Reviews

The Last Man in Europe by Dennis Glover

motherofladybirds's review against another edition

challenging dark informative slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

essjay1's review against another edition

4.0

For the first 80% of the book I would have given 5 stars - I loved this imagining of Orwells life and the author is by all accounts an expert. And I was reminded of Orwells brilliance. Unfortunately the last part of the book does go on a bit and becomes repetitive. Overall worth reading, maybe I just don't like hospitals!

clare__emm's review

3.0

Nothing will change the fact that I think Orwell is a boring, holier than thou dickhead but I liked this in spite of that fact.

margaret21's review against another edition

4.0

Focusing on the last years of his rather brief life, while occasionally diving back to earlier times - Orwell's part in the Spanish Civil War for instance - this fictional-though-based-on-fact account mainly has as its subject Orwell's last years on the Scottish island of Jura. This is a bleak and wholly unsuitable place for a man already dying from tuberculosis. Orwell was there to write his last novel, at first called The Last Man in Europe. We know it by the title he soon gave it - Nineteen Eighty Four.

The book is assured in painting a picture of Orwell's life in shabby-genteel poverty, of his somewhat cavalier attitude towards his colleagues and the women he bedded, and his wives, and most particularly of his changing political thought processes which would come to fruition in his last and probably greatest book. Now I need to go back and read the lot again.

damopedro's review against another edition

3.0

Took me a while to get into but then it got good. I didn't know much about tuberculosis but geez the treatments back in the days were brutal! My main issue with that book was that some of the comments and references felt a little too cutesy. ie the way parallels with 1984 came up maybe a little too often or easily. That said it was good and I'd recommend reading 1984 before reading this to really get the most out of it.

claremoggach's review against another edition

informative fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

2.25

steph_84's review against another edition

5.0

Fascinating

kemcnicholas's review against another edition

4.0

I appreciated having a better sense of George Orwell's life that led him to write Animal Farm and 1984. Perhaps it's time to revisit both of those novels, again.

bethanydark's review against another edition

informative slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

bibliotechied's review against another edition

5.0

Jura, April 1947. Glover opens his novel with an ill George Orwell contemplating the opening of his latest novel in the remote Scottish island after returning there from treatment for tuberculosis. It is a novel which looks at Orwell's writing life through the prisms of his books. Dominating is his final greatest work: Nineteen Eighty-Four. The picture that emerges does homage to the literary works and illuminates where they came from. Reading it reminds you of all the Orwell books you have read and triggers the desire to read the ones you haven't. The title is the working title Orwell used for Nineteen Eighty-Four and also refers to Orwell himself as he feels the responsibility to warn the future about where it could be headed without taking heed of where totalitarian tendencies could lead.

I loved this book. Now I want to read more Orwell.