Title: The Road to Wigan Pier
Author: George Orwell
Type: Non-Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 224
Rating: 8/10
George Orwell – The Road to Wigan Pier
Orwell is a cracking writer, and he’s close to his best here. The Road to Wigan Pier reflects Orwell’s working class upbringing in Yorkshire, and he does, of course, highlight a lot of the sociological issues of the time. It might not be as immediately relevant to our modern times, but once you start to think about it, a lot of the parralells become clear.
One could classify the book as an autobiography, but it doesn’t really focus on Orwell’s life as such – he’s not really the hero of the story, he’s just the vehicle through which we experience the bleakness that people of Orwell’s class and generation were surrounded by.
The book itself is split into two separate parts, and I enjoyed the first part more than the latter, but it’s definitely worth reading both of them in full, especially if you’re interested in Orwell and other writers of his generation. It’s the perfect snapshot of pre-war Britain, and an enlightening read which will leave you with food for thought. I’d recommend it if you’ve read and enjoyed some of Orwell’s other work, but if you’re new to him then you should, of course, read Animal Farm and 1984 first.
George Orwell
