Book Review of Coming Up for Air by George Orwell

[@EhrenG]

One thing that I appreciate about Orwell's writing is his ability to portray an environment which is now foreign to us due to the passage of time. It really gives an impression of what day-to-day life would have been like during "interesting times". One specific example is from Coming Up for Air is when he describes the interior of a "middle-class" home. If these conditions were to exist in a current-day developed country, the occupants of the dwelling would be considered destitute. Makes one wonder how people who were actually poor at the time lived. We don't have to wonder, though, because Orwell wrote non-fiction about that too, notably, Down and Out in Paris and London and The Road to Wigan Pier.

[@LifeLessonsFromBooks]

Wonderful, thank you for this observation and reflection about how he wrote and the differences of what we may classify middle class nowadays. All the books you mentioned are excellent for showing us this difference. I recall that both of these books were eye opening for me.

[@nadakataw93]

I have just finished the book .It IS very enjoyable indeed it touched me in many ways since I am away from home and have experienced war I love his style,sometimes humorous , Great review thank you

[@LifeLessonsFromBooks]

Thank you Nada, I appreciate the feedback. War is something that we don't ever want to experience. I'm glad that you are safe and out of it now - albeit away from home. Happy reading :-)

[@JCH0SU]

Wonderful to see someone, anyone, appreciate this novel. When I was 16, I wrote my RPR (Recommended Personal Reading) on Coming Up for Air and 1984, comparing and contrasting thier themes of conformotiy and rebellion - despite never having read either of them. Of course I read them both as soon as I could, as well as Down and Out.., Keep the Aspidistra Flying, etc and became a fan for life.

[@LifeLessonsFromBooks]

Thank you for watching and sharing your thoughts. Any RPR (I like that acronym 🤣) that has Orwell on it, is a great reading list!

[@kathrynlroh5700]

This is one of my top ten favorite books. Glad to see someone else knows what it is, lol!

[@trumptonshirenationalist5276]

The book was not written in 1950, he was dead by then. Orwell through the character George Bowling (pronounced as in a bow and arrow) was questioning the accepted "positive" gains of the modern world. He also questions selfishness of action caused by consumerism, materialism and such like.

[@LifeLessonsFromBooks]

Thank you for your reply, greatly appreciate it. Yes, that was an error. I have no idea why I said 1950. I have now corrected it in the video description. Thank you for calling it out.

[@conceptobject]

I read this 30 years ago. Just yesterday something reminded me of the book. How places change over time and how we idealized the good old days. My conversation was with a 15 yr old kid and it was interesting to speak with someone who was the same age as when I read the book.

[@LifeLessonsFromBooks]

That's wonderful. What did the 15 yo think of the book? I love how people of different ages all have different experiences and approaches to books. Maybe they'll come back to them in later life with a completely different perspective.

[@ryspace420]

Thanks for this. Just finished the book and you've done an excellent job going through it

[@LifeLessonsFromBooks]

Thank you for watching and sharing this feedback. Always appreciated. 😊

[@expressoric]

I read it about nine years ago, but I remember only bits of it. I liked "Keep the Aspidistra Flying", which I thought was a quite serious but humorous novel about social mores in England during the 1930s. I've recently read his very interesting non-fiction book, "Why I Write".

[@LifeLessonsFromBooks]

Wonderful, thanks Richard. Much appreciated for watching and sharing your thoughts. Keep the Aspidistra was good too. Even better when I finally realised my garden outside had this plant but I never knew what it was 🤣 Now I know.

[@filipemachado5723]

I've seen Christopher Hitchens talk about this book so many times that I felt I should give it a go. Needles to say I loved it. Your review on the book is awesome!

[@LifeLessonsFromBooks]

Thank you so much for this feedback. I’m a great fan of Hitchens and even he has a book on the writing of Orwell and why we should read him.

[@madzen112]

Really liked this one as well

[@LifeLessonsFromBooks]

Thanks for watching, always appreciate it.

[@TheMrkaro]

Just read this brilliant book, all I can say is that all of the motifs in there are really interesting. I specifically liked the parts about mortgages and how Binfield changed after 20 years - today we talk alot about gentrification of neighbourhoods and I think Orwell's work precisely captures the feelings of people from gentrified environments

[@LifeLessonsFromBooks]

Wonderful! Thank you for watching the review and sharing your thoughts. Happy reading!

[@tape-mouches]

Thank you madam for this interesting introduction...

[@LifeLessonsFromBooks]

Thank you for watching :)

[@DefaultName-nt7tk]

I just finished "The Second Place" by Rachel Cusk - a Booker long-listed novel. I am very interested in your take on it. I am not sure whether you'll like it or hate it. I have some contradictory feelings with some reoccurring images after I closed the book and put it up on my bookshelf.

[@LifeLessonsFromBooks]

Mmm, I'm trying to scratch my head whether I have read Rachel Cusk. I recalled something about her book and made a note about it. What was the reason why you didn't like it? What was the contradiction? Let me have a look into it because you now have me intrigued. I'm going to check this book out. (Just checking the reviews, sounds intriguing....!)

[@DefaultName-nt7tk]

@@LifeLessonsFromBooks I read some of her earlier books such as The Outliner and Transit. The Second Place, however, was a bit weirder. I would have liked it more without the long abstract rambling deviating too far from the theme and the story. But there were parts I just loved. So... I am glad I read it but not sure if I would recommend it. I am so curious what Your take is on it. Thanks for considering.

[@shaziahkhan1225]

I loved reading this book! The themes of nostalgia are so relevant especially as one gets older and starts to look to their past with rose coloured spectacles!

[@camillawybrants5757]

Stamping on baby thrushes. Masterful.

[@DefaultName-nt7tk]

Great review, as always.

[@LifeLessonsFromBooks]

Thank YOU!

[@MrRobster1234]

I believe this book was written in 1939, not 1950.

[@ianharoldwithers1009]

You are correct-1938 to 1939 whilst in Marrakesh. How the reviewer expects to be taken seriously having made such a basic error is beyond me!

[@LifeLessonsFromBooks]

Yes indeed it was. Thank you for the correction as I obviously made a mistake. 😊

[@LifeLessonsFromBooks]

Thank you for the correction, yes you’re right.

[@electricleg207]

The book is Orwells best novel ,very Dickensian in parts .

[@Muse060558]

Thanks, another Orwell fan here.

[@LifeLessonsFromBooks]

Thank you for watching!

[@IamRobotMonkey]

Hi, just found your channel. Sorry to be pedantic, but the book wasn't written in 1950. Blair died in mid-January 1950 😆

[@LifeLessonsFromBooks]

Yes thank you for this. I appreciate the comment. You may not have seen that in the description, I had this error fixed as I didn’t do it in the video editing process. Thanks again.

[@IamRobotMonkey]

@@LifeLessonsFromBooks Sorry, I didn't read that. Life lesson indeed there! ;)

[@LifeLessonsFromBooks]

@IamRobotMonkey 🤣 no matter all good. Thank you!! Happy reading.

[@LaughingGravy.01]

1939...!

[@stich1960]

I wasn't really a fan of this one, first George Orwell book that didn't really resinate with me.

[@LifeLessonsFromBooks]

That's fair enough as we all have books that this happens to. I need to get back into reading his books again. I have been reading all sorts of different books at the moment....

[@naomijenkins7848]

I found this book incredibly boring, loved 1984 and I still like how this one was written and I think I understood some of the take home messages but my god it was so boring. I think its becuase im a 23 year old girl so i cant relate to anything about the character

[@LifeLessonsFromBooks]

Thanks Naomi, I had to smile. Yes, we can have all different experiences of the book so thank you for your honest opinion of it. If we all loved the same books, the world would be a boring place. It looks like you've reflected on why you found it boring and it makes total sense. Sometimes I read books and the characters just don't do anything for me. Then I read the book again years later, and it's like a revelation. (Eg Perfume by Patrick Susskind - loved it the first time; hated it the second reading many years later as if some ogre had been revealed to me). So yeah, books can be read at different times in our lives and we have different experiences from them. I'm glad that you're reading Orwell at 23. I didn't read him until I was in my 40s. For that, you are well ahead of it. All the best Naomi, happy reading!

[@viewfromtheanglo4334]

I read this book when I was 15/16 and I felt like you after reading this book. A few years later, I’ve read it again and I can certainly see what Orwell was talking about having made some observations of my own surroundings that appear in this book. Don’t write this book off just yet. Give it a few years and revisit it and maybe you can see what Orwell is trying to get at in this book.

[@bertramwinslowiii2119]

I thought it was an AWFUL book, full of Orwell's tiresome obsessions, middle-class prejudices and endlessly repeated and largely meaningless phrases (e.g. So many things are "evil smelling", so many people "evil looking"). Then there's Orwell's sadism (lots of stuff about people smashing other people in the face with spanners, that kind of thing) and the bit where the protagonist goes to a lecture given by an "anti-fascist", where Orwell goes very close to appeasement of the Nazi regime, not to mention anti-Semitism! It's vile stuff. Of course Orwell would say, "Well, that's what George Bowling thinks, not what George Orwell thinks!" but it's obvious that a lot of what the protagonist thinks IS what Orwell himself thought at the time, and it isn't pleasant.

[@LifeLessonsFromBooks]

Thanks for sharing this view. Like always, it would be a boring world if we all liked the books we read. 🤣

[@naomijenkins7848]

I had felt this way in this book at times, particularly the way he saw women. I found it difficult to seaparate character and author in these places because he managed to realistically depict misogynistic viewpoints and objectification of women

[@sr-gc6vh]

That's a really pretentious and dumb take. You just want to read and listen to politically correct stuff, but many people aren't like that. Orwell was writing about people like them.

[@bertramwinslowiii2119]

@@sr-gc6vh Hope you're just trolling me! Otherwise you are seriously stupid and ignorant. Nothing I said had anything to do with political correctness. I doubt you've even read the book. But if you did you clearly didn't understand it.