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| Published in 1934, George Orwell's first novel is full of vivid ornithological flourishes. After a long illness, the author died, aged 46, 75 years ago this month |
SINCE his boyhood in Southwold, Suffolk, George Orwell, author of Animal Farm and 1984, had been an enthusiastic naturalist.
His interest in nature and wildlife has largely been overlooked in the many accounts of his life and times, but it frequently flashes to the fore in his writing.
This is perhaps no more so than in his first novel, Burmese Days, published in 1934, which is based on his experiences as a police officer in Burma (now known as Myanmar).
The protagonist is John Flory, a British timber merchant who becomes increasingly disillusioned with the British Empire and its oppressive rule over the Burmese people.
Added texture to the narrative comes with the arrival of another character, Elizabeth Lackersteen, with whom Flory is to become romantically involved.
Orwell's writing about birds is often vivid as when he likens the sound of a flock of birds high in the trees, to a "bubbling noise like pots boiling".
He continues: "A flock of Green Pigeons was up there, eating the berries.
"Flory gazed up into the great green dome of the tree, trying to distinguish the birds.
"They were invisible, they matched the leaves so perfectly, and yet the whole tree was alive with them, shimmering, as though the ghosts of birds were shaking it.
"Then a single green pigeon fluttered down and perched on a lower branch.
"It did not know that it was being watched.
"It was a tender thing, smaller than a tame dove, with jade-green back as smooth as velvet, and neck and breast of iridescent colours. Its legs were like the pink wax that dentists use.
"The pigeon rocked itself backwards and forwards on the bough, swelling out its breast feathers and laying its coralline beak upon them."
This is ornithological writing of the highest order - detailed, sensitive, imaginative and respectful. It could tranlate into a poem.
But, in a sudden, painful jolt, Flory is snapped out of his sense of wonder, and his mood turns to one of poignant anguish.
"A pang went through Flory. Alone, alone, the bitterness of being alone!
"So often like this, in lonely places in the forest, he would come upon something - bird, flower, tree - beautiful beyond all words, if there had been a soul with whom to share it.
"Beauty is meaningless until it is shared. If he had one person, just one, to halve his loneliness!
"Suddenly the pigeon saw the man below, sprang into the air and dashed away swift as a bullet, with a rattle of wings."
More is to follow - and again it is the sound of birds that precedes the sight of them.
"Through July and August, there was hardly a pause in the rain.
"Then one night, high overhead, one heard a squawking of invisible birds - the Snipe were flying southward from Central Asia.
"It was the beginning of the short winter when Upper Burma seemed haunted by the ghost of England.
"Wild flowers sprang into bloom everywhere, not quite the same as the English ones, but very like them - honeysuckle in thick bushes, field roses smelling of pear drops, even violets in dark places of the forest.
"The sun circled low in the sky, and the nights and early mornings were bitterly cold, with white mists that poured through the valleys like the steam of enormous kettles.
"There were Snipe in countless myriads and wild geese in flocks that rose with a roar like a goods train crossing an iron bridge."
What extraordinarily imaginative writing!
Later there are references to "flights of small, low-flying Brown Doves chasing one another to and fro and to Bee-eaters, emerald-green, curvetted like slow Swallows", Teal in the marshes and Hornbills in the peepul trees.
Then comes a "wonderful" bird that , sadly, goes unidentified - the one that got away.
What might it be? "A little bigger than a thrush, with grey wings, body of blazing scarlet and a dipping flight."
Burmese Days was written at a time when, in Britain, shooting birds of all shapes and sizes had become largely unacceptable, but it was still part of the way of life in her colonies, Burma being no exception.
This is recorded in another vividly described passage which finds Flory with newly-arrived Elizabeth, his dog, Flo and a Burmese native named Ko S’la.
"A flight of Green Pigeons were dashing towards them at incredible speed, forty yards up. They were like a handful of catapulted stones whirling through the sky.
"Elizabeth was helpless with excitement.
"For a moment she could not move, then she flung her barrel into the air, somewhere in the direction of the birds, and tugged violently at the trigger.
"Nothing happened - she was pulling at the trigger-guard.
"Just as the birds passed overhead she found the triggers and pulled both of them simultaneously. There was a deafening roar and she was thrown backwards at pace with her collar-bone almost broken.
"She had fired thirty yards behind the birds.
"At the same moment she saw Flory turn and level his gun. Two of the pigeons, suddenly checked in their flight, swirled over and dropped to the ground like arrows.
"Ko S’la yelled, and he and Flo raced after them.
"'Look out!’ said Flory, 'here’s an Imperial Pigeon. Let’s have him!'
"A large heavy bird, with flight much slower than the others, was flapping overhead.
"Elizabeth did not care to fire after her previous failure. She watched Flory thrust a cartridge into the breech and raise his gun, and the white plume of smoke leapt up from the muzzle.
"The bird planed heavily down, his wing broken.
"Flo and Ko S’la came running excitedly up, Flo with the big Imperial Pigeon in her mouth, and Ko S’la grinning and producing two green pigeons from his Kachin bag.
"Flory took one of the little green corpses to show to Elizabeth.
"'Look at it. Aren’t they lovely things? The most beautiful bird in Asia.'
"Elizabeth touched its smooth feathers with her finger-tip. It filled her with bitter envy, because she had not shot it. And yet it was curious, but she felt almost an adoration for Flory now that she had seen how he could shoot.
"'Just look at its breast-feathers; like a jewel. It’s murder to shoot them.
"'The Burmese say that when you kill one of these birds they vomit, meaning to say, 'Look, here is all I possess, and I have taken nothing of yours. Why do you kill me?'
"Flory shot several more pigeons, and a small Bronze-wing Dove with back as green as verdigris.
"The Junglefowl were too cunning to show themselves though one could hear them cluck-clucking all round, and once or twice the sharp trumpet-call of a cock."
"As they were walking to the fifth beat they came to a great peepul tree in which, high up, one could hear imperial pigeons cooing.
"It was a sound like the far-off lowing of cows."
And there is more such as this:
"The vultures in the big pyinkado trees by the cemetery flapped from their dung-whitened branches, steadied themselves on the wing, and climbed by vast spirals into the upper air.
And this: "Flory was watching some tiny, nameless finches eating the seeds of the tall grasses. The cocks were chrome-yellow, the hens like hen sparrows.
"Too tiny to bend the stalks, they came whirring towards them, seized them in midflight and bore them to the ground by their own weight."
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| Pink-necked Green Pigeon - the species probably witnessed by Orwell (photo JJ Harrison via Wikimedia Commons) |
