I know he was in Burma, but how did this affect his future works?
Did the imperialism thing get him to hate large state powers?
The first 20 or so pages of Burmese Days pretty much sums it up. Its a very depressing book with a depresssing ending, no wait thats every Orwell book.
Hey… C’mon… All of Orwell’s writings are not… Oh. wait…
I can’t recomend enough Christopher Hitchens’s new book “Why Orwell Matters”. In the first chapter, “Orwell and Empire” he talks about Orwell’s colonial years.
Amoung other things he talks about how his experience as a policeman in Burma gave him a more complex view of power- and how it brutalizes (makes brutes of) the weilders of it as well as the victems. And maybe helped him see how one ends up loving Big Brother.
Yeah, I’d say his experience on the other side of the powers struggle, and his rejection of it, shows up all over his work.