Random Thoughts Of A Driftwood

George Orwell’s most notable book is most definitely ‘ Nineteen Eighty-Four’ , a book that showcased Orwell’s deep seated hatred for Totalitarian regimes. The book was a what if rhetorical question; what if the west lost?; what if Stalinism persisted, and took over the world as we know it. Nineteen Eighty-Four is a peering look into the bleak world, split into three main continental powers… Oceania, Eurasia and East Asia. I read the first chapter and saw how Nineteen Eighty-Four is a rather influential book. The working class men going to work and going through his daily routine is now almost a cliché opening scene in storytelling. Perhaps cliché is too harsh a word… but it’s been used so often in all forms of media since the publishing of this book. The protagonist, Winston Smith, is an outer party worker working in the news department. In this world, no one writes any longer. Machines churn out pieces of fiction and even news(which is fiction themselves) and Winston modifies th...

I couldn't let off the chance of owning a P.G. Wodehouse book when I saw the book in a book store shelf. Yes... I'm quite the impulse purchaser of books. This is by no means a bad purchase though as the writing of PG Wodehouse came highly regarded among the English writing circle. I picked Carry on Jeeves... as the first Wodehouse books to own. Possibly his best known series. And by Jove is it a cracker! The Jeeves series follows the comedic exploit of one Bertie Wooster, a little lacking in the intellectual department and his valet(butler) Jeeves, making up for his master's lack of cranial matter. The book is a collection of Bertie and Jeeves stories, loosely connected with the each preceding one. It reads like a television comedy show, with each 'episode' relatively standalone in nature. There is no doubt that this series of books has had a huge influence on British comedy and comedy in general(we've had quite a few of comedy shows featuring a wise cracking ...

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 En...