Rating: 
Summary: Two in One
Review: "The Road to Wigan Pier" has the reputation of being one of Orwell's more important works, a condemnation of the iniquities of inter-War British society. Yet reading it for the first time, I was struck by how really it's two different yet connected books in one.
The first half is a description of Orwell's experiences of living in working class communities in Northern England. He spares the reader very little, having a highly observant eye and demonstrating great skill in relating the misery of people's lives. Here, Orwell's prose is at its simplest and most direct.
In the second half there follows a critique of British imperialism, the capitalist system, British Socialists and the class system. Much of it was no doubt of contemporary importance: Orwell's deep concern about the rise of Fascism and the inadequacy of the Socialist response for instance. But I thought that the second half was less well written and less convincing than the first. Essentially, it's a polemical piece, with Orwell pouring scorn and much vitriol on all his targets, so much so that his more telling points are obscured. He attacks fashionable Socialism (and fashionable Socialists) but is curiously opaque as to an alternative.
In summary this is a famous, yet very uneven work. The second half of it is a chore, but nonetheless as a whole, it's worth the effort.
G Rodgers
Rating:
Summary: Misguided on the road to Wigan Pier
Review: A politically niave and socially ignorant work of at least admirable intentions. A worthy read, but one should approach it with a cynical and open mind. Do not let Orwell spoon feed you with his prejudice. He attacks the entire middle class for being of one particular type and seeing the working class as another diametrically opposed type without seeing that he himself is guilty of the same crime, although the victims may be less 'worthy'. There is no blurring of the line, no consideration for specialist cases. Orwell's world is black and white, but mostly black. His views of socialists are appalling, as is his argument in favour. The heavy-handed emotive poignancy of the first half of the book is excessive in parts, although Orwell's descriptions of various wives in the same half of the book are utterly beautiful and make the book a must-read on their own. Any would-be socialists should read this, just for the feeling of indignant rage it gives you. Students of social policy or economic conditions in 1930s Britain will need to take it with a whole sack of salt. Still, a massively entertaining and thought-provoking read. Go on, try it.
Rating: 
Summary: GREAT, AMAZON.COM DOESN'T KNOW WHAT IT'S TALKING ABOUT!
Review: An authority mistrusting man like George Orwell probably would not have appreciated a big corporation like Amazon.com calling his reporting "narrow" or ANYTHING like that, when we let big brothers like this bookstore think for us we become members of oceania.
Rating: 
Summary: Unusually Dull.
Review: As the story goes, Orwell was engaged to write a story about the then massive unemployment in the North of England. The first few chapters recount Orwell's experience in a working-class boarding house and then underground with coal miners...and they are fascinating. Orwell's deft talent for recounting the subtle is well demonstrated in these compelling and often hilarious early chapters... and then it happens. Orwell's insights into class distiction are well known, and way too often shared, especially here. Orwell cheaps out by prattling on about why he thinks no one really wants true socialism and blah, blah, blah. Even cheaper(!), Orwell constantly references already written works to demonstrate his point. So much so, that any reader would be vastly better off reading Orwell's fabulous semi-biographical "Down and Out in Paris and London" instead. If you decided to read this book, I think you can guiltlessly toss it aside after the coal mining recallections.
Rating: 
Summary: Excludes a bit, but powerful and entertaining nonetheless
Review: First off, I'd like to point out that socialism is NOT communism, since one of the other reviewers failed to make the distinction.
Secondly, Orwell did not write this book "for the socialists" in the sense that some of the other reviews imply. He wrote the first half of the book-an analysis of living/working conditions of coal miners in North England- by request of the Left Book Club, a British socialist organization. The second half of the book- a critique of socialism and socialists- was not requested by the club, in fact, it prompted a rebuttal from a representative of the organization in the original release (which is included as an introduction in other editions of the book.)
The half of the book about the miners and their lives is heartbreakingly poignant, described well by the other reviews. Read them. The second half is a well reasoned constructive critique of socialism and socialists. Orwell points out that most of those middle-class folk who claim to be socialists, in actuality, are not: they wouldn't be willing to lower their own standard of living for the sake of elevating those in poverty. He points out that the alternate view of "why don't we just elevate the standard of living for EVERYONE?" is a bit of a Jesus complex that would never work. He goes on to compare "bearded juice-drinking Marx-quoting Socialists" to the likes of pushy evangelical Christians, saying that most Socialists actually harm their cause and turn others away from socialism rather than converting them. Hillarious, wether you are a critic or friend of socialism (assuming that you have a sense of humor...)
The one complaint I have about this book is that Orwell states that socialism is "obviously" the only cure for the ills of the coal miners described in the first half of the book. He never says how or why. One could extrapolate that socialism could alleviate the housing shortage by providing subsidized housing in the mining towns, and that it could improve the conditions in the mines by applying industry standards to how the mines are run. Wether this would actually be the case could be argued, but the author doesn't even bother to give any support to his claim.
Overall a great book- read both parts!
Rating:
Summary: represents orwells conversion from communism
Review: I am a big Orwell fan, but I had no idea what this book was about before I read it. I read it becasue I am from a Northern English working class background. George Orwell started out as a communist in his youth, and by the time he wrote his last book, 1984 he was a rabid anti-communist. I think this book marked his turning point. He wrote it for the communists. He describes the horrors of life in Northern England during the depression for the first half of the book, but in the second half of the book he analyses the causes of the problems in society and tries to use communist doctrine to explain how it will create a better world. I think, however, that while he goes through this intellectual exercise, he realizes that communism will not solve the worlds problems but will actually make them worse. This must have really pissed of the communists who he wrote the book for! I think this book was a personal turning point for Orwell and is a must read for people of all political stripes.
Rating:
Summary: The bookshop clerk hid it from the other customers
Review: I found this book when I was living in Sydney, Australia. When I brought the book to the front to pay for it, the clerk kept tucking it under a paper bag, hiding it from the other customers milling around the desk. Everytime I took it out from under the bag, the clerk hid it again. This happened several times, until I finally left. It gave me the immediate feeling that I was buying something a little bit illegal, a little dangerous, something that I shouldn't have, because the clerk had never done that to me before or after. The first thing I noticed about my little copy of the Road to Wigan's Pier is that is said it was not for sale in the U.S.A.. I recognize now that it was because of copyright issues, but at the time, I thought maybe the reason I had never seen this book in the States, is because it was somewhat suppressed for some reason. I was expecting more 1984, not a documentary of life in Northern England, not a political commentary. Since then, I have read the book perhaps ten times. It seems that Orwell (Blair) wrote the populist 1984 and Animal Farm simply to get readers to read his earlier works, like this one. Orwell is clearly a master of words, of pacing and of emotion. He can manipulate the reader transparently. By about the fifth reading of Pier, I began to feel that Orwell could have written bestsellers like 1984 and Farm much more easily than this one. So why is the book important, if for half of it he simply analyses the now-historical beginnings of the Socialist movement? Maybe because it doesn't matter in what direction Socialism has headed since he wrote this book, he wasn't analysing socialism or class issues as much as was busy digging up the truth of socialists, of the unemployed, of the homeless, of the middle class and the upper class. This analysis is still just as valid in 2004, as it was in 1930, even if the names of the political parties and the occupations have changed. This book was witten by a truthful person, who perhaps stretched the truth a bit, or condensed it, or altered it. These are literary devices. But the meaning of the book, as is most valuable today, is about a poverty-stricken middle class that gets itself into debt to keep up the appearance of a higher class. And it is about a lower class that is essentially better off, even with the hungry belly and the dirty rooms, than this affected middle class from which Blair came. Maybe this is the message that is so dangerous, the one that bookshop clerk tried to hide from the other customers. This book brings the poverty to light, and finds that the poverty-stricken can redeem themselves. But when Orwell unearths the truth of the middle class, the true subversive nature of this book spills all over the floor like a drunk puking on stage. What has not changed in almost a century is that the middle class may never be redeemed so long as we think that a "plate of strawberries and cream" is somehow our key to salvation. It fills our guts with something other than what we genuinely hunger. To toss that plate onto the floor and stomp around the house for a piece of black bread with hard crust will wake the babies. But more dangerous, it may force the owner of the strawberry farm and the owner of the dairy farm to get their own hands dirty. "And what of the farmhands, if these soft-hands are doing the work they once did?" As Blair points out, it can only get better when you're already living at the bottom.
Rating:
Summary: A vividly written book, controversial in its own day
Review: It's worth knowing that this book was originally commissioned by the Left Book Club, a Socialist book club in the UK, and when the manuscript arrived they realized Orwell had delivered more than they'd bargained for. In part one, Orwell brilliantly reports on the atrocious living and working conditions in northern England in the 1930s. His chapter covering his visit to a coal mine has been often anthologized, but the entire section consists of equally vivid portraits. In part two, Orwell discusses Socialism with such a jaundiced eye that it had the editors of the Left Book Club wondering if they could get away with printing only the first half of the book! Orwell did not fully believe in Socialism until he fought in the Spanish Civil War after "Wigan Pier" was printed, and contrary to the right-wingers who have claimed him as one of their own, Orwell was a dedicated Socialist to the day he died, but a skeptical one. Read "Wigan Pier," and for more information, read Orwell's diary he kept during his trip to the north in Volume 1 of the Collected Essays.
Rating:
Summary: He writes very well about something no one thinks about
Review: Orwell is a great author who gets his points across very clearly. He talks about the working class, miners especially, of Northern England, and how Socialism will help them. I can't imagine that many people think of the working class, and their hardships; and if they do, they don't _really_ pay attention to the details of their lives. Orwell does, and he talks about it in a way that you almost convert to Socialism--until he starts criticizing Socialism and Socialists. It makes you wonder why he was a Socialist at all.
Rating:
Summary: Written in a blind rage
Review: Orwell's writing is alive. It interacts with you, striking you, caressing you, wiping away your tears, turning up the corners of your mouth in a smile. In The Road to Wigan Pier, he recreates for you this wonderfully real portrait of a working-class slum in 1930's England, and you can see how strongly he reacted to it. The first half is an almost overpowering description of the appalling conditions he found there, and it's all written Orwell's way: the floor so old it's transparent, the landlord with the black thumb, the sweaty claustrophobia of a coal mine. The second half of the book is Orwell's political standpoint of the time, which would alter radical over the course of his life. It's not exactly a watertight argument (it somehow feels unfinished), but Orwell, you must admit, is angry and he makes you angry. This is a very gutsy and well-written book
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