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The only Orwell I'd read before this was Animal Farm, which I liked much better. Maybe his biting writing works better in a more fantastical story?
Besides the unsavoury cast of characters, I just thought it was often boring, though the ending picked up. The ending was half of what saved the book for me; the other half was that everyone was taken to task in this book, the British and the Burmese alike. The 'noble savage' trope can be very irritating but it's not on display here. Orwell even made sure to show the good doctor's weakness- his sycophantic love of the British and his feeling that his own countrymen were less than.
It did seem somewhat unrealistic to have so many terrible people on all sides in that one little place, but after I thought on it more I'm not so sure. I think the spread of good and bad people in the world is not even, and that's even assuming anyone would agree on exactly what is good and bad or drawing strict lines that could place people on one side or the other. But anyway, I think my point still stands. People seem to expect every location to have the same share of good and bad people as they're used to, but I think it's more erratic than that; sometimes a place may have a larger share of 'good' people and sometimes a place may be filled with 'bad' people just by chance. And there's also the fact that a person can be good at one point and bad at another, and that the society around a person can influence how they act, so a location with a bad influence can encourage people to act worse in general.
So looking at the small town in Burmese Days, there are some unsalvageable characters such as U Po Kyin or Verrall, but there are others that seem terrible in the book but, if they were real people, probably have good qualities and intentions that were overlooked or set aside for this story, such as all three of the Lackersteens. Even so, this small town just by chance might be one of those especially 'bad' spots, although admittedly Orwell meant to eviscerate the entirety of the concept of British imperial rule in Burma by means of this one town.
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