Homage to Catalonia

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George Orwell, Jeremy Northam: Homage to Catalonia (AudiobookFormat, 2011, CSA Word)

Audiobook

English language

Published June 30, 2011 by CSA Word.

4 stars (5 reviews)

Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell's account of his experiences fighting in the 'Spanish Civil War'. Alongside many British workers, trades unionists, and socialists keen to help the Spanish defend their Republic from General Franco's Fascist forces. Orwell joined the POUM Militia in the Catalan region of Spain, was injured in the fighting and invalided back to England. After leaving the front line preparatory to leaving Spain, Orwell saw for himself the machinations of the Communist Party leading to the POUM being declared 'Enemies of the People' along with its destruction. Which he expresses in his companion piece the Essay Looking back on the Spanish War. These are fuller descriptions of events culled from direct experience, than many especially current misrepresentations of the Spanish Conflict. English film director Ken Loach made a landmark film Land and Freedom of the Spanish anti fascist struggle with many similarities to George …

53 editions

Informative, if a little dry at times

3 stars

I first listened to Homage To Catalonia in 2011 and chose to hear it again now mainly because I needed a 1930s book by the end of August to complete the Decade Challenge! The memoir is very much an account of the limited aspects of the Spanish Civil War that Orwell himself witnessed and, as such, I found I still don't really have much understanding of the many factions involved, the outbreak of acronyms and the full storyline of the conflict. This was a war with numerous armies fighting each other, not a simple 'people against fascism' as it is often portrayed. I was interested to learn that Orwell himself had little idea of the full politics when he first enlisted to fight, a naivete which nearly led to his arrest later on.

Jeremy Northam does an excellent job of the narration and his cultured tones suit the rather formal …

notes on 'Homage to Catalonia'

5 stars

stunning writing that gives a feeling for both trench warfare and street conflict

the book captures the joys of liberation - and how easily they can be lost

it's fascinating to see how some of Orwell's experiences and observations here come up again in 1984 - a fear of rats, poor-quality tobacco falling out of cigarettes, newspapers rewriting history, worries of being informed on, and the horrors of being confined as a political prisoner

Orwell's personal bravery and dedication to goodness are also evident from this book

Review of 'Homage to Catalonia' on 'LibraryThing'

5 stars

This is a very powerful book. It's a first-hand account of how Orwell found himself volunteering for an anti-Fascist brigade, and how utterly disillusioning the whole experience was, as the fractious anti-Fascists wasted enormous amounts of energy fighting each other instead of the real enemy. There are relevant lessons for any political campaign today (certainly I see the same tendencies in the environmental movement), and it also does a lot to illuminate where he was coming from with Animal Farm and 1984. Having studied these at school I was left under the impression that Orwell was a rather pro-establishment writer, but reading his non-fiction makes it clear that he was a strong ideological Socialist, and his critiques of Stalinism have all the bitterness of someone seeing his own ideals betrayed.

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rated it

5 stars

Subjects

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  • Spain, history, civil war, 1936-1939, personal narratives
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