Homage To Catalonia - Someday I Shall Have Coffee at Huesca

Homage to Catalonia is one of the best(if not the best) wartime accounts from on the the best writer of our times. Serving with the leftist POUM militia(Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista), Homage to Catalonia captures the optimism and idealism of revolutionary Spain.

It then explores the mundaneness of trench warfare, which was more like non warfare. The treachery, living in fear of being outed, street fighting in Barcelona all vividly expressed. Even in the humdrum nature of it all, George Orwell writes a captivating account that manages to share with its readers the horrors and poor conditions of those in the front line and the political backstabbing from those that are far away from the actual fighting. A turbulent history of Spanish history with a huge variety of political entities fighting against fascism and against themselves.

Homage to Catalonia ends with the hauntingly prescient paragraph in which Orwell expresses his disdain for his fellow Englishmen... so removed from the horrors of war... with this master piece:

"and then the huge peaceful wilderness of outer London, the barges on the miry river, the familiar streets, the posters telling of cricket matches and Royal weddings, the men in bowler hats, the pigeons in Trafalgar Square, the red buses, the blue policemen--all sleeping the deep, deep sleep of England, from which I sometimes fear that we shall never wake till we are jerked out of it by the roar of bombs."

While Orwell's optimism for the idealism of the left and hatred for fascism meant that his prediction that fascism in Spain would be defeated(Franco's fascist faction won the war) might have been wrong, but the final paragraph offers a conciliatory foresight that at least... he knew the idyllic life of Englishmen will be violently jolted by the stirrings of war in Europe sooner rather than later. The roar of bombs in particular was such a fitting final phrase... a deja vu to the German blitz(the bombings of London and the battle for Britain).

As I wrapped up my reading of Homage to Catalonia, I wondered if Orwell eventually managed to have his coffee at Huesca(a phrase that was a running joke among the militiamen during the Spanish Civil War). Perhaps, if I'm lucky, I shall have coffee at Huesca someday.