Rating: 
Summary: Uneven, recommended for specialists
Review: Orwell's early fiction is largely overlooked by the public, and while I'm a big Orwell fan myself, I wouldn't say that this situation necessarily needs rectifying. Orwell himself repudiated his early novels. He saw their flaws as well as anyone. One of the worst things that happened to Orwell the apprentice novelist was that he read Joyce's "Ulysses" and understood it; like many a young novelist since, he allowed himself to be seduced by Joyce's masterful prose and massive erudition and was driven to try and emulate it. Of course, only James Joyce can write like James Joyce, and we can see in "A Clergyman's Daughter" examples of what happens when lesser powers try it, such as "Larks also chanting, choirs of larks invisible, dripping music from the sky." Orwell's prose can be quite good at the same time ("In honour of the parents' visit, a fire composed of three large coals was sulking in the grate"), but "A Clergyman's Daughter" is overall a failure, with improbable deus-ex-machina plot manipulations and poorly-handled literary allusions crowding each other on every page. If you're not a big Orwell fan, I'd recommend you take a pass on this one.
Rating: 
Summary: I don't care what they say, I like it!
Review: There is a not very active Orwell newsgroup, and from timeto time newbies wander in and ask what Orwell's best booksare. Well, everyone knows about "1984" and "Animal Farm," so I usually mention that I like "A Clergyman's Daughter." I sometimes get flamed for this. But who cares? I like it! It is a kind of picaresque novel. I think my favorite part is poor Dorothy trying to be a good teacher in a very bad school, and having the parents object, saying saying things like "We don't want her taught decimals, we want her taught ARITHMETIC." Her struggles with her monster of a father is memorable, and the ending, where she cheerfully resigns herself to her fate, seems to foreshadow the ending of "1984."
Rating:
Summary: Poignant, Evocative, and Only Slightly Flawed
Review: Upon mention of George Orwell, "A Clergyman's Daugter" isn't usually the book that jumps into reader's minds, and compared to his polished masterpieces -- Animal Farm and 1984 -- the reason is understandable. Yet for fans of Orwell lies an undiscovered gem, a less understated yet deliciously piercing satire of early 20th Century England, flavored abundatly with the author's trademark social criticism and wicked humor. It's a book that leaves no stone unturned, challenging religion, gender, education, social class, and both the timely and timeless inadequacies and hypocrasies of which Orwell bore witness.The book's title refers, fittingly enough, to the chief protagonist, Dorothy Hare. A girl in her late twenties, she begins the book as a militant religious devotee, shown best in a pin she always keeps with her, used for pricking herself in penance for committing the slightest misdeed -- sometimes drawing blood for thinking no more than an unholy thought. She is one daughter among "ten thousand others" who lives a grueling life under the stern command of her father, the pastor, a hardened man of stern disposition and resolute aloofness, whose awkening greeting to his daugter as the novel begins is a question of when breakfast will arrive. With a misadventure that begins here and ends in a place both similar and entirely different, Dorothy meets affrronts to her life, her stature, her class, even the very faith upon which the whole of her existence resides. And as Dorothy is challenged to think of the world differently, so are we; a defining moment comes when she says, "it is not what we do that matters, it is how our thinking changes because of it." As a theme to the novel and a thesis which he brilliantly defends, Orwell succeeds without hesitation. (As a note, the above quote is paraphrased, and I appologize -- I've already returned the book to the library.) Where he falters -- and indeed he does -- is in the structure of the novel and, occasionally, the consistency of his language. The myriad of poetic prose almost seems to contradict his otherwise honed and scathing wit, and while often pleasing to the ear, his effors seem at best superfluous, essentially inconcequential to his underlying message. Other reviewers speak with further clarity on this topic, and I'm particularly inclined with one's opinion that only "Joyce can write like Joyce," in other words, that Orwell's language in "A Clergyman's Daughter" could at the least be called affected. But these gripes on language aside, Orwell succeeds in painting a stark, grim, yet gripping picture of a society gone awry, and beckons us to look within.
Rating:
Summary: I enjoyed this book
Review: While The Clergyman's Daughter may not be 1984 it is still an amazing piece of literature. Orwell's satirical look at England through the eyes of a fanatically pious woman is amazing. He points out alot of social, religous and personal issues without being preachy. Trough it all you care about the fate of Dorathy Hare and that makes the end a little unsettling. Although, the story is sometimes to "convinient" and it is not as powerful and gripping as Orwell's other works I think any true Orwell fans will like this book.
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