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Down and Out in Paris and London

by George Orwell

4.03 · rating details · 9,217 ratings · 783 reviews

This unusual fictional account - in good part autobiographical - narrates without self-pity and often with humor the adventures of a penniless British writer among the down-and-out of two great cities. The Parisian episode is fascinating for its expose of the kitchens of posh French restaurants, where the narrator works at the bottom of the culinary echelon as dishwasher, ...more

Paperback, 213 pages

Published March 15th 1972 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (first published January 1st 1940)

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Jun 29, 2008

Kimley rated it

Shelves: 20th-century, brit-lit

Do not read this book if you are unemployed.

Do not read this book if you are homeless.

Do not read this book if you are worried about the tanking economy.

Do not read this book if you have no retirement savings.

Do not read this book if you don't like eating stale bread and margarine.

Do not read this book if you like eating in restaurants.

Do not read this book if you are sensitive to foul odors.

Do not read this book...more

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Jul 01, 2010

Sandybanks rated it

Recommends it for: Orwell fans, anyone interested in the bumming life

Recommended to Sandybanks by: Rauf

Shelves: ebook, 2010, general-non-fiction

What I learned from this book (in no particular order):

1. There is hardly such a thing as a French waiter in Paris: the waiters are all Italian and German. They just pretend to be French to be able to affect that certain hauteur and charge you exorbitant prices for that mediocre Boeuf Bourgignon.

2. Some of them are spies. Waitering is a common profession for a spy to adopt. It is also a popular profession among AWOL ex-soldiers and wannabe snobs.

3. Real sculle...more

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Sep 28, 2010

K.D. rated it

Recommended to K.D. by: 501 Must Read Books (Memoir)

Shelves: 501, memoirs

George Orwell (1903-1950) whose real name was Eric Arthur Blair, was said to be the 20th century's best chronicler of English culture. His 1984 (published in 1949) and Animal Farm (1945) sold more than those of any other 20th century authors. The term "Orwellian" means situation, idea, or societal condition that George Orwell identified as being destructive to the welfare of a free society. Examples of these situations are: invasion of personal privacy by surveillance, state controllin...more

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Apr 26, 2007

Anna rated it

Shelves: nonfiction

George Orwell is a damn good writer. Sure, he whipped out 1984 and Animal Farm, but it's from his essays and nonfiction that I'm learning Orwellian tricks--and by that I mean, the very best sort of craft points.

Yes, I know that his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London (1933) is characterized as a novel--usually with some qualifier like "semi-autobiographical" or "thinly-veiled." But given that Orwell saves several chapters for his personal commentary about...moreGeorge Orwell is a damn good writer. Sure, he whipped out 1984 and Animal Farm, but it's from his essays and nonfiction that I'm learning Orwellian tricks--and by that I mean, the very best sort of craft points.

Yes, I know that his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London (1933) is characterized as a novel--usually with some qualifier like "semi-autobiographical" or "thinly-veiled." But given that Orwell saves several chapters for his personal commentary about, among others, the life of a Paris plongeur, London slang and swearing, tramps, sleeping options for the homeless in London, and the Salvation Army, it seems a stretch to me to use the word "novel." I understand his book to, at most, have about as much inevitable fudging as a memoir.

DOPL is about exactly that--Orwell mired in poverty, looking for work or working 17-hour shifts in hellfire hot hotel kitchens, begging, pawning, banding together with others in the same state, starving, and generally fighting to survive.

The temptation would be to lay it all out there--"This happened, and then this happened, and then this happened....." Orwell doesn't fall for it. Rather, he uses anecdotes proportionally: the shorter ones add scope and breadth to what might otherwise be read as an individualized experience; longer ones push the narrative forward; still longer ones fundamentally shape Orwell's experiences and opinions. With narrative intention for each sub-story, Orwell keeps the book from being a diary-esque dumping ground for every interesting thing that happened to him. He allows each story only as much it needs to serve its textual purpose. Given proper weight, the story of the weeping cook in the bad restaurant is as compelling as that of Boris, the former Russian army captain now sleeping in bug-infested sheets in the slums--even though we spend significantly more time with Boris than the cook.

What's the point? Why wouldn't a diary-esque series of observations be just as compelling? If DOPL took this travelogue route, it'd still have worth. But because Orwell takes pains to shape a narrative, one with continuity even when he leaps into another country and set of characters midway through, readers are prepared for the chapters when Orwell's first-person narrator turns discursive.

Why don't we resent the narrator for getting all political on us in the midst of a good story? Orwell refrains from opining in scene, saving it up for discursive chapters placed at natural pauses. The first discourse doesn't appear until the narrator is transitioning between Paris and London. We readers want to reflect before we make that leap; otherwise, it'd be too abrupt. The discourse actually builds tension, because while we know the narrator is steaming towards London, with one chance to pull himself out of dire straights, he's not there yet. The discursive chapter delays the resolution and heightens suspense.

And finally, Orwell's plain-language voice is a stay against the resentment we might feel for a pontificating narrator. "For what they are worth I want to give my opinions on the Paris plongeur. ..." Nothing high and mighty in that tone; our guard drops. Rather than riddiling his commentary with adjectives, adverbs, and other grammatical efforts towards artificial emphasis, Orwell puts his money on nouns: facts, observations, and general good sense.

Which means he's following his own advice, from the essay he'd later write titled "Politics and the English Language." Not that I'm one for artifical emphasis, but it's only one of the best essays ever written, ever.(less)

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Jan 24, 2012

Daad is currently reading it · review of another edition

قالت لي صديقتي هيلة..اقرأيها وضعي بقربك كأس ماء .. تعطّش!
بعد أن حكت لي عن فضولها الذي دفعها لقراءة الرواية بعد ماقاله فيصل الرويس في تويتر "أعرف واحد:أول رواية نصح زوجته بقرأتها كانت "متشرداً في باريس ولندن" لجورج أورويل . وبعد تسع سنوات مازال يشعر بالندم على ذلك"

قالت لي هيلة أيضاً : أنصحك أنا كذلك أن تنصح بها عشيقتك أو صديقتك التي تبعد عنها ولاتسكن معها , لكن لاأعتقد أنها مناسبة لزوجتك !

هذا سبب كافي لأن أقوم الآن من فراشي وأبحث عن أسباب للندم ...more

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Aug 14, 2010

Laala Alghata rated it

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“The mass of the rich and the poor are differentiated by their incomes and nothing else, and the average millionaire is only the average dishwasher dressed in a new suit.” — George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London

I am a staunch George Orwell fan. I think he’s absolutely amazing and if you’re limiting yourself to his classic novels (Animal Farm, 1984), you are doing yourself a disservice. His essays and non-fiction books are amongst his best works.

Down and Out is Orwe...more“The mass of the rich and the poor are differentiated by their incomes and nothing else, and the average millionaire is only the average dishwasher dressed in a new suit.” — George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London

I am a staunch George Orwell fan. I think he’s absolutely amazing and if you’re limiting yourself to his classic novels (Animal Farm, 1984), you are doing yourself a disservice. His essays and non-fiction books are amongst his best works.

Down and Out is Orwell’s account of the time he spent almost penniless in the Paris slums, and then in London, sleeping in workhouses and cheap hostels when he had a little more money. He talks of the people he met, the places they frequented, his opinion on the jobs he worked and those of his fellow down-and-outs, who are often homeless. I picked up the book knowing I’d enjoy it — it is Orwell, and I’d be hard-pressed to not love him — but the book gave me more than that.

It makes you think. And I mean really think, not sort of graze your mind on the surface of a problem. I have, quite thankfully, never been in the position of wanting. My parents have provided the comforts we need or want and I have been blessed. My father, however, came from no money. He’s a self-made man. He will often talk about the struggles he faced trying to juggle making money with attending university. He would tell us how he’d have to wear two pairs of socks with a plastic bag in between them so that the snow wouldn’t sink right through. He’d tell us of having to go to work at 5am to scrub dishes at a restaurant to make money, and then begin attending his lectures at noon straight to midnight. So hearing about Orwell stuck in a hotel, washing dishes, is not a difficult leap for me to make. I have been raised to respect money, to respect those trying to make their way of life, and to try and respect every job that someone does.

This is going to sound immodest, but I want to say it because it has a lot to do with this book. I never thought I was unaware of poverty. I may not have experienced it, but I believed we did our part, in awareness and other matters, and I could not be called naive. I have never thought that anyone was better than any other person based on their income, and all in all I thought my stance on poverty and wealth was a healthy one.

It wasn’t. I was still grossly unaware of what so many people go through. As I sat and read through the experiences of this remarkable man, I thought of how much I didn’t know, how naive I really was, and how I needed to understand much more than I do. Then came the sucker punch — at the end of the book, after everything he has told us, Orwell says, “At present, I do not feel that I have seen more than the fringe of poverty.” And you realise, suddenly, that that’s true — but what does that say of you? If he thought he only knew the fringe, that means I know nothing. (less)

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Mar 25, 2007

Jason rated it

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Recommends it for: Kitchen menials, aspirant writers, those interested in socioeconomic issues.

Shelves: fiction

Down and Out in Paris and London is, in many ways, Orwell's version of On The Road by Jack Kerouac: a roman à clef of a proto-writer among society's impoverished and outcast, partly for experience and partly out of necessity.

But whereas Kerouac's account, being by Kerouac, was a very spiritual narrative, Orwell's account, being by Orwell, is a political/economic narrative. Orwell's was aimed to show mainstream, bourgeois society the economic realities of those beneath its radar.
...more

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Jul 27, 2011

Bill Kerwin rated it

As anyone who has read "1984" can attest, Orwell is--among other things--a master of disgust, a writer who can describe a squalid apartment building, an aging painted whore or a drunken old man with just the right details to make the reader's nose twitch with displeasure, his stomach rise into the throat with revulsion. What makes this book so good is that--although he may continually evoke this reaction in his account of the working and the wandering poor--Orwell never demeans ...more

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Sep 30, 2011

Lisa rated it

Recommends it for: Anyone and everyone

Recommended to Lisa by: Brian Stanton

Shelves: 2011, faves, 2011s-most-enjoyed

Excellent - the sort of book that has me wanting to go out afterwards and slap copies into the hands of passers-by, attempting to turn everyone I meet into some sort of class warrior.

As the cover says, this is an account of Orwell's time on the other side of the poverty line that most of us are lucky not to have to experience - not the kind where you're wondering what bills to pay this month in order to meet your rent, but where you're wondering where you're going to sleep that nigh...moreExcellent - the sort of book that has me wanting to go out afterwards and slap copies into the hands of passers-by, attempting to turn everyone I meet into some sort of class warrior.

As the cover says, this is an account of Orwell's time on the other side of the poverty line that most of us are lucky not to have to experience - not the kind where you're wondering what bills to pay this month in order to meet your rent, but where you're wondering where you're going to sleep that night and how to get food after days of hunger. It's easy to see how these experiences informed Orwell's politics and morals, which are a huge part of his later works (well, of the ones I've read, anyway).

I was recommended this by my brother, who warned me of his constant need to go and make a sandwich and have a bath after every chapter - it didn't have quite that effect on me, but it's possible that's due to my being on the tail-end of a two-month sickness/unable to eat cycle which made me better able to appreciate statements like a lack of food "reduces one to an utterly spineless, brainless condition, more like the after-effects of influenza than anything else. It is as though one had been turned into a jellyfish, or as though one's blood had been pumped out and lukewarm water substituted." Yup, sounds about right George (although I feel a little obscene comparing my own situation to that within the book - there is food out there in my fridge after all, if only I could eat it).

Contains absolutely fascinating insights into many areas of life not seen by the lucky majority, as well as some vivid characters and places (being behind the curtains at the Hotel X. in Paris has made me look at those in the 'service industry' with new eyes, and I'm not quite sure I'll ever enjoy a steak in a smart restaurant half so much ever again) as well as questioning the necessity of some of the work those hard-up are forced to do in order to survive. The life of a plongeur is hardly a life at all by most people's standards, and yet 'jobs' like these will always abound while we have people willing to pay for the illusion of luxury:

"Essentially, a 'smart' hotel is a place where a hundred people toil like devils in order that two hundred may pay through the nose for things they do not really want."

Things appear to be harder again once he reaches London, where instead of hustling his way into day work or a bed for the night, vagrancy seems the only option left and we find ourselves in a world of 'spikes' where you may be locked in for the night and fed a small amount of bread and tea before being moved on, well-meaning churches that will feed you on condition you get on your knees and pray ("It is curious how people take it for granted that they have a right to preach at you and pray over you as soon as your income falls below a certain level"), and the ridiculous laws that govern the streets of England that are ostensibly there for protection (people are stopped from begging for being a nuisance, and tramps are stopped from sleeping in public places apparently due to the risk of dying of exposure, but mostly it would seem because being poor immediately makes you 'other', something to be viewed with suspicion and despised).

Sadly, it's a situation that we don't seem to have learned anything from over the past 60-70 years, and it seems you could take the sentiments presented within as those of the average educated man and pop it straight into the mouths of the Government and the well-off today:

"We know that poverty is unpleasant; in fact, since it is so remote, we rather enjoy harrowing ourselves with the thought of its unpleasantness. But don't expect us to do anything about it. We are sorry for you lower classes, just as we are sorry for a cat with the mange, but we will fight like devils against any improvement of your condition. We feel that you are much safer as you are. The present state of affairs suits us, and we are not going to take the risk of setting you free, even by an extra hour a day. So, dear brothers, since evidently you must sweat to pay for our trips to Italy, sweat and be damned to you."

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Jan 06, 2012

John David rated it

Shelves: literary-fiction

The title isn't pretentious; it doesn't claim to be something it isn't. This book is, quite literally, about being down and out in Paris and London. Having been published in 1933 it is, as far as I know, the first full-length book that Orwell published. However early it comes in his career, you can sense some of the nascent ideas and concerns that would haunt his work for the rest of his life: the virtues of democratic socialism and the plight of the working poor.

In Paris, Orwell ta...moreThe title isn't pretentious; it doesn't claim to be something it isn't. This book is, quite literally, about being down and out in Paris and London. Having been published in 1933 it is, as far as I know, the first full-length book that Orwell published. However early it comes in his career, you can sense some of the nascent ideas and concerns that would haunt his work for the rest of his life: the virtues of democratic socialism and the plight of the working poor.

In Paris, Orwell takes a job as a plongeur in an anonymous hotel. He trenchantly describes the "caste system" that exists within all of the finest hotels in Paris, from the manager to the lowest of the low, the dishwashers. His work is grueling, lasting up to fourteen or sixteen hours a day, only to go home, get almost no sleep, and have to do the same thing the next day, six days a week. While in Paris, he befriends an ex-military Russian by the name of Boris who is much the same predicament. Eager to find a job that allowed more than a few hours of sleep every night, he eventually quits his job and heads to London.

When he arrives in London, he is without a job and is forced to live in hostels and lodging houses. Because of British law which says that you can't stay in the same one for more than a few days, he is forced into becoming a transient. In London, he meets several people, including the Irishman Paddy and Bozo, a street artist. His ability to relate to them as more than simply "homeless" people is extraordinarily honest and sincere. He openly admits that these people are every bit as interesting (sometimes more so) than the middle-class Parisians and Londoners who walk the city streets and look down on Orwell and his friends.

The details of his day-to-day life can be debilitating to anyone with even a soupcon of optimism, but the book isn't without its gems. There are a handful of times when Orwell interrupts the action of the novel and interjects his critical social commentary. Even though they only last a couple of pages a piece, this constitutes some of the best writing in the book, reminiscent his greatest essays. This is a shining example, from Chapter XXXIV on "tramps":

"To take a fundamental question about vagrancy: Why do tramps exist at all? It is a curious thing, but very few people know what makes a tramp take to the road. And, because of the belief in the tramp-monster, the most fantastic reasons are suggested. It is said, for instance, that tramps tramp to avoid work, to beg more easily, to seek opportunities for crime, even - least probable of reasons - because they like tramping. I have even read in a book of criminology that the tramp in an atavism, a throwback to the nomadic stage of humanity. And meanwhile the quite obvious cause of vagrancy is staring one in the face. Of course a tramp is not a nomadic atavism - one might as well say that a commercial traveler is an atavism. A tramp tramps, not because he likes it, but for the same reason as a car keeps to the left; because there happens to be a law compelling him to do so. A destitute man, if he is not supported by the parish, can only get relief at the casual wards, and as each casual ward will only admit him for one night, he is automatically kept moving. He is a vagrant because, in the state of the law, it is that or starve. But people have been brought up to believe in the tramp-monster, and so they prefer to think that there must be some more of less villainous motive for tramping" (p. 201).
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Nov 13, 2008

Chase Von rated it

Recommends it for: Everyone who is an adult!!!

Down and Out in Paris and London is yet another book by George Orwell I couldn't put down! I am well into my adult life yet I had some how managed to not read any of his works until a friend convinced me I "Had" to read 1984. I'd heard the term "Big Brother" like we all had but since I read that book, I have made it a mission in life to get my hands on everything he has ever written! Without a doubt I would have to say he is certainly my favorite author! Down and Out like all...moreDown and Out in Paris and London is yet another book by George Orwell I couldn't put down! I am well into my adult life yet I had some how managed to not read any of his works until a friend convinced me I "Had" to read 1984. I'd heard the term "Big Brother" like we all had but since I read that book, I have made it a mission in life to get my hands on everything he has ever written! Without a doubt I would have to say he is certainly my favorite author! Down and Out like all the works I've read by him thus far, grabbed me instantly.

The descriptions alone allows one the sense of being wherever it is he is describing and the characters he employs all smack of realism as does the subject matter and conversations themselves! As in all the stories I've read by Orwell, he leaves no stone unturned! Humor is addressed, reality is addressed, and one can't help but feel after reading this story that they have been given a birds eye view of living a life of poverty through the eyes one who has in fact endured it and can recant what was witnessed and observed with uncanny accuracy and in vivid detail!

Orwell will take you into the streets, into the pawn shops, into the squalor and one would think below human living conditions and the severe differences/truths about our society and the chasms that exist between those that have and those that have literally nothing. Graphic, in depth in the varying beliefs and also sure to hit even the most emotionless person, in a place where they will no doubt feel sympathy for impoverished.

What Orwell has managed to do in all the stories I have read by him thus far, is take something like homelessness, poverty, refusing to bow to the "Money God" or politics or you name it and put a human face on it.

One that will remain with you long after you have completed the read.

Couldn't recommend this another "Extraordinary Literary Master Piece" with the rating system here so a five and hopefully the weight of what I have shared here will be enough to convince those that haven't read it, that they will be immensely thankful that they did.

Your Chance to Hear The Last Panther Speak (less)

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Sep 12, 2008

Sarah rated it

Recommends it for: Curious people

Recommended to Sarah by: My godmother, Zoe Kiethley

Okay, okay, while George Orwell was living in both Paris and London he was getting an allowance form his family and he was never as poor as he said he was. He was in fact, slumming just as Emerson was living on Thoreau's estate and going hom to his motehr's house for dinner when he lived at Walden Pond. The question is, does that make their observations, conclusions and theses less viable?

I enjoyed reading this book because Orwell had a matter of fact style and he was very observan...more

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Aug 16, 2008

Chris rated it

This was Orwell's first book of reportage - to follow were accounts of his time fighting in the Spanish Civil War in Homage to Catalonia, and surveying the exploited working classes in the mining towns in the north and in Wales, in The Road to Wigan Pier. In Down and Out in Paris and London, Orwell spent a considerable amount of time living as in the slums of Paris, being desperately hungry, pawning his clothes for food, and working the overworked life at the bottom of restaurants and hotels in ...moreThis was Orwell's first book of reportage - to follow were accounts of his time fighting in the Spanish Civil War in Homage to Catalonia, and surveying the exploited working classes in the mining towns in the north and in Wales, in The Road to Wigan Pier. In Down and Out in Paris and London, Orwell spent a considerable amount of time living as in the slums of Paris, being desperately hungry, pawning his clothes for food, and working the overworked life at the bottom of restaurants and hotels in Paris as a plongeur, i.e., dishwasher, abused and overworked for as much as 17 hours a day. He follows this with time as a vagrant in London, living the life of a tramp, or 'screever', shuffling from one charity house to the next, smoking cigarette butts off the streets, sleeping in horrid conditions, and being hungry and exposed to the elements in-between surviving on a diet of charity - a cup of milk-less watery tea and two slices of dirty, stale bread with a dab of margarine - for months on end. Orwell lived this deprived life and wrote about it with his trademark simplicity and honesty, which makes for both easy and engrossing reading, whose moral is that the poor are just like you and I, not similar, but just like you and I. He summarizes this time of his life, as always, with his frank and enviable honesty and moral clarity:

"My story ends here. It is a fairly trivial story, and I can only hope that is has been interesting in the same way a travel diary is interesting. I can say at least, here is the world that awaits you if you are every penniless. Some day I want to explore that world more thoroughly. I should like to know more people like Mario and Paddy and Bill the moocher, not from casual encounters, but intimately; I should like to really understand what really goes on in the souls of plongeurs and tramps and Embankment sleepers. 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 that 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."

Again, like every Orwell book, well worth reading and well recommended.(less)

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Mar 30, 2008

Kristopher Jansma rated it

Shelves: bookblog

I've taught Orwell's non-fiction in earlier classes, usually "Shooting an Elephant" and "A Hanging" and I had to read some of Homage to Catalonia in Grad School - but otherwise I had not really known Orwell as anything other than a fiction writer. 1984 and Animal Farm were huge for me in late High School, as they are for so many people, I think. I always worried that those books would seem silly now that I'd gotten a bit older, but after reading Down and Out in Paris and Lond...moreI've taught Orwell's non-fiction in earlier classes, usually "Shooting an Elephant" and "A Hanging" and I had to read some of Homage to Catalonia in Grad School - but otherwise I had not really known Orwell as anything other than a fiction writer. 1984 and Animal Farm were huge for me in late High School, as they are for so many people, I think. I always worried that those books would seem silly now that I'd gotten a bit older, but after reading Down and Out in Paris and London I'd have to give them the benefit of the doubt once more.

"It is altogether curious, your first contact with poverty. You have thought so much about poverty - it is the thing you've feared all your life, the thing you knew would happen to you sooner or later; and it is all so utterly and prosaically different. You thought it would be quite simple; it is extraordinarily complicated. You thought it would be terrible; it is merely squalid and boring. It is the particular lowness of poverty that you discover first; the shifts that it puts you to, the complicated meanness, the crust-wiping."

What follows is an incredibly detailed, while completely detached, telling of Orwell's own times living on the streets in Paris and London, sometime after leaving British military service in India. He doesn't spend a lot of time on himself - for instance, how he hides the very education that give him the words to observe all that he does - but he focuses on the simple daily ins-and-outs of poverty... which as he explains, is all that you can possible think about when you're poor. There's never any thought about tomorrow or next week or next year, because you've got to focus 100% on what's happening today. He goes through the various plots and schemes that he goes through in an effort to get even a little money or a small amount of food, which often take hours and hours of the day to execute. In effect you get a rare look at exactly how clever you have to be in order to survive - and exactly how much work it is to do it. As you read, you think that you will never again look at a homeless person and think of them as lazy or unintelligent or some sort of hopeless case. I've yet to see if this perspective really sticks with me in the real world, but I'd like to think it could. I wondered often how true his observations would be of the homeless population today - but I'd think that a large amount of the experience must be very much the same.

I really recommend this one to just about anyone - even if you think you have zero-interest in homelessness at all. The stories he tells are fantastic; the people he shows you are unforgettable. Particularly, I liked Furex, a Parisian who goes from Communist to Patriot as he gets drunker each night. Or Roucolle and Charlie, two bums-who-would-be-cocaine smugglers. Or Valenti, who prays to a picture of St. Eloise for money, and receives some by coincidence shortly thereafter - who then must decide between buying himself cigarettes or buying St. Eloise a candle in gratitude, until he realizes that the picture he prayed to was of the owner of the boarding house he's been staying in.

The stories get more interesting as Orwell begins to work with a friend, former Russian Officer Boris with a bad limp, as a dishwasher in fancy "Hotel X." Quickly he realizes that the job affords him food and shelter, but he must work 14 hours a day, 6 days a week, in slave-like conditions, without any chance of bettering his situation. PS - the stories of the backrooms of Hotel X will make you never want to eat in a restaurant or stay at a hotel again. Eventually he leaves to go with Boris to work as a waiter in a new Hotel, which is struggling to open, and winds up quitting there just before it manages to get on its feet. Later he travels to London, which is a bit briefer and not as exciting overall - but having been poor in two different countries, he is able to make some keen comparisons and ultimately the book ends with his thoughts on how to solve the problem of homelessness, which I thought was unexpected. It was almost refreshing, after this colorful but dismal story, to have some solid proposals in the end for how to make actual changes. I don't know that modern New Journalism tends to get quite this far ever - I feel we are often too jaded to expect anyone can come up with a valid idea.

I actually wonder now if any of his ideas were put into practice after he grew in popularity and the book sold copies. His main point is that the city of London makes it illegal to beg or stay in a certain shelter more than one night a month. He argues that this forces the poor to come up with silly, time-consuming trades... such as drawing on sidewalks with chalk, or gathering up used cigarette butts, emptying out the tobacco and rolling new cigarettes to sell for money. You can't sleep outside for fear of being jailed (unlike in Paris) so the homeless spend hours just moving from one shelter to the next and making sure they can get a bed for the night. Orwell argues that these laws don't do much for the homeless besides keep them busy, making them less of a "threat" to the populace, but never giving them time to settle in somewhere and try to think beyond the day they're in. He admits that none of the poor he knew ever saved any money - when they had some it was fast spent on drink or tobacco - but he says that none were unwilling to work if there was work to be done. He ends by suggesting the governments employ the homeless to work outside of the city in gardens, where they could grow food, which they could then eat and sell, and eventually find some stability.

While I can't quite picture this exact scenario here in Manhattan, it doesn't sound like an entirely bad idea at heart. On my way to the bank today I spotted the usual scavengers going over the recycling bags, plucking out everything they could before collection, so they could cash them in at our local grocery store. It can't be enjoyable, even when it isn't freezing, but there are dozens of them out there, tearing open the bags my Super put out and loading up carts and often just other bags, then taking them up the street to the Associated for a couple of bucks. The whole thing just seems so circular, with all the cans and bottles getting to the same place in the end. Before I'd have thought it was a good thing, for the homeless to have some way of making some money - but now I'm wondering why we have a system set up to just keep them running around in circles, digging through trash cans. Couldn't they just be paid, like anyone else, to go around and collect the already bagged recycling? I'm sure I'm missing the point here, but anyway - that's the sort of thing I'll be thinking about after reading this book.(less)

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Jan 23, 2008

Matthew rated it

There was always something about Aldous Huxley that seemed basically mean to me. Despite the inconsistent brilliance of books like Point, Counter Point, The Devils of Loudon, and of course Brave New World, in all these works Huxley has about as much compassion and warmth towards his characters as a lepidopterist fixing a butterfly on a pin, and about as much sympathy for humanity writ large as, well, any of those other great nihilists.

George Orwell, on the other hand -- who often see...more

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Sep 14, 2007

Indra rated it

Shelves: orwell

Down and Out, yang baru-baru ini saya lihat di toko buku sudah diterjemahkan sebagai 'Melarat' (Sial! Padahal saya sebenarnya bercita-cita menerjemahkan buku ini.) adalah salah satu karya Orwell yang paling sering saya baca dan bawa ke mana-mana. Dengan cerdik Orwell mengisahkan ulang pengalaman pribadinya 'bunuh diri kelas' meninggalkan statusnya sebagai kelas menengah-borjuis-berpendidikan namun miskin, dan menerjuni pengalaman hidup sebagai pariah masyarakat Eropa.

'Melarat' pun bu...more

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Nov 29, 2007

Robert Ross rated it

Recommends it for: starving artists who can't afford to live

One of these days I'll just go to Paris and be poor instead of being poor where I am. But until that day comes, I'll keep reading books about being poor in Paris. And of course, it was a rather enjoyable read, especially the first half of the book set in Paris working as a plongeur in hotels, but the last half of the book is a little slower. And quite frankly, who wants to go be a bum in London? No one, that's who. No one.

Still, I enjoyed "Down and Out..." but I don't think...more

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Aug 01, 2011

Janet added it

Like “The Road to Wigan Pier”, this book is a social commentary about the lives of ordinary lower-class people living on, or below, the breadline.

The first 23 chapters look at Orwell’s life in the slums of Paris where he finds himself living in a squalid, bug-infested ‘hotel’ which is really little more than a doss house. At first he was able to make a little money by giving English lessons, but they soon came to an end and he had to pawn most of his possessions.

Thanks to a friend, Boris, ...moreLike “The Road to Wigan Pier”, this book is a social commentary about the lives of ordinary lower-class people living on, or below, the breadline.

The first 23 chapters look at Orwell’s life in the slums of Paris where he finds himself living in a squalid, bug-infested ‘hotel’ which is really little more than a doss house. At first he was able to make a little money by giving English lessons, but they soon came to an end and he had to pawn most of his possessions.

Thanks to a friend, Boris, he got a job working fifteen hours a day as a ‘Plongeur’ (basically someone who washes up!) in a hotel working in hot, dirty conditions for very little money. After moving to a hotel with better prospects, only to end up doing the same job for even longer hours, Orwell decided to head back to England and with financial help from a friend he reclaimed his belongings from the pawn shop and purchased a ticket back to the UK, where he had been promised a job taking care of an ‘imbecile’.

However, on returning to England, the start date for his new job was delayed for a month so he sold his clothes and took to the road (after a brief spell trying different boarding houses). He befriended a tramp called Paddy and they travelled together, sometimes walking as many as 18 miles a day between various towns, staying at “The Spike” - a colloquial term for the Workhouse.

A vagrant was only allowed to spend one night per month at a particular institution - any longer, or to return within a month, meant prison. Here they swapped their squalid clothes for a uniform (whilst their clothes were fumigated), a bath, a bed and some little, poor quality food. In the morning, they would perform various duties to ‘pay for their keep’ before being given a meal of bread and cheese to take with them, or a voucher for exchange at a local café.

There were various ways for people on the road to get a meal, including soup kitchens, visiting churches (where they would get a good meal but then have to attend a religious service before being allowed to leave), but mostly society felt that these people chose to live like this without looking at the reasons they’d ended up having such a life, so they were treated badly, their diet was poor and life was very hard.

Of course, for Orwell, although he lived amongst these people and lived exactly like them, he had the safety net of family and friends - this way of life for him was really so that he could observe the living conditions in order to write firstly essays on homelessness and then later this book.

Orwell’s writing style is very easy and he has real empathy for these people and therefore writes with sympathy and compassion. It’s a fascinating read and one I really enjoyed.
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Mar 01, 2009

Brent Jones rated it

Orwell presents this story as an autobiography. He starts the story in Paris where he prepares to go to work in a Hotel but then for a variety of reasons sort of just descends into poverty. Being an English teacher doesn't work and waiting to take a job in a hotel and the problems he has leaves him close to starvation. Even finding the Hotel job just leaves him with long hours of work and he finds himself at the bottom of a hotel's social structure. This is reflective of the society he lives in ...more

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Dec 14, 2008

Megan rated it

Shelves: q2

December 13, 2008

In Down and Out in Paris and London, Orwell considers a lack of medical care, shelter, and food in the slums of London. The poor were basically left out in the cold with no hope of ever finding a job or getting off the streets. Orwell basically examins the balance between ignorance and luck. He observes that most tramps and homeless people live in horribly uninformed state. Many could not even read. Most hate books and learned people. Some (a smalle...more

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Nov 28, 2008

Jukka added it

Down and Out in Paris and London - George Orwell
This is a very good read, both entertaining and thought provoking. Think the social class one below Nickel and Dimed by Ehrenreich, done by Orwell, with Paris and London as the milieu. London then sounded a far worse place than Paris.

A lot of different thoughts here. One chapter describes drug smuggling in the 30's. Another chapter makes brilliant comment on words taken as swearing, and other slang, there origins and evolution. Ch...more

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Jan 24, 2012

HEILA GH rated it

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ياإلهي أي نوعية من البشر تسطيع أن تكتب عن البؤس بهذه الخفة ؟ رأسي كان يركض في كل الإتجاهات دماغي تحول إلى فرن .

حسنًا لم أفكر بهذه الرواية أبدًا , ولم تكن في هاجسي .
حينما كتب فيصل الرويس " أعرف واحد:أول رواية نصح زوجته بقرأتها كانت "متشرداً في باريس ولندن" لجورج أورويل . وبعد تسع سنوات مازال يشعر بالندم على ذلك. ‎:) "
لم أطق أن أنتظر أكثر لأعرف مالذي يدفع رجلًا بأن يندم تسع سنوات لأنه فقط نصح زوجته برواية ؟

لك أن تهديه لصاحبك الذي ضجرت منه لأ...more

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Nov 21, 2011

Ben Richmond rated it

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Shelves: historical-fic, mighty-bleak, well-styled, writers_on_writing_life

It's the socialist sister of Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, which is to say it takes place in an old filthy disgusting Paris. You can't accuse either title of romanticizing the era (and the poverty); if anything both books mention enough bedbugs, ants and bummer-employment to disabuse any notions of the starving artist mystique.
In addition to featuring many fewer prostitutes than Miller's notorious work, Down and Out also has a much more social scope, but rarely (if ever) skewing to prea...more

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Oct 23, 2011

Mario Liesens rated it

Real poverty has no great plot or elaborate storyline. There's just the daily struggle for food, shelter and money. Oh, and there's also the attempt to keep some dignity, somehow.
In Paris, poverty is a period inbetween jobs. Shitty jobs, dead end jobs, but sometimes with promotion in sight. if you can pay the rent and somehow keep up appearances you're not worse off than a large part of Parisiens. London however is a different story. Here, poverty is structural and charity prevents you fro...more

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Sep 01, 2011

Andrew rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed

This book snuck up on me. I had picked up a cheap paperback copy on a whim having read a mention of its portrait of restaurant life in the Paris of the late 1920s. Cooking is a hobby of mine and I’ve had several friends in the industry. I’ve always been intrigued by the life of a chef. But DAOIPAL knocked me flat. It’s the most unsentimental examination of the grind of poverty I’ve ever read. Orwell’s observations of the Felliniesque characters he mingles with in his race to the bottom are brill...more

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Mar 02, 2011

Troy Parfitt rated it

In the early 1930s, Eton-educated George Orwell decided to do a stint of serious slumming in the greatest of European capitals in order to capture and comment on the lives of the poor, and, by extension, the rich. As the title suggests, the author begins in Paris where he scrounges to come up with the few francs necessary to put an ant-infested roof over his head. He doesn’t wash (he can’t afford soap), he survives on gulps of vin ordinaire and crusts of stale bread, and at one point he goe...more In the early 1930s, Eton-educated George Orwell decided to do a stint of serious slumming in the greatest of European capitals in order to capture and comment on the lives of the poor, and, by extension, the rich. As the title suggests, the author begins in Paris where he scrounges to come up with the few francs necessary to put an ant-infested roof over his head. He doesn’t wash (he can’t afford soap), he survives on gulps of vin ordinaire and crusts of stale bread, and at one point he goes four days without eating. Every morning, he meets Boris, an eccentric, crippled, former Russian soldier, and the two put their heads together in order to figure out a way to survive. For a long time, however, they are unsuccessful and things begin to look rather bleak, though Orwell takes it all in stride. “It is a feeling of relief,” he writes, “almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down and out. You have talked so often of going to the dogs – and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it. It takes off a lot of anxiety.” Flat broke, Orwell manages a job as a plongeur [dishwasher] in the kitchen of a ritzy hotel. This section of the book is fascinating: the trench-warfare-like conditions accorded the staff juxtaposed against the opulence and excesses of the inn’s aristocratic patrons. There are not many writers who could describe, essentially, labour for page after page and have you wanting more, but then there are not many writers like Eric Arthur Blair.
After Paris, it’s back across the channel to London, and this segment is also extremely engaging, if not as bang-in-your-face as the France section. Particularly interesting are the comparisons and contrasts drawn between England and France, as Down and Out is now a historical document. In the heart of England, Orwell mingles with the homeless as he wanders from one spike (charitable shelter) to the next and survives (barely) on his wits and a diet of “tea and two slices.” The characters he meets and comes to know are absorbing, and the attitudes accorded them by society unfeeling. Orwell concludes that the difference between a beggar and a member of the landed gentry is money, and only money. Rather than the sort of spiritual guidance dished up by the likes of the Salvation Army, or a single night’s stay at a spike (the hobos are turned out in the morning), what the destitute require is a purpose, one Orwell believes the state ought to supply. Tramps lives are meaningless, though they needn’t be, Orwell argues, and goes on to outline proposals, both socialistic and humane. Orwell has become known almost exclusively for his Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, a shame, in a way, because Down and Out in Paris and London is nearly as good and surely as relevant.

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Feb 16, 2011

Sarah Norman rated it

I read this book in part I admit because I have always thought it had a cool title. And I guess George Orwell has a track record, 1984, ANIMAL FARM, etc.

What I really admired about this book was it's clarity. It was just in such good taste, so clearly and unpretentiously written. I have been reading a lot of development research at the moment (votes: should I blog about this? I know this blog is supposed to be about everything I read in 2010, but are you really tough enough for posts o...moreI read this book in part I admit because I have always thought it had a cool title. And I guess George Orwell has a track record, 1984, ANIMAL FARM, etc.

What I really admired about this book was it's clarity. It was just in such good taste, so clearly and unpretentiously written. I have been reading a lot of development research at the moment (votes: should I blog about this? I know this blog is supposed to be about everything I read in 2010, but are you really tough enough for posts on such gems as IMPLEMENTING THE SADC PROTOCOL AGAINST CORRUPTION: RECOMMENDATIONS AND DRAFT RULES OF PROCEDURE? Suspect not) and this research is just so jargon laden, and overwritten as shit. I suspect it's because they've nothing real to say and need to cover that up.

The bio is hilarious, wait, let me quote: “He served in Burma, an experience that inspired his first novel BURMESE DAYS. Several years of poverty followed.” I don't know if they mean it to be funny, but it is. Ah, the arts and how they don't pay anything. So this book follows those years of poverty in Paris and London, where Orwell is homeless and near homeless. This must have been an experience and a half for an old Etonian, but we don't learn much about him – it's not autobiographical in that sense – it's more about the people and places he ecountered, and the difficulties of living on little money and food.

At one point, when he hasn't eaten in three days, he gets a job as a plongeur, which is I guess some kind of dishwasher at fancy Parisien hotels. This is a dreadful job, apparently, with 17 hour days being quite routine. Unsurprisingly, he is pretty big on the subject of how fancy hotels are useless, and has a lot to say on what's wrong with a world in which people can be enslaved for the useless purpose of fanciness.

He ends with what he's learnt: “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”

It's an interesting picture of poverty in any period, and an interesting picture of its time in particular – for example, men with shell shock are a routine problem, as they keep people awake in the paupers' dorms with their screaming. It's also of its time in being rather anti-semitic, misogynist, and homophobic. But there you go, you can't have everything.

More of my reviews at my blog, www.booksof2010.blogspot.com
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Jan 22, 2011

Frank Stein rated it

Just a beautiful piece of work that unflinchingly depicts life lived on the bottom. First of all Orwell is, as always, a flawless writer. The prose flows as smooth and clear as water, and there's hardly an unedifying story. The book is mainly a collection of loosely connected stories, chronicling his time spent working as a dishwasher in Paris and tramping through England's "casual lodging houses," but Orwell's discerning eye manages to bring out the fascination of every encounter a...more

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Jan 19, 2011

Brandon rated it

Shelves: four

As my first mostly nonfiction, if you will, book by Orwell, I was not disappointed. I only have one complaint: He spent too much time on the restaurants of Paris in comparison to the rest of what was described.

I'm going to record some of the quotes that hit me in one way or another here:
Page 7
"Poverty frees them from ordinary standards of behaviour, just as money frees people from work."

Page 117
"Is it a [i]plongeur's[/i] [Basically, dishwasher] ...more

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Dec 15, 2010

Jesse rated it

Shelves: non-fiction

I don't read too much nonfiction, but I can honestly say that I really enjoyed this.

Apparently, Orwell was really inttigued by Jack London's book about the slums in America, and became obsessed with exploring them in his own backyard.

Orwell sucks the reader in right in the begining with a really great, but disturbing, tale about a young man who buys a 'prostitute' and abuses her. The story is supossed to give the reader an idea of what kind of characters you can come acr...more

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About George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair,better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language, and a belief in democratic socialism.

Considered perhaps the twentieth century's best chronicler of English culture, Orwe...more

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“It is a feeling of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down and out. You have talked so often of going to the dogs - and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it. It takes off a lot of anxiety.” — 48 people liked it

“It is curious how people take it for granted that they have a right to preach at you and pray over you as soon as your income falls below a certain level.” — 16 people liked it

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