Monday, August 08, 2005

More reading material

- Isn't it coming down? Simply pelting!

- Oh, this isn't real rain. You wait until July. The whole Bay of Bengal is going to pour itself on us, by installments.


I'm having one of my book frenzies at the moment. It may have been because I discovered a second-hand bookshop with excellent coffee in Bangkok last weekend, or perhaps because I'm in the house by myself.

Anyway, I just finished George Orwell's Burmese Days. It's got some wonderful passages (see above) but I'm not sure what to do with a book that's fairly insulting to Burmese people, even though overall it's against racism, colonisation and the English themselves.

Admittedly, it was written in 1934, and was probably revolutionary for its time. But now... those little incidental details stick, and make it a bit difficult to read. I'm not sure I want to bookcross it, but to discard Orwell seems wrong.

Any suggestions?

1 comment:

melt said...

PS My status as a book snob is freely admitted. It's Orwell, for goodness sake!