Burma, 1926. A British colony, no different from any British colony anywhere: China, India, or Burma. Never mind that there are only seven Britons in the backwater town of Kyaktada, they have everything as adults: disdain for Asians, turning into open racism, playing tennis, going to a club with only cards, alcohol and boredom.... Endless boredom in the stifling Burmese heat when it's plus fifty in the shade. "To pretend to be brothers in this country and forever pretend to be friendly English fellows, that is to say, to drink in friendship, sympathizing with fellow countrymen no more than scorpions. Our cohesion is dictated by political calculation, and booze is the main lubricant of the mechanism, without it we would go mad and kill each other in a week. It's a great story - drunkenness as the foundation of the Empire.
Eric Arthur Blair, better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language, and a belief in democratic socialism.
The story is told by George Orwell. Orwell, not yet the acknowledged master of the pen, not yet written his great novel 1984, but just returned from Burma, where he served five years in the colonial police. And so - told through the eyes of an eyewitness, a participant and a witness.
The protagonist of the novel - Mr. Flory, on the one hand, a typical product of colonial Burma: drinks from morning till night, suffers from boredom, for fun - uses the local women, on the other - the only British diaspora is trying to get somehow into local life: he learns the language, talks with natives, has intimate conversations with the Indian doctor. Does he differ from his fellows? Not really, except for his lack of racist views. But... a hesitant absence, because he is unable to declare it aloud and turn his own against him.
Two events stir up the viscous swamp of Burmese life: the governor's order to admit someone from among the natives, and local society explodes: "Jesus Christ, what the hell are we in this country for? If we don't want to be masters, why don't we get out of here? We're supposed to be running a herd of these damn black pigs here, these old slave creatures, but instead of a clear, only understandable to their brains, they suddenly want equality with this scum. And the arrival of Elizabeth, the young niece of one of the colonists, who has decided that in Burma the chances of a successful marriage are much higher than in Britain.
In the development of the romantic line, the novel reminded me of Maugham's The Patterned Cover: the same kind of vacuous girl who arrives in the colony looking for entertainment and who can only keep up a conversation about horses and hunting. Of course, she will not appreciate our reflective hero, being attracted to a simple and understandable officer who can dashingly ride a horse. As in Maugham's, the life of the natives will pass tangentially in the novel. Yes, there will be beautiful scenery, and folk dancing, and a colorful local judge, Woo Po Keen, who cunningly weaves conspiracies. But the focus is on the British colonists, and the natives.... well, they live, they bow down to white people, they work...and they smell really bad.
But Orwell would not have been himself if he had not turned his autobiography into a poignant, acute social novel that dispels the myth of European civilization, bringing light to the natives. Here's what the protagonist says about it: "And what are our goals here, besides stealing? For everything is so obvious. The official has the Burmese by the throat, while the English businessman goes through his pockets. Do you suppose my firm, say, could have got a timber contract without the British government in the country? Or other timber traders, oil companies, mine and plantation owners? How, without a rice syndicate behind their backs, would a rice syndicate have been wringing three skins from the beggarly local peasants? The empire is simply a way of providing a trading monopoly for English gangs... All our cultural influence here is nothing more than lessons in robbery on a large scale. Without profit, we would have abandoned it all at once."
It makes no sense to revolt against foundations and traditions, according to Darwin - the strongest will survive anyway. Well, the reader will only have to watch as the hypocrisy and ruthless logic of colonialism leads to the sad and natural end. Well, yes. Not all stories have happy endings.
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