“...You know how I felt. Like I was coming up to the surface of the water to take a breath! Just like the large sea turtles, when they rise to the surface with their flippers, they stick out their snouts and fill their lungs with plenty of air before diving back down, among the seaweed and the octopuses...”
George Bowling is a forty-five-year-old insurance salesman, married, with children, a mortgage, false dentures, a belly, and a terrible desire to escape from his boring daily routine and the fears that haunt him regarding the impending war and what will follow: hunger, unemployment, repression, tyranny.
Thus, he thinks of escaping for a while by returning to his homeland, a paradise with countryside, small lakes, fishing, and memories of teenage loves, to catch his breath and confront all of the above.
An Orwell (Coming up for Air, 1939) with subtle, ironic humor, entertaining and enjoyable. His famous novels, 1984 and Animal Farm, are in embryo form here, in a novel that is equally delightful and prophetic.
