Reading Tea Leaves

There is also a stark difference between Orwell’s bleak vision of an industrial dystopia and Burma’s largely rural stagnation. But what both systems do have in common is self regulation ensured through fear. As one Burmese remarks to Larkin, “it doesn’t make any difference whether they have informers or not. It is enough that we believe that their informers are everywhere. After that, we start to do their work for them.”

As fascinating as the hunt for Orwell is, the real strengths of the book are in Larkin’s rendering of voices from a host of interesting people she encounters, their hope, despair, anger and inventiveness. Many ordinary Burmese are now reduced to speculation and the trade in half-truths, peering into teacups for some indication of the future. Forty years of military rule has produced a dictatorship of tasseography, where people whisper instead of talk and everyday life is calibrated for survival. “Don’t write about life,” the censors warned one poet Larkin talks to. Orwell would recognize this system, and also acknowledge the ability of people to eventually overcome it. Secret Histories is homage to the people of Burma and their endurance.

David Scott Mathieson is a PhD student at the Australian National University.