Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell is the fourth in line in The Essays that holds on to the 917th position on The Greatest Books of All Time site, where Nineteen Eighty Four is in 6th place and Animal Farm in the 54th, besides, you have Homage to Catalonia in a pretty good place up there, with the crème de la crème, nec plus ultra – I can’t remember who writes the introduction, but he says that future generations might celebrate The Essays and forget about the rest – incidentally, ‘forget about it’ is a line from Donnie Brasco, reviewed, with five thousand other magnum opera, movies and books, on my blogs and here is the plug: https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell is the fourth in line in The Essays that holds on to the 917th position on The Greatest Books of All Time site, where Nineteen Eighty Four is in 6th place and Animal Farm in the 54th, besides, you have Homage to Catalonia in a pretty good place up there, with the crème de la crème, nec plus ultra – I can’t remember who writes the introduction, but he says that future generations might celebrate The Essays and forget about the rest – incidentally, ‘forget about it’ is a line from Donnie Brasco, reviewed, with five thousand other magnum opera, movies and books, on my blogs and here is the plug: https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

 

 

9 out of 10

 

This is called Shooting an Elephant, albeit George Orwell may have shot no elephant, indeed, the character, whether he is a projection, or the real writer telling you things from his past, who shoots the poor, majestic beast admits he had never killed one

 

That is before the story told here

 

Notwithstanding the fact that it has only a few pages, this formidable tale – or fact, this is debated in the introduction – has more than the killing of the animal, which is enough to move you, maybe even break your heart.

This is also about the downfall of an empire, though the personage who is also the narrator – and maybe Orwell himself, seeing that he did service in Burma – says he had no idea that the dominion would fall, Britain would no longer be an empire

 

The protagonist gets a call about this animal that is on a rampage, and because he is the representative of her majesty – or was the monarch a man at that time, I wonder – he has to act and walks to where the incident is taking place

However, ‘as is the case in the East’ – better said used to be, now social media would have photos and everything online, live – there is confusion, some say the elephant went this way, while others offered another route

 

Furthermore, there would be some that said they do not know about any such turmoil, so when the narrator is about to conclude that this is just a ‘conspiracy theory’, he hears some cries, somebody telling a child to move away

The elephant had been near, and he kills a collie, an Indian, and I was wondering about this, I mean, this is Burma – today called Myanmar, and a sorry dictatorship – we are talking about, and we have a bizarre take on this:

 

-          Spoiler alert, I was thinking, but then you have the title

 

So, we have the Shooting of An Elephant – he will be dead, and then some would say that the collie was worth less than the animal, so the beast should have been spared, if all he did was put an end to the life of a…’low life’

It weas cruel, but then these were days when standards were different – what am I saying, with this calamity leading the free world, how can we pretend we have progressed – and our narrator will kill the elephant

 

There is an absurd, lamentable, loathsome reason – the natives gathered, they were waiting for this to happen – they would get the meat, and leave the carcass in just a few hours – and the representative of the empire felt compelled to do it

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence

Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the benefits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

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