The First World War changed far more elusive than just physical borders, it permanently transformed the consciousness of people, the system of values, speed of life. Replaced the sleepy Kingdom and confidence in the future has come fierce competition for jobs and predatory enterprise, became the key to arranged your life. George Bowling, after returning from war, have experienced the realities of a new time on the skin. All the warm tube fantasies and dreams about steady fishing on the banks of your favorite pond has sunk into Oblivion. Absolutely not up to them when you’re trying to earn a living for himself and his family.
And now on the eve of a new war George never misses his childhood and native picturesque town. Impending war seems to him the Apocalypse, after which nothing will never be the same. And all evidence of the wondrous past of the world will be permanently erased from the face of the earth. So Mr. Bowling takes a vacation and goes to his home town hoping to find him safe and sound, preserved for him for many years. Needless to say, it is not what meets the Lower Binford the beginning of the century, and a modern developed city, in which the hero with great difficulty recognizes old acquaintance.
“Breathe” is a story about our attempts to escape from a monstrous past in the present that is doomed to failure. But without thought SIPS of air from our childhood or adolescence we do not survive, because there is no present without the past. And we don’t just become who we are now. And swallowing the air of the past, we are able more fresh eyes to look at the present. For better or worse.
TOTAL: novel captures the atmosphere of pre-war Britain of the late 30s of the 20th century. Agonizing wait for the inevitable disaster, everyone grieves in their own way, and Orwell managed to convey it masterfully.