These experiences were pivotal in the transformation of the Empire-bred Eric Blair to the radical George Orwell.
Larkin’s research is systematic and illuminating, having read seemingly everything written by and on Orwell, she tracks down the faded path of his experience in colonial Burma. Unlike many observers she also speaks the language, conveying insightful interviews, random conversations, and everyday humor that is refreshingly candid and honest. This form of political travelogue is one of the most accurate accounts written on the country.
The search for Orwell’s past is essentially a device to investigate the nature of military rule in modern Burma, mostly through a network of teashops. By delving into these redoubts of gossip and speculation, Larkin illuminates the Burmese art of kaw la ha la (rumors) and the skewed worldview that so many people denied opportunity for movement, expression, and education, through circumscribed thought and action, are reduced to. The enduring power of dabaung (prophecy) is one product of authoritarian rule. “These rumors and prophecies load the air in Burma with a sense of magic and foreboding: there is always an unnerving feeling that something is about to happen.”
The impromptu book clubs Larkin assembles discuss the Burmese interpretations of Orwell’s work: the ‘trilogy’ and the celebrated essay “Shooting an Elephant”. Through these conversations and through the vignettes of everyday life by writers, dissidents, political prisoners and many others, it is clear that Orwell’s general views on oppression, how it is organized and its effect on people has a powerful relevance to modern Burma.
But the only time Secret Histories looks like derailing is when she draws the parallels between 1984 and junta-ruled Burma too closely. Only through her skill as a writer does she avoid the clich้s such easy comparisons invite. There are certainly the same Orwellian hallmarks of authoritarianism in Burma, including thought control, Newspeak and other assorted methods of propaganda, censorship and the regime’s distortion of history and current affairs.
But to argue that Burma holds the subliminal keys to Orwell’s political masterpieces is a bit of a stretch, although there are certainly echoes of the writer’s experiences in them. The betrayal of his anarchist unit in the Spanish Civil War by the Communists, the brutality of European fascism and the horror of Stalin’s purges during the 1930s would probably have exerted greater influence over Orwell for Animal Farm and 1984 than the bureaucratic colonialism he grew to despise in Burma.
E-MAIL
PRINT
COMMENTS (0)