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Coming Up for Air (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Duecentonovanta pagine a fianco di George (omonimo dell’autore) Bowling, un quarantacinquenne pingue, tristemente sposato, che inizia a ricordare il giorno in cui si reca a Londra per ritirare la propria dentiera. Ricorda i primi anni del secolo, quando era un adolescente a Lower Binfield e arriva alla conclusione che niente come la pesca è stato importante nella sua vita. La pesca identifica la sua giovinezza, quello stagno pieno di sogni enormi dove sarebbe bastato far calare un amo, avere una canna e una lenza per tirarli su. This final section represents the best writing in the book. Different again from what has gone before, we recognise George Bowling’s reactions, partly from experiences we may have had of our own, and also because the path has been so well prepared. This trip was doomed to failure, because the world moves on. But George Bowling poignantly could not believe that what he so wished to be true, was impossible. That’s probably all you need to know about George Bowling. Oh, except that he’s fat. George makes a lot of this in this account of his life. Again, it is something he is resigned to—being called “Tubby” by all and sundry—yet finds vaguely irksome. His creator “George Orwell” (in real life Eric Arthur Blair) was as thin as a rake, and 6 ft 2 in (1.88m)! Perhaps he wanted to make George Bowling his antithesis? But no. There are some similarities between the two, and frequently we see observations made by George Bowling which seem rather too knowing about himself; too astute and objective about the world to be consistent with the thoughts of this character. But the voice is familiar … George che nella prima parte ricordava, nella seconda ritorna dove è cresciuto. Se mi venisse chiesto di declinare il mio concetto di “tristezza” credo che mi avvarrei delle sue parole He takes us from his earliest memories through his present, and all this remembering leads him to an adventure. It’s an unusual plot construction, but it allows Orwell to give us the long view of middle-class England in the first half of the 20th century.

Joe Bowling is George's elder brother. He was not intellectual, and, according to George 'therefore he had a slight proficiency in mechanics'. He never did any sizeable amount of work and worked for his dad as an 'errand boy'. One day when George was younger, Joe stole all the money from the shop till. He was said to have always wanted to emigrate to America, and was never mentioned again. Kitabı çok sevmemin bir diğer büyük sebebi de tabii ki George Orwell'in müthiş İngiliz ironisi ile bezediği anlatım. 1984'te daha çok karamsar ve iç karartıcı bir hava hakim iken burada son derece eğlenceli bir dil hakim. Bazı yerlerdeki anlatıma hayran kaldım diyebilirim. Mesela, İngiltere'de yaşayanlar bilirler, Mart ayında yalancı bir yaz havası ortaya çıkar ve hava birkaç günlüğüne inanılmaz güzel ve sıcak geçer. Hani Türkiye'de pastırma yazı kavramı vardır ya... Aynı ona benzer bir dönem. Onu bakın ne güzel ifade etmiş:His namesake, the author had been too young to fight in World War I, but had fought in Catalonia, in the Spanish civil war, initially for the Republican army, although the politics became very complicated. His book “Homage to Catalonia” records this time. It was there that he received the wound from which he was recuperating at the time of writing this novel. Standing against the trench parapet at 6 ft 2 in., he was an easy target, and wounded in the throat by a sniper’s bullet. At the outbreak of the Second World War, George Orwell applied for war work, but said: “They won’t have me in the army, at any rate at present, because of my lungs”. That was a mere few months after the close of this novel. Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives. Bir de tabii ki George Orwell'in sürekli savaş karşıtı söylemleri ve inceden inceye kimi zaman da bariz bir şekilde anti militarist ve anti kapitalist tiratları kitaba hoş bir lezzet katmış.

Very funny, as well as invigoratingly realistic ... Nineteen Eighty-Four is here in embryo. So is Animal Farm ... not many novels carry the seeds of two classics as well as being richly readable themselves' In 1937 Orwell spent some months fighting in the Spanish Civil War. He was wounded in the throat in May 1937, by a Nationalist sniper at Huesca. [2] After ruminating about his life, and where he has ended up, George decides he deserves a holiday, to spend his seventeen quid he won on a horse, and has managed to keep secret from Hilda. On a whim decides to return to Lower Binfield, and catch those carp which he had somehow never got around to catching as a child. George Bowling is an unhappily married, middle-aged insurance salesman and social conformist. One day, after an unexpected windfall of cash, he embarks on a sabbatical journey to his childhood home hoping to find a respite from his miserable existence and to re-discover the mythical ’Walden Pond’ of his youth. But, much to his dismay, George discovers that every touchstone of his upbringing has been obliterated by urban sprawl and development.

THE END

Nereden ve nasıl başlasam bilemiyorum. Öncelikle tek sözcükle özetleyeyim de. Mükemmel! Gerçekten mükemmel bir kitaptı. Hayvan Çiftliği ve 1984 ile tanınan George Orwell'in bence ilk okunması gereken eseri. Çünkü zekasını, sözcüklerle oynama becerisini ve muhteşem bir yazarın sinyalini veren çok güzel bir eser bu. But when he arrives home, George finds his cover has been blown, and Hilda knows he was not on a work trip. She is convinced her husband has been off with a woman somewhere, having an affair. George feels caught in an impossible situation. Should he go along with this fiction, or should he come clean and say that he had been on a journey into his past—in which case he would also have to tell her about gambling on the horses, winning, and then squandering the cash? We never know. Açıkçası bu kitap kütüphanemde aylardır bekliyordu. Bir iki defa elimde gezdirdim ama tam anlamıyla canım istemediği için bıraktım. Neden sonra bir iştahla bu kitabı aradım rafların arasında ve elime almam ile bitirmem bir oldu demek isterdim ama araya hastalık girdiği için birkaç gün ertelendi kitabın bitişi ve bu inceleme yazısı. There is plenty of Orwellian social commentary here, but as a nostalgic person myself who has experienced a drastic change in civilization’s priorities along with the complete transformations of the places I once called home, I was caught up in the personal side of the story, and commiserated with George Bowling’s experiences.

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