Burmese Days...

George Orwell's novels are, to me, a nice complement to academic study. They are usually sufficiently engaging, while framing dense issues such as colonialism, political power, socialism and consumption in Orwell's characteristic accessible writing style. Burmese Days, a novel that examines the tense intersections of political ideology, gender, and racism within the colonial context of Burma circa 193? is not really an exception, however it is not really an exemplary either. The text starts out quite strong with a focused plot, drags outward parallelly and then abruptly reintegrates in the concluding few chapters, to form what I think of as a literary diamond. I suppose one could ask for little more from a text, some mystery and suspense, solid character development for the most part, fairly descriptive setting and a surprise ending to top it off. It is perhaps my straining for argumentative coherency that left me wanting a little more at the end.
Orwell treats the issue of the colonial experience from both colonizer and colonized points of view, if more heavily that of the former, and uses the medium of the novel to critique the colonial project. Throughout his text, he virulently condemns the binary segregation of 'native' and 'european', exemplified in the code of the pukka sahib. Orwell attacks the blatant racism of his historical context, (indeed at times expounding a cultural relativist position), but of course does so in a way that still appears racist to any contemporary reader. He argues, I think, above all, for a more direct and meaningful, if partially exoticized, interaction between residents within the Kyauktada district that the novel is set. Notably, he rejects nationalism and outright self-determination of the British colonies, presumably in favor of this more "humane" colonialism.
Like all Orientalists, Orwell attempts to create a narrative that is clearly more reflective of his own personal experiences - and tensions - than a sincere and thoughtful portrayal of Burma, without making it clear which point of view he is speaking from. Indeed, I think it is pretty evident that the main character, Flory, is meant to be a representation of Orwell himself [there is even a reference to 'shooting an elephant' in the text], and this ambivalent tension in Flory runs throughout the entire text.
Thus, because this text is so frought with contradictions, its reader is too. Is Burmese Days an outright rejection, a reformist tract, or a cautious apology for colonialism? Is it a rejection of racism, a half-hearted or incomplete rejection, or really just a qualitatively different way of perpetuating racism? Is it a critique of dominant European gender roles, or a patriarchal assertion of women's subordinate position? Most certainly, it is all of these, and textual references can be found to support all of these (and many more) positions which seem so contradictory. Orwell himself, as a cultural product of British Imperialism, reflects these tensions in the writing of Burmese Days. Indeed, while this book is still well-written, these tensions extend themselves out even to the writing style, making Burmese Days an interesting, if uneven, novel to read.