Book Review - The Road to Wigan Pier (Orwell)

The Road to Wigan Pier
George Orwell
Penguin 1962 [1937]
204 pages

A book review by Danny Yee
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In the 1930s George Orwell set out to learn about the English working
class, spending time living among the poor in mining towns in northern
England. _The Road to Wigan Pier_ is an account of his experiences, along
with more general ruminations on class and the challenge facing socialism.

Part one attempts to give a feel for everyday life. There are some
superb descriptive passages in this -- of a cheap lodging house and its
inhabitants, of what it's like to work down a mine, and of the unemployed
scrabbling for waste coal, to list just a few.
 
  "We walked up to the top of the slag-heap. The men were
  shovelling the dirt out of the trucks, while down below their
  wives and children were kneeling, swiftly scrabbling with their
  hands in the damp dirt and picking out lumps of coal the size
  of an egg or smaller. You would see a woman pounce on a tiny
  fragment of stuff, wipe it on her apron, scrutinize it to make
  sure it was coal, and pop it jealously into her sack. [...] Down
  at the bottom of the 'broo' the people who had failed to get on
  to either train were gleaning the tiny chips of coal that came
  rolling down from above -- fragments no bigger than a hazel-nut,
  these, but the people were glad enough to get them."
 
Insightful interpretations accompany the descriptions, though in places
Orwell ventures less successfully towards social history, with analysis
of household budgets, statistics, housing, and so forth. Some of what
he writes is still topical -- an explanation of the low quality diet of
the poor, for example.

Drawing on the experiences described in part one, and those as a tramp
described in _Down and Out in Paris and London_, Orwell goes on in part
two to offer some broader observations on the English class system and
on the challenges facing socialism. He touches on his own background
as an Eton-educated snob and his life-changing experience as an agent
of imperialism in Burma, before moving on to general observations, on
topics such as the use of "cleanliness" to reinforce class barriers and
the common mismatch between social and economic status.

Orwell also offers practical "marketing tips" for those trying to sell
socialism.
 
  "Socialism, at least in this island, does not smell any longer
  of revolution and the overthrow of tyrants; it smells of
  crankishness, machine-worship, and the stupid cult of Russia.
  Unless you can remove that smell, and very rapidly, Fascism
  may win."
 
Some of this seems odd or misguided now -- snide remarks about
sandal-wearing vegetarians, for example, and some racial stereotyping --
and Orwell's predictions are in places just plain wrong. Though much
less engaging than the first-hand descriptions in part one, however,
this does offer a fascinating perspective on the politics of the time.

--

%T The Road to Wigan Pier
%A Orwell, George
%I Penguin
%C London
%D 1962 [1937]
%O paperback
%P 204pp
%K sociology, politics, Britain
%Z mining towns, class, and socialism in 1930s Britain

15 October 2003

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Copyright (c) 2003 Danny Yee <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://danny.oz.au/" target="_blank">http://danny.oz.au/</a>
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