Coming Up for Air (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Often overlooked by many, Coming Up for Air is effectively a social document echoing Orwell’s socialist views marvellously, and tells the story of George Bowling, a middle-aged, slightly overweight man of Ellesmere Road who lives with his wife, Hilda, and their two children.

It gives you a rotten feeling to have your gums meet, a sort of pinched-up, withered feeling like when you've bitten into a sour apple. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. George is aware that a good deal of what is around him will be destroyed, as the 1914-1918 war swept away the world of his childhood.Domestic comedy then, we nod sagely, and enjoy being appalled and sometimes uncomfortably identifying with George Bowling’s private thoughts about his daily life. Running alongside George’s inner disbelief, but eventual resigned acceptance, is writing which captures the very real pre-war anxiety. The pool, alas, is gone, the village has changed beyond recognition, and the principal event of his holiday is an accidental bombing by the RAF.

The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. G. Wells Henry Williamson Herbert Jenkins historical fiction horror fiction Howard Spring Hugh Walpole humorous fiction J. It is written in the first person, with George Bowling, the forty-five-year-old protagonist, who reveals his life and experiences while undertaking a trip back to his boyhood home as an adult. The second section is packed full of nostalgic descriptions, but as part of a novel this is overlong and rather self-indulgent. Coming up for Air is narrated by George Bowling; a man living in the suburbs with a wife and two children, in his late 40s and in an unexciting but stable white collar job.Margery Allingham, in Time and Tide, wrote that her only regret "is that the story was written in the first person. Some readers might find it surprising that Orwell had a bit of sympathy for the chap trying to get away. It's all rot about fat men being unable to see their feet, but it's a fact that when I stand upright I can only see the front halves of mine.