Date: 2023-10-20 Pages: 300 In my admittedly limited personal experience, I've encountered an absurd number of people who praise the raw quality of prose that Orwell produces. If I think of "technically skilled writer", Orwell is the first to pop up. He literally wrote some of the rules of writing (obviously, a bit of a deception, given these were his personal rules, but these rules also do hold up in many cases). This element was fairly present throughout the novel, and is reason enough to read it, in my opinion. Half of this book will make you wonder "what is the plot" as we meet character after character. Then, after introducing its football roster of a cast, the book moves into an incredible plot. At times predictable, and at other times completely surprising, I was never bored, even though the book chronicles the lives of men and women who have many reasons for boredom. I also liked his description of Elizabeth's Paris.