Talk:The Road to Wigan Pier

Error in Section Two

There is an error Section Two. Orwell doesn't say at all that socialism is impossible. Pages 214, 215, 158 Penguin Ed. "All that is needed is to hammer two facts home into the public consciousness. One, that the interests of all exploited people are the same; the other that Socialism is compatible with common decency." "Yet I believe there is some hope that when socialism is a living issue...the class dificulty may solve itself..." "Everyone who uses his brain knows that Socialism, as a world system and wholeheartedly applied, is a way out." He believed that it was losing support because of mistaken propaganda. He argued that in order to get more support the propaganda needed to appeal to more people - the lower middle-classes specifically.

Spoiler removal

I've removed the spoiler warning because The Road to Wigan Pier is not a narrative work with plot events or twists that are capable of being spoiled. This corresponds with the wikipedia guide to spoilers at Wikipedia: Spoiler warning. Seferin 15:44, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Part 2

The discussion of part 2 really does not do any justice to what is still a very interesting and controversial critique of socialism and more particularly of socialists. I am tempted to have a go at a complete re write if nobody objects.Dave59 12:51, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi. I disliked the wording on this part: "The preface does not appear in modern editions but is well worth reading if you can get hold of an early copy. Gollancz takes several thousand weasel words to say “Mr Orwell’s opinions do not reflect those of the management”." I'm not too knowledgable about the Wikipedia's guidlines, but

A) "is well worth reading if you can get hold of" feels too much like a recommendation, and I the Wikipedia ought to be impartial, and

B) "Gollancz takes several thousand weasel words to say “Mr Orwell’s opinions do not reflect those of the management”." seems informal and slightly sarcastic, and I felt that since it was previously stated that "he added a preface to the book in which he basically tries to distance himself from it" that this sentence was unnecessary

Part 2, minor edit for semantics

"In short Orwell plays the devil's advocate but he also gives the devil all the best tunes."

This doesn't make sense. Devil's advocate argues against a motion. Saying Orwell gave the devil the best tunes, the statement doubly reinforces the negative aspect of the Devil's case, making it tautologous. Reading the passage in context, it appears that Orwell argued Devil's advocate, but retained the best arguments FOR socialism, rather than against it. I'm going to remove the line as I can't get it to parse as correct and still be catchy . —Preceding unsigned comment added by Audubon (talk • contribs) 14:28, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Quotes

It may not be particularly “encyclopaedic” but I like the quotes just where they are. I cannot think of a better way of illustrating Orwell’s extraordinarily direct use of language and hence showing why the book remains controversial and amusing to the modern reader.

There is already a link to a list of quotes but I suspect most people are not going to use it. The list itself used to be very extensive and what it gained in completeness it very much lost in immediacy. (In fact you might as well have just read the entire book!). Looking at it again today it seems to have been edited into non existence. Dave59 15:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Removed para

Have removed the following pending someone considering it relevant to the article and/or sorting it out, wikifying it, etc.:

Misquotations

Quotations wrongly attributed to George Orwell have appeared in buildings around Manchester. In Urbis, the entrance to the lift reads "Manchester, the belly and guts of the nation" and is cited as George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier. This line does not appear in the book and is unlikely that he wrote the words at all. Yet, the exact quotation also appears on the ground floor wall of The City Tower near Piccadilly Gardens. In 2007 the satirical character of Sleuth on Manchester website Manchester Confidential admitted that he'd made a mistake in providing this quote to Urbis — Sleuth 31/08/07. Sleuth is generally seen to be the alter-ego (if not exclusively) of the editor of the site, Jonathan Schofield.

--Technopat (talk) 17:54, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Quotations

It is not standard practice on book articles to list many quotations. Per WP:NOT, we are do not just list any indiscriminate information about a subject just because it's related. One also has to question why these quotes were chosen and not others. If you look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Books/Non-fiction article, you can see that quotes are not a part of the standard template. Can you provide a reason why this book somehow is an exception to the standard organization principles? Some quotations would be fine--if they were integrated in the text. I don't see any justification for this. While it's not perfectly clear, I would argue that criteria 1 from WP:NOTDIRECTORY applies. Qwyrxian (talk) 11:28, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Per WP:NOT, Wikipedia articles are not "A complete exposition of all possible details. An article is a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject." I believe that an excessive list of quotations is actually bad for the article--it pulls information out of context, it treats the primary source as more prominent than secondary sources, and doesn't actually help the reader as much as others may think. I'm going to remove the quotes again; if the other editor still disagrees, we'll can take this to some form of dispute resolution (my recommendation would be that we ask for a third opinion. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:44, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I thought the standard practice these days was to take a list of quotations such as that, and set it up in Wikiquote.

Then this page would simply provide a link there.

Varlaam (talk) 06:54, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I did move them (every quote that was here is now at WQ, save, I think one, that didn't seem important enough), and there is a link, in the External Links section; if that box should go somewhere else, we can move it. Qwyrxian (talk) 07:01, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like a job well done to me. Varlaam (talk) 08:16, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

The article contains the following quote -

"At one time, on one of the muddy little canals that run round the town, there used to be a tumble-down wooden jetty; and by way of a joke some nicknamed this Wigan Pier."

Well now, if Orwell did say this, he mustn't have taken much notice of Wigan during his stay there.

The town has but ONE canal, which runs directly through it, not 'round' it. Far from being 'little' and 'muddy', it's the longest canal in England which was built as one single waterway.

"Geographically, Wigan Pier is the name given today to the area around the canal at the bottom of the Wigan flight of locks on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal."

Nope. It isn't. The junction with the Leigh Branch is classified as the bottom of the Wigan flight. There are two more locks and quite a good length before Wigan Pier.

The TRUE bottom of the Wigan flight of locks is close to Rose Bridge, in Ince, some half a mile from the Leigh branch and even further from Wigan Pier. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.20.97.145 (talk) 23:23, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

That sentence is still in the article, but I've now added a "citation needed" tag to it. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:56, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

In reply to the above, the Leeds / Liverpool Canal, which passes through Wigan, is not the 'longest canal in England which was built as one single waterway'.

Far from it, in fact, as it was built in three sections, by at least two different companies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.25.94.142 (talk) 20:26, 3 August 2018‎ (UTC)

Not sure if sections and companies directly contribute to length. But Leeds and Liverpool Canal does say this (although still needing a source): "At 127 miles (204 km) long, the Leeds and Liverpool Canal is the second longest single canal in the UK." Martinevans123 (talk) 20:51, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

History of Wigan

I see that this article has now been added to the Category:History of Wigan. I've never really thought that this book was about Wigan or its history, and reading the section "Book title" only reinforces my view. Any thoughts? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:19, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Why does it justify only that one "History of" category? Orwell also visited Liverpool, Sheffield and Barnsley. See, for example, the 2011 The Guardian article by David Sharrock here. Any objection to me removing this category? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:13, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

I was listening to the radio recently (radio 4 I think it must have been) and it was remarked that people in Wigan still feel ambivalent about the book, that in some way it perhaps denigrated the town? And while it's true he also visited other places , they aren't in the title are they, which carries a particular kind of weight. I think the category should remain, it's not wrong, after all. 78.147.64.250 (talk) 22:05, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Inscrutible quotation

I find that the following long quotation from the lead confuses matter in equal measure to how much light it sheds:

The book grapples, "with the social and historical reality of Depression suffering in the north of England, – Orwell does not wish merely to enumerate evils and injustices, but to break through what he regards as middle-class oblivion, – Orwell's corrective to such falsity comes first by immersion of his own body – a supreme measure of truth for Orwell – directly into the experience of misery."

Plus the orthography is bizarre, and it's not clear why this belongs in the article (as opposed to something else), either. — MaxEnt 22:32, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Not sure that such a long quote is justified in the lead, especially from Margery Sabin who is not particularly notable. But what do you find confusing? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:39, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Sitwell quote

Was in a letter here? Martinevans123 (talk) 15:31, 10 February 2021 (UTC)