???? ??? ? ??? ????? ?? ??? 1964?????? ?? ?? ??????? ??????? ????? ?? ???? ??? ??)? ????? ???

????? ?????? ????? 20/08/1399???? ???????? 23/06/1400???? ???????? ?. ??????? Lisa1,066 3,311

"If you had asked me why I had joined the militia I should have answered: 'To fight against Fascism,' and if you had asked me what I was fighting for, I should have answered: 'Common decency."

Sometimes, when I get particularly frustrated with that strange idealist in me that chose to work with teenage education, I think of George Orwell and his fight in the Civil War in Spain. He knew at some point that the war would be lost, and that both sides in it had major issues, flaws and most of all a great deal of confusion hidden underneath excruciatingly stupid and dishonest propaganda. And yet he fought, for a lost cause, because NOT fighting for human decency was not an option.

Obviously, being a teacher is a positive experience, whereas his was a massive trauma, and I don't by any means intend to compare teaching to being a soldier. But the mindset of an idealist is the same, - a vague sense of having to do the right thing no matter how tired and frustrated one feels, how badly it pays, and how much aggression one faces.

As always, Orwell manages to highlight the human condition in the mess, both the cowardice and the bravery, the hatred and the love, the destructive powers and the binding culture. Reading Homage To Catalonia is a key to understanding how much love for humankind is hidden underneath the political satire in 1984 and Animal Farm, and in his essays against nationalism.

Because he cared, he was angry.

I can relate to that!orwell persuasive should-have-been-a-nobel ...more185 s1 comment Matt970 29.2k

“I had been about ten days at the front when it happened. The whole experience of being hit by a bullet is very interesting and I think it is worth describing in detail. It was at the corner of the parapet, at five o’clock in the morning. This was always a dangerous time, because we had the dawn at our backs, and if you stuck your head above the parapet it was clearly outlined against the sky. I was talking to the sentries preparatory to changing the guard. Suddenly, in the very middle of saying something, I felt – it is very hard to describe what I felt, though I remember it with the utmost vividness. Roughly speaking it was the sensation of being at the center of an explosion…”
- George Orwell,Homage to Catalonia

In 1936, George Orwell went to Spain with the intention of reporting on the ongoing civil war as a journalist. His purpose – as a dedicated socialist – was to highlight the fight against fascism, and to rouse the opinion of the working class in both Great Britain and France.

Evidently, Orwell decided that the best way to get close enough to write about the war was to become a part of it. He enlisted as a private in the Partido Obrero de Unificatión Marxista (POUM), a Marxist worker’s party militia. Thereafter, he went to the front, saw a bit of combat, became embroiled in the internecine conflict between various left-wing groups (a civil war within the civil war), was wounded, and was finally forced to escape Spain, chased not by fascists but by communists who had taken power and declared the POUM illegal. Soon afterwards, Orwell’s account of his experiences was published as the now-classic Homage to Catalonia.

(Orwell wrote this about seven months after his service ended. It was originally published in Great Britain in 1938. It did not make its way to America until 1952. The version I read is a reissue of the 1952 version, which is unfortunately sparse when it comes to explanatory footnotes or background).

The Spanish Civil War that Orwell so famously covered was incredibly complicated. Broadly speaking, it pitted Republicans (who were in lawful power) against Nationalists (who were in revolt). This does not nearly begin to convey the densely tangled alliances on both sides. The Republicans consisted of communists, anarchists, other socialist groups, and Ernest Hemingway. The Nationalists fielded an array of monarchists and conservatives, centered around General Francisco Franco. Ultimately, the war captured the worldÂ’s attention, drawing reporters and soldiers from around the globe. Many were convinced that the fates of communism, fascism, and democracy would be decided in Spain.

I mention the context because Orwell does not.

Homage to Catalonia was written contemporaneously with the events depicted. At the time – before World War II cast its long shadow – the Spanish Civil War was a well-known event. Accordingly, Orwell does not expend any effort explaining what he assumed his readers already knew, and jumps into his tale without filling in any of the backstory. If you’re thinking of tackling this, a primer might be in order (I’ve had the Modern Library revised edition of Hugh Thomas’s The Spanish Civil War on my shelf for twenty years. Just waiting for the stars to align on that one).

As to the content of the book, my reaction was surprisingly muted. I expected to love this, and ended up at an emotion quite a bit below that. This gave me pause, as Orwell is a famous author, and Homage to Catalonia is acknowledged as one of his finest works.

I always hesitate to criticize something that is roundly admired, especially as I am well-aware of my own deficits as a reader. In this case, I knew that my own ignorance about the Spanish Civil War – which cannot fairly be attributed to Orwell – played a role. Still, a lot of it has to do with the maddening inconsistency of the narrative. Some parts are great; others are torpor-inducing.

The parts devoted to OrwellÂ’s frontline experiences are wonderful. He assumes an engaging voice that is both self-ironical and humble. Many memoirs tend to overstate and exaggerate, but this is certainly not the case here. If anything, Orwell underplays what happens, which gives Homage to Catalonia the ring of truth.

During his time in Spain, Orwell served mainly as a private and a corporal. As a result, this is really a ground-level view of warfare. With his sharp eye for detail, Orwell discusses the day-to-day drudgery of soldiering. Most of it is waiting around, being hungry or cold or dirty, and usually all three at once. He describes equipment shortages, antiquated weaponry (the jerry-rigged grenades sound horrifying, and itÂ’s a wonder that Orwell had the guts to carry them around), endless watches, and the way that countless hours of tedium can be interrupted by a few terrifying seconds of shelling. Despite being on the frontlines, ostensibly closest to whatÂ’s going on, Orwell notes how he and his fellow soldiers seldom had a very good idea of the bigger picture. They were often in the dark, trying to piece things together through rumor, hearsay, and gossip.

There is never a great battle. As Orwell freely admits, he was posted away from the major areas of operations, meaning that he was not subjected to massive artillery bombardments, aerial bombings, or large troop concentrations. Still, Orwell memorably captures his participation in a no-name skirmish that nevertheless was fought for the highest stakes imaginable, his own life. It is a reminder that even the smallest gun-battle is light-years beyond the normal boundaries of existence.

Homage to Catalonia is brimming with humanity. Occasionally, there is a bit of sardonicism, especially with regard to the procrastination with which orders were carried out (the running joke is that things are always happening mañana, tomorrow). Orwell is also unflinching about the less-noble aspects of warfare, such as the hospital orderlies who steal everything of value off wounded men. For the most part, though, Orwell writes admiringly of the men he meets, their principles, their ability to endure, and their generosity.

Unfortunately, Orwell intercuts his wartime service with long discussions about the politics of the Spanish Civil War. Indeed, the longest sections of Homage to Catalonia take place in Barcelona, where the Republicans were far too busy liquidating themselves to worry about Franco. These ideologically-based contretemps were driven by the communists (supported from afar by Joseph Stalin) who were maniacally obsessed with finding “Trotskyists” in their ranks. The political machinations featured a dizzying array of political groups, many of them communicating in a language that Orwell would later dub “Newspeak” in 1984. This makes it incredibly hard to follow, especially without prior grounding on the subject.

Orwell himself admits that these parts of his book are pretty dry. In fact, he even recommends skipping them. I pushed through, however, since the political angle becomes so extensive that avoiding them would have left me with the sensation of having never read the book at all. Worse than the esoteric nature of this discussion is OrwellÂ’s handling of it. He does not even pretend to be an objective observer, and instead seems to be engaging in a lot of score-settling. For instance, he frequently quotes or excerpts something written in the press, and then criticizes it as communist propaganda. This might have been impactful when Orwell first wrote it, but it has little relevance now.

Today, the Spanish Civil War is often seen as a foretaste of the tragedies to come between 1939 and 1945. Even though it is a striking historical event in its own right, it does not really get its due, in no doubt because many of the issues it raised were decided on the much larger, bloodier stage of World War II. In some ways, Homage to Catalonia suffers from this reality, as the party strife, doctrinal bickering, and political posturing Orwell covered now feels far more academic than enlightening.

With that said, Orwell’s work endures, not so much as a specific history, but as a realistic tale of men at war. There are many wartime memoirs, but most are written by people who were soldiers first and writers second. Orwell was always a writer first – he is humorously deprecatory about his martial virtues – and it shows. The ins-and-outs of the Spanish Civil War may have faded, but Orwell’s precise recollections of lice-ridden soldiers, of long winter nights on sentry duty, of what it feels to aim a gun at another human being, and to be shot at in return, still burns brightly.european-history memoirs spain154 s BookHunter M ?H ?M ?D1,527 3,870


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????? ?? ????? ???? ?? ????? ???????? ? ?? ?????? ??????? ? ?????? ??????? ? ?????? ??????? ?????? ???? ???? ?? ??? ???.

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???? ?????? ?? ???? ? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?????? ??? ? ???? ???? ?? ??? ?????? ??? ??? ????? ?? ???? ????.

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??? ?? ???? ??? ???? ?????? ?????? ?? ???? ??? ?????? ???? ???? ??? ?????? ????? ???? ??? literature131 s Luís2,092 881

If there is a book to read on the Spanish Civil War, this is the one. It has the strength of testimony and wins support through the intensity of convictions. Unfortunately, however, this history is older than the younger generations. Still, the ideas, especially the great ideas, endure, and I cannot encourage curious minds too much to immerse themselves in this "homage," which is still current.biography e-5 george-orwell ...more123 s Steven Godin2,570 2,761

Always preferred Orwell as a writer of nonfiction, and Homage to Catalonia is most certainly up there with the best of it. Didn't think much of Animal Farm, and haven't even bothered to read 1984 yet, which, to be honest, doesn't really interest me anyway. What does interest me, a lot more, is his voice in the real world. I think now, having read this, Down & out in Paris & London, and some of his brilliant essays, he's simply a great writer. Didn't think I'd be saying that after Animal Farm. When he suddenly got shot here, I feared for his life, even though, of course, I knew he was to survive. He was told by a doctor he would lose his voice, permanently, but thankfully it did come back within a few months, having previously been reduced to a whisper. He was a lucky boy though, and on any other day the wound could have been fatal, thus, there would have been no book, or any others after for that matter. Orwell had joined the POUM militia, after simply serving as a journalist, because of his loose ties with the Independent Labour Party back home, but the poumistas were anti-Stalinists, and in the era of Moscow show-trials, they soon found themselves accused of being Trotskyist-fascists and enemy agents by the Moscow-run Spanish Communist Party, but with many other conflicts there's lots of finger-pointing and accusations made by all sides. What I loved about this work is that Orwell never romanticizes about war, and is crisp and as clear as possible in regards to his intellectual honesty and capacity for observation. In between his reports of being on the frontline, he gives a really detailed account to the political side of things, and all those involved, which for someone me, who is not well knowledged on the Spanish Civil War, provided much needed information, to at least make certain things that little bit clearer. Orwell, who produced this work fresh in his mind only a few months after returning to England, was not writing for effect. He recorded what he had seen out of a compelling need to testify. His prose has none of the mannerisms of modern cynical equivalents, who can tend to glamorise the horror and the futility of war. For Orwell, the characteristic smell and taste of war was that of excrement and decaying food, while also being pestered by rats and lice, he paints a vivid picture of the squalid trenches of the Aragón front in the early months of the war, while also describing the naive idealisms, his fellow comrades, the inability to use their rusty rifles properly (some of the weapons were decades old), and, to my surprise, there appeared to be more casualties (at least during Orwell's time) caused by simple accidents than by enemy fire, and he points out often, while on the front, that nothing really appears to be happening. So the battles overall are scarce, but when something does kick in, you bloody well know it. His descriptions in may of 1937 are a fascinating portrayal of mounting suspicion and much uncertainty, of which, he may have been wrong about certain events, but then so were other journalists and later historians, even more so, yet the immediacy of Orwell's account conveys the terrible fear and utter confusion caused by everything that was going on around him, which was, pardon my french, a bit of a clusterfuck at times, mitigated only by incompetence and many unpredictable flashes of humanity. As this was pretty much my first book to do with the Spanish Civil War, I'd be lying if I suddenly said everything now becomes crystal, because it doesn't. But at least it's a stepping stone toward ly future reading on the subject.classic-literature great-britain history ...more100 s Greg1,120 1,989

1. Homage to Catalonia has the distinction of being on my mental to-read list for longer than any other book. I've wanted to read this book longer than any of the people who elbowed or punched me in the face this week have been alive. I figured after almost twenty and half years I should finally read it.

I've owned the book for over a decade.

I have no clue what book now currently holds the distinction book I've wanted to read for the longest time but haven't.

2. When I was a senior in high school I wrote a paper for a friend of mine on this book, he was a year older and a freshman at Fordham. I had been visiting him, and he needed to write a paper on this book. I'm not sure if he read it or not. I hadn't. The paper was on the relationship between the Anarchists (CNT) and the Communists (PSUC). I dictated the paper to him, highlighting the ideological differences between the two groups and why the Communists would turn on the Anarchists. Prior to the evening that we did this I don't know if I had ever really known anything about the Spanish Civil War. I don't remember having ever really learned anything in school or had read anything about Anarchism or Communism (beyond what we learned growing up in the waning and thawing days of the Cold War, not necessarily the most objective facts being passed on to young minds). I babbled on about the differences between these two ideologies. My friend typed and gave me some bits he knew or remembered from the book to get my reaction to them.

It was the first college paper I wrote, and it wasn't for myself. My friend later told me that he got his highest grade for that class on this paper.

It would take me two decades to actually read the book.

3. The Spanish Civil War I think of as one of the great tragedies of the 20th Century. Fuck the 60's. To me this was the last stand of idealism.

4. The book.

George Orwell went to Spain to report on the war in late 1936. Arriving in Barcelona he got caught up in the revolutionary feeling of the city and joined the militia. His credentials to get him into the country were from an organization aligned with the POUM, a politically fairly insignificant group in the hodgepodge of alphabet groups that made up the Spanish Government who were fighting Franco. Orwell wasn't necessarily happy about joining the POUM, he would have rather joined up with the Communists, which was where his sympathies lay at the time. But, he also wanted to help defeat this threat of fascist, and wanted to do his part and kill at least one fascist in battle. So he joined and after a short time went to one of the fronts.

It's significant that Orwell had joined the POUM. About six months later the POUM would be a suppressed political group, branded fascist traitors by the Communists (PSUC), they would be accused of the heretical crime of Trotskyism, and many of the leaders would disappear into jails, never to be heard of again, and the rank and file arrested as fast as they could be found. Orwell would end up escaping from Spain and evading arrest as friends of his were arrested, disappeared and ultimately died in the custody of the Communists.

The book itself is mostly a narrative of Orwell's time in Spain. A travel essay where instead of describing his Holiday in the Sun in some exotic place he ends up spending four months living in a trench, takes part in an ineffectual assault on a fascist position, goes on leave just in time to arrive back in Barcelona to witness and take part in the street fighting of May 1937, goes back to the trenches, gets shot in the throat, and arrives wounded back in Barcelona just in time to be branded a traitor and an enemy of the state because he had been in a POUM regiment. Interspersed with this narrative are some chapters on the political climate of Spain and the gross distortions and lies about the various political groups that were being trumpeted in the press both in Spain and abroad.

Orwell's narrative of his time in Spain is great reporting on the time. It's fairly amazing today to think that he did what he did. There was no real reason why he should have signed up to fight in this war. It wasn't his country. He was caught up in the revolutionary possibilities being exhibited in Barcelona at the time, and as he says he was tired to seeing the fascists up until this point winning at everything they tried, so it makes sense why wanted to take part, but I think about myself and other people I've known and I can see myself being sympathetic to the cause, but to actually sign up, live in a cold trench with almost no food, and shooting and getting shot at with antiquated rifles? This isn't deciding to go sleep in a park and play bongoes in order to collapse the capitalist system.

The real message to the book though is in Orwell himself. He never politically sympathized with the POUM or the CNT (I don't know how to describe the POUM, revolutionary-socialist might work, but those terms get clouded, but they need to be put in perspective with the Communist position, which wasn't revolutionary at all, but was attempting to hold back the floodgates of revolutionary fervor, so as not to alienate the middle class and foreign interests-- in case you forgot the CNT are the Anarchists, who played a very significant role in the Spanish Civil War, especially in the early days, and their role lessened when the big backer of the Government (which is the side this whole alphabet soup were fighting on) became the USSR and the better weapons and stuff were finding their ways into the hands of the various Communist armies and militias), he saw problems with the waging of a revolution alongside creating a united front against Franco. Orwell might have been naive, but he sort of thought that the war could be won by a united front, and then the revolution, true equality as was being attempted and exhibited by the POUM and CNT at the time could be had by all. If this doesn't make too much sense it might be my fault in explaining it, or it might be in the small differences between the groups and their aims that make them essentially incompatible with each other. Sooner or later the differences between them were going to become visible. And they did, and through lies and distortions people who had been risking their lives in fighting against the fascists were overnight turned into enemies of the government. Men returning from the front were finding themselves being branded the very thing they had been fighting against. They were arrested. The atmosphere of Barcelona became what we might later call Orwellian.

But back to Orwell himself. He wasn't politically sympathetic to the abstract ideas these groups might have had, but he was more than sympathetic to The Truth and the individual men who he had known, served and fought with. He knew they weren't a fifth column looking to help the fascists, they were people who believed in protecting their country, they were people who were giving their lives and comforts to holding lines and carrying out dangerous assignments. And the truth, as it was being broadcast now by Communist organs was that they were traitors. English Communist newspapers were calling for the execution of the them for being traitors to the revolution. Things Orwell had seen first hand were being reported as the exact opposite and being passed off as truth, and these distortions when they were noticed were shrugged off by fellow-travellers as necessities of the forward march of progress.

It might not seem a big deal that Orwell was shocked by the lies he saw, and that he was more deeply committed to the truth than to an abstract political concept or the Party line, but you can compare him to other intellectuals at the time who needed to have the atrocities of Stalin to be beyond any hope of being wished away before they turned away from their love affair with Stalin's vision of pragmatic action. Or you can compare Orwell to someone Hemingway who knew full well that a friend of his had been innocent of the charges he was arrested for in Spain, but he had no problem with supporting the official line that even if he was innocent he was still guilty of treason, because the Party had said so.

To write this book when Orwell did was courageous. The truth being held to be less important than orthodoxy. It would be kind of one of those Evangelistic money-makers coming out with a book exposing all the fraud, lies and deceit that his fellow cronies were taking part in. Or a Conservative pundit coming out with an attack on the lies and fleecing the neo-cons have been a part of, say a month before a presidential election.

Needless to say, this book of Orwell's was pretty much ignored when it came out.

Today, with the Spanish Civil War something that most people don't really know about or care about, this book stands as an interesting read about a man going to war, but more importantly as a testament to one man's dedication to the truth and his strong moral fortitude. biography history life-is-shit81 s fourtriplezed 508 119

Page 127 the author states that while watching a “fat Russian” it was the first time that he had seen “ …a person whose profession was telling lies - unless one counts Journalists” I wonder what the sublimely brilliant writer of this observation, George Orwell, would think if he was seeing the accusations of fake news (lies) that is routinely hurled around today. He himself warns against his own bias while writing about his time in Spain. Trust nothing is the mantra. Indeed.

I first read Orwell in my late teens. I have thought back hard in recent days and I think it was my parents that gave me, for what I think must have been my 17th or 18th birthday, a compendium of books that contained, Animal Farm, Burmese Days, A Clergyman's Daughter, Coming Up for Air, Keep the Aspidistra Flying and Nineteen Eighty-Four. I read Nineteen Eighty-Four first and was spellbound. Being very much a reader of Sci Fi in my youth this was something utterly different. It was beyond great and after several rereads over the years and a good few items as to OrwellÂ’s ideas behind it I have considered Nineteen Eighty-Four one of greatest piece of English language literature the world has ever seen. I read the other books in the compendium and found Animal Farm to be in the classic mold as well.

So where does Homage to Catalonia fit? In my opinion this is an exceptionally important book for those that have been admirers of OrwellÂ’s and look to understand why he wrote both Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. In Spain there was betrayal of the ideals that he held dear by those he thought he could trust. It is not a matter if I or anyone else agreed or disagreed with his political beliefs; he had his ideals but watched them literally gunned down. The narrative of his time in Spain shows an almost naive outlook as he went to the front feeling a part of a working class fight against fascism to a return to Barcelona to discover all he thought exemplar smashed by his own side of the political spectrum. Strangely through all this he could still write about humans being generally decent. Should all that Orwell wrote of those days in Spain be lessons for us all in not trusting those whose profession is telling lies? I think so. Read this book and read the genesis of ideas for the sublime Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Judge a book by its cover? Not generally but image of a bidding of farewell to the International Brigades near Barcelona 1938 by Robert Capa is certainly one of the most striking and apt I have seen.

In passing I would to thank my great friend Gordon Wilson for his gift of this book on my 60th birthday. As I write may his Welsh team do themselves proud at the world cup and may we have a great time at the sevens.europe history76 s Francesc465 261

Disfruté y aprendí mucho sobre la Guerra Civil Española con esta novela.
Me gustó mucho.

I enjoyed and learned a lot about the Spanish Civil War with this novel.
I really d it.74 s Helga1,094 247

He had come to Spain to write newspaper articles, but he joined the militia instead, because at the time the only conceivable thing to do was to fight against Fascism.
Homage to Catalonia is OrwellÂ’s account of those gruesome months he spent fighting for what he believed in.biography-autobiography-memoir british classics ...more67 s Ted515 742

3 ½ stars.

Now, after many false starts Â…

In my first attempt at reviewing this, I began by saying “This is a first rate source for information … on the Spanish Civil War.” Wrong!!! It really is a very poor source of information on the SCW. Because it is on a very personal level, and is mostly seen from a very limited and narrow point of view, this is really an almost useless book for learning anything historically significant about the war.

So, letÂ’s start over.

Why is this book so famous?

The first reason should be obvious, its author. Orwell is one of my favorite authors, as he is for a great number of readers.

I believe the second reason is this. For many years Homage was one of the only English language, non-academic books available about the Spanish Civil War (with a famous author, no less). This book has been rated by over 17,000 readers here on GR. Among non-fiction books dealing with the war, I would venture that no others have been rated by even one-tenth that many readers.

WhatÂ’s in the book.

The book is really two “books”. One “book”, the majority of the words, is about Orwell’s personal experiences in the war. A war memoir. The second “book” contains Orwell’s analysis of the machinations of the Soviet Government and the Communist Party during the war, specifically regarding the Spanish situation in that period.

There are two different layouts for the book.

The second of the above “books” was chapters V and XII of Homage to Catalonia as originally published. Orwell had second thoughts about this arrangement, and later suggested that these two chapters be moved to appendices. Some editions of the work have actually done this. Others have kept the original layout. It’s easy enough to tell about the book you read. If it has 14 chapters and no appendices, it’s the original layout; otherwise it will have 12 chapters and the two appendices. (The copy of the book I have is a paperback version of the first U.S. edition, in the original layout. It’s a Harvest Book, published by Harcourt Brace & World, with a copyright date of 1952. It contains an introduction by Lionel Trilling, which has been reprinted in many editions of the book since then.)

The first book - when. The 12 chapters of Orwell’s experiences in Spain take place from late in 1936 to about the middle of 1937. In Volume 1 of The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, titled An Age This 1920-1940, entry 92 is a letter dated 15 December 1936, in which he says that he should be leaving for Spain “in about a week”. Entry 99, dated 8 June 1937, is another letter, written while Orwell was still hospitalized in Barcelona. From the last couple chapters of Homage is would appear that it was probably no more than a couple weeks after this letter that, having been discharged from hospital and met up with his wife, they had made it across the border into France. Entry 100, an article called Spilling the Spanish Beans, was written after he was back in England, and appeared in two installments in New English Weekly on 29 July and 2 September.

The first book, as a war memoir. Frankly, it really isn’t very exciting. Of course it’s well written, but Orwell’s experiences on the front on which he was stationed, in Catalonia, southwest of Barcelona, didn’t really see all that much action. There was enough action for Orwell to receive a bullet wound in the neck, which could easily have killed him, and did put him in hospital for much of the remaining time he was in Spain. The chief interest of this majority of the book is mainly of the “this is what being stationed on a pretty inactive front was in the mid 1930s in Spain” sort.

We meet few other characters (none of them memorable, for me) in which we can become interested, or who played an important part in OrwellÂ’s own experiences.

The second book. In the second “book” Orwell goes into details of how he came to be connected to the Catalonian Anarchist formation he ended up with, instead of with a Communist formation. (He had had a letter of Introduction from a Communist organization in England, but it had little effect on how he was assigned by the Republican recruiters who were dealing with foreign volunteers.)

Then he tells us of the various contingents of the Republican forces, and the political leanings that they each had. Now hereÂ’s the thing. At least as far as I know, Orwell did not speak Spanish. So, first, whatever information he got was either from the few Spaniards he met that may have spoken English, or else second or third hand from non-Spanish English speakers. Then, since he was connected to an Anarchist unit, naturally much, if not most, of this information came from Anarchist-leaning men.

I donÂ’t remember (and I havenÂ’t the book at hand as I write) if Orwell gives any indication that he was familiar with the decades-old animosity that had existed between Communist, socialist, and at least two different flavors of anarchist political movements in Catalonia.

For these reasons, OrwellÂ’s book is little used as a reference for histories of the Spanish Civil war by academics. He just didnÂ’t have that deep a knowledge of what was going on politically on the Republican side, especially as regards the tides of semi-allied eras these groups had gone through, interspersed with longer and very violent periods of conflict between them.

Now I’m not saying that the things he writes in the book are flat wrong, or are useless. But I don’t think they are a dependable source of information. Of some other books I’ve read on this era of Spanish history, two contain MUCH more, and I’m sure better, information than is found in Orwell’s second “book”. These are (a) The Spanish Civil War A Very Short Introduction, and (b) Gerald Brenan’s The Spanish Labyrinth. The first book, by English historian Helen Graham, is a modern, up-to-date compendium, dense with information, about the causes of the war, the major phases of the military conflict, the political and social forces driving the two sides, and the brutal way in which Franco spent years afterwards making sure that those who had opposed him paid for their crimes; it makes use of much primary material that has become available only with the demise of Franco and the beginnings of a democratic Spain.

The second book is a magnificent summary of Spanish social and political movements for the 60-70 years preceding the SCW, with a brief Afterward written after the war was over. It does not deal directly with the years in which the War was fought.


What is wrong with OrwellÂ’s version. Orwell seems to imply (though I don't know how closely he comes to saying this outright) that the Republican cause was basically betrayed by Stalinist/Communist machinations which produced mass arrests and imprisonments (and worse) of long standing major figures in the socialist and anarchist forces fighting for the Republic.

In her book, Graham writes that this considerably overstates the effect of these very right wing Stalinist activities in Spain (which certainly did happen), and in no way is the reason that the Republican side lost the war.

Far more important were these facts. (1) While Franco's forces were being supplied with weapons, tanks, planes, etc by the fascist governments of both Hitler and Mussolini, the Republican side was dependent on a single source of arms, Russia. (And at some point in the war, Stalin decided to cut his losses in this regard.) (2) The Republicans desperately wanted to be able to buy arms from other sources, but couldn't. Why couldn't they? (3) The attitude of England, whose capitalist power brokers were much more concerned with the prospect of the leftist Republicans winning than they were with the conservative, right wing Franco winning, prevented it. How? (4) England, and to a somewhat lesser extent France, led a diplomatic initiative which formed a very effective arms embargo on all of Spain throughout the war. Of course Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union paid no attention to this embargo, but other "law-abiding" countries were for the most part quite content to observe the embargo.

The Republicans never really had a chance, certainly after the time at which Russia cut off their arms supply - and really not even before that happened.

I would recommend either of the above books, or better yet both of them, as a source of information for (a) the SCW, and (b) the state of Spanish society when the Civil War broke out. This would be a far more useful reading exercise for this knowledge than Homage to Catalonia.
have history-20th-century -d ...more60 s Somormujo172 130

5/5

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