Dorothy, the daughter of a widowed vicar, leads a poor but pious life - she resists the seductions of the local lecher, for the slightest sin, even a thought, she stabs herself with a pin. One day he wakes up on the street after eight days of memory loss and has to trudge along with the bums - picking hops, sleeping in hostels, eventually ending up in prison for vagrancy. Will she manage to escape the slanted surface? Will she accept the offer of a tramp who lends her a helping hand? Will her inner compass find a lost direction?
Orwell's second, partly experimental novel vividly illuminates the realities of interwar England - the poverty, debt, unemployment and hunger that ordinary people had to cope with on a daily basis. It also asks difficult questions about human destiny and the meaning of earthly life - can one overcome eternal hardship and injustice through faith?
Czech edition