The Road to Wigan Pier

I've been listening to audiobooks for years now and can comfortably say that this is a real gem of a reading. Orwell's writing is compelling and the subject matter has a particular meaning for me since both of my grandfathers were miners in the era Orwell describes so the first half of the book is just brilliant.



What really makes this shine is that Jeremy Northam really picks up and runs with Orwell's passion in not only the first part of the book but also the second part: a political essay which I suspect could seem dull and ranty in the hands of a lesser reader. It's so good I shall almost certainly listen to this audiobook again, something I this far have never felt the need to do.

I had a vague idea what this book was about - a middle class George Orwell goes 'Up North' to see how the working classes live - but I wasn't expecting it to be such a personally touching story. My family are from West Yorkshire and, as far back as we can go, we have been miners, living in the small mining communities that are described in The Road To Wigan Pier. Infact, my Grandad started down the pit in 1937 - as a 15 year old boy, the year this book was published - and the descriptions of the lives and homes of the mining families really hit home for me. The visceral account of how the miners would have to crawl through miles of dark and dusty tunnels before they even reached the coal face - and then do their 7 hours of difficult and dangerous graft before making the return trip - made my knees and back ache in sympathy for my young Grandad; no doubt it would have been my lot had I been born 50 years earlier.

Orwell's writing is superb, and this first half of the book flew by, but I wasn't expecting the sudden shift into polemic that takes up the second half and I kinda lost the flow for a while, but it turned out to be a very interesting insight into that strange period - just before WWII - when Fascism, Socialism and Capitalism were fighting for dominance. And, interestingly, many of his arguments about what was wrong in society rang true for our own times: unemployment, housing shortages, the poor eating junk food, and the onslaught of crass media, cheap clothes and technological toys that distracted the masses from engaging in meaningful debate or action.

So overall this was an extremely interesting read - if not an entertaining one - and I would thoroughly recommend it.

"Our only hope is in the Prols". Orwell has this message whispered through this work. Again he experiences privation to gain true understanding of the society he is to write about. He speaks realistically about the working class; about what their immediate needs are and also what holds them back. This includes their own mind forged manacles. If the reader is looking for some light reading, keep looking. This is a serious and brilliant work by perhaps the greatest writer of the 20th century.

A classic of polemical journalism. Jeremy Northam captures Orwell's tone, both narrative and polemical, perfectly. I listened to it on a train ride from Glasgow to London and the time simply flew by.

This book is split is effectively split into two havles. The first half explains the life and hardships involved in working in the coal mines duing the early 1930s. The second half is more of a general discourse about poverty, going in to matters such as nutrition, average earnings etc. It is the first half that is the more interesting listen, and whilst the second half is of some interest it became quite hard work after a while.