George Orwell

George Orwell's vivid memoir of his time living among the desperately poor and destitute, Down and Out in Paris and London is a moving tour of the underworld of society.

'You have talked so often of going to the dogs - and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them.'

Written when Orwell was a struggling writer in his twenties, it documents his 'first contact with poverty'. Here, he painstakingly documents a world of unrelenting drudgery and squalor - sleeping in bug-infested hostels and doss houses of last resort, working as a dishwasher in Paris's vile 'Hôtel X', surviving on scraps and cigarette butts, living alongside tramps, a star-gazing pavement artist and a starving Russian ex-army captain. Exposing a shocking, previously-hidden world to his readers, Orwell gave a human face to the statistics of poverty for the first time - and in doing so, found his voice as a writer.

Down and out in Paris and London

Surprisingly good read given the year it was written. 

Cassandra Tang

Seemingly, this got to be my favorite Orwell’s work I have ever read, and yes I like this better than 1984. It is such a simple story, wrapped in 210ish pages, written endearingly. Perhaps a caution needed before you read this, don’t read it if you’re unemployed. Because seriously I was taken back about the way this story perfectly captured a struggle, literally just to eat every day. Along the plot, you’d have a mixed feelings from the story, you feel pity about the character, you feel angry that the character got scammed just to find a job, and in the end you realize how this story still perfectly portrayed the low class society. The people that the narrator meet during his struggle, from a beggar, a moocher, or even a glimmer gives more various pictures of how people try to do anything just to make sure they one food for a day. I also admire the way Orwell written that the men who lives a tramp life in London is still a human being, but indeed it’s hard for them. For they barely can afford to eat in a day, most of them have to go even 4 days without eating. And they also have to find place to sleep, most likely ended in the spike. And what people might need to notice, the sexual thirst they felt, to think about they barely have any money for life and how did they can afford a wife or so, which leads to homosexuality as Orwell written. Nevertheless, I still love the ‘Paris’ part of the story, for I think despite the dirty description of it, it didn’t give me much anxiety while reading. I can’t stress enough to think about how many times in London, the narrator got scammed, stolen, etc. In the end, I can only think of 4 out of 5 stars!

adinda

Laura Mauler

Pretty good stuff. I liked the Paris section much better than the London section because it was more interesting to read about the behind-the-scenes of hotels and restaurants rather than the toils of tramp life.

kyra

I found this book when looking for stories set in Paris (because despite living in the city, it began to feel too big and unreachable). The description promised a different perspective of the cities from the glamorous and romantic 20's Europe that I was used to. I purchased a copy of the book and started reading it, but it took me 4 months to finish it. It is incredibly difficult to read. 

Orwell describes his experiences with evocative details without attaching judgement to them. This made me close the book at some parts, take a deep breath and process the struggle. His perspective is empathetic - he never shows any reproach for people around him, nor their questionable actions. 

The narrator remains unnamed throughout the book, doesn't dabble much in the philosophy or the politics of the situation, yet it does not seem impersonal. Why? Because he is interested in and compassionate about the people and it shows. 

My takeaway from the book will be what is expressed in the conclusive lines:

"At present I do not feel that I have seen more than the fringe of poverty. Still, I can point to one or two things I have definitely learned by being hard up. I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy, nor subscribe to the Salvation Army, nor pawn my clothes, nor refuse a handbill, nor enjoy a meal at a smart restaurant. That is a beginning."

Andrew John Kinney

This is arguably my favorite Orwell book. I have never been part of the working poor as Orwell was at the time described in this book, but I have worked a job where I regularly worked 80 hour weeks and sometimes >100 hours, so I related to his work schedule that was so insane he did not have a spare moment to look for another job. It is also a window into the desperation of the Great Depression. Orwell scathingly describes the hypocrisy of the faith-based organizations in England, which had a very explicit quid pro quo in their soup kitchens for the poor. It is a fairly short, but hard-hitting book.

Highly recommended. Other Orwell books I loved are Homage to Catalonia and Burmese Days.

Meriem💫

This is a masterful and poignant depiction of what poverty, destitution and essentially of what starving for the sake of one's art are truly like.

Down and out in Paris and London

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