Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

A more unusual type of biography to this year's efforts:   Homage to Catalonia focuses on a brief period of time in 1937 when George Orwell went to Spain and fought in the Spanish Civil War.  I guess I selected this book because I have a gaping whole in my knowledge of history; I never could figure out what they were fighting for nor who were the good and bad guys, except for wanting to get rid of Franco.  And why was there such an allure and attraction?

Orwell's book is rather like a diary.  He relates where he is, who he is with, and the boredom of war.  They have no uniforms, few guns, miserable weather, and enemies who when the fighting stops meet you at the cafe back in the city.  So I am even more baffled about the entire cataclysm.

I do on the other hand have a different perspective on Orwell.  I hope my impression was not too colored by the introduction from Lionel Trilling (felt I was back in English Lit class) who describes Orwell as a virtuous man.  His commentary often seems like a back-handed compliment:  that his stylistic approach to the book is overly simple showing the mundane concerns of an average man with ideals that are personal not lofty.

Against the bombast and grandeur of Allen Dulles, George Orwell is a pleasant contrast, someone you might want to meet often at the above mentioned cafes.  For a bit now, I will quote several sections that not only convey the ambiance of the shifting sides but more importantly are written with such clarity and humanity that elevate the man, if not the war itself.

" ... this was the kind of thing that happened every year in Barcelona ... an Italian journalist, a great friend of ours (Orwell's wife was in Spain with him), came in (see cafes above) with his trousers drenched in blood.   He had gone out to see what was happening and had been binding up a wounded man on the pavement when someone playfully tossed a hand-grenade at him, fortunately not wounding him seriously.  I remember his remarking that the Barcelona paving stones ought to be numbered; it would save such a lot of trouble in building and demolishing barricades.  And I remember a couple of men from the International Column sitting in my room at the hotel when I came in tired, hungry, and dirty after a night on guard. Their attitude was completely neutral,  If they had been good party-men they would, I suppose, have urged me to change sides, or even have pinioned me and taken away the bombs of which my pockets were full; instead they merely commiserated with me for having to spend my leave in doing guard duty ..."

After trying to get information about a jailed officer at a police station, Orwell writes:  "He would only tell me that the proper inquiries would be made.  There was no more to be said; it was time to part.  Both of us bowed slightly.  And then there happened a strange and moving thing.  The little officer hesitated a moment, then stepped across and shook hands with me.  I do not know if I can bring home to you how deeply that action touched me.  It sounds like a small thing, but it was not.  You have to got to realize what was the feeling of the time -- the horrible atmosphere of suspicion and hatred, the lies and rumours circulating everywhere, the posters screaming ... that I and everyone like me was a Fascist spy ... I record this, trivial though it may sound, because it is something typical of Spain -- of flashes of magnanimity that you got from Spaniards in the worst of circumstances ... They have, there is no doubt, a generosity, a species of nobility, that do not really belong to the twentieth century."

And as he wraps up his brief book:  "When you have had a glimpse of such a disaster as this ... the result is not necessarily disillusionment and cynicism.  Curiously enough the whole experience has left me with not less but more belief in the decency of human beings.   And I hope the account I have given is not too misleading.  I believe that on such an issue as this no one is or can be completely truthful.  It is difficult to be certain about anything except what you have seen with your own eyes, and consciously or unconsciously everyone writes as a partisan."

Which brings me full circle to my unresolved matter of the partisanship woven into The Devil's Chessboard.  I needed a simple book in a human voice after that intrigue.