Posted 6:34 PM by *cnn
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

Considered by many to be the most poignantly honest account of the Spanish Civil War - precursor to the Second World War - ever written, M. Orwell managed to craft a story of action out of the idleness which seems the soldiers' lot. While I personally could not look past Hemingway's Farewell to Arms, 'Homage' filled me with a loosely bundled optimism. With a frank and abrupt manner he personifies all the internationals that travelled to Spain (mostly against the orders of their home country) to raise up arms against the Fascist threat of Franco. And we watch as infighting and suspicion tear the anti-Fascist forces into their tribal political groupings; the Anarchists, the trade unions, the Socialists, the Communists (backed by the USSR and against a revolution), we never fall out of love with Spain and Spaniards.