Status Updates From Down and Out in Paris and L...

“He might be ragged and cold, or even starving, but so long as he could read, think and watch meteors,he was, as he said, free in his own mind”(167).

Even though Bozo is a beggar, he enjoys and has come to terms with his life. He enjoys and values thinking and small joys of life more than being financially secure.

A lot of what Orwell is describing when he talks about the "tramps" of London is what we would call the problem of homeless war veterans (in this case, Great War or World War I veterans).

الكثير والكثير من الأخطاء الاملائية..

“Roughly speaking, the more one pays for food, the more sweat and spittle one is obliged to eat with it”(80).
The way the food is handled in a hotel such as The X is focused more on appearance and promptness of making it, ignoring the sanitary aspect. It’s interesting to see a behind the scenes look on the facade of the hotels image that the guests see versus what actually happens in the chambers.

The small anecdotes that Orwell uses add lots of perspective and detail to the story. Stories of friends or peculiar situations add on to describe how life was at the time.

menjadi tuna wisma di Inggris lebih memilukan lagi, jika aku tak membaca buku ini. Aku akan berpikiri bahwa di Inggris dari jaman dahulu sudah makmur tak ada orang kelaparan dan lain sebagainya. Karena mereka waktu itu menjajah berbagai negara. Tapi kenyataanya, orang miskin begitu banyak, Sampai disini Orwell mengajakku melihat orang miskin dari perspektif orang miskin itu sendiri. Bedanya Orwell berpendidikan

menjadi tuna wisma di Inggris lebih memilukan lagi, jika aku tak membaca buku ini. Aku akan berpikiri bahwa di Inggris dari jaman dahulu sudah makmur tak ada orang kelaparan dan lain sebagainya. Karena mereka waktu itu menjajah berbagai negara. Tapi kenyataanya, orang miskin begitu banyak, Sampai disini Orwell mengajakku melihat orang miskin dari perspektif orang miskin itu sendiri. Bedanya Orwell berpendidikan

Kesadaran menjadi budak oleh budak sendiri sangat jarang terjadi. Atau mungkin Orwell memang sengaja memiskinkan diri. Untuk mengkritik gerakan kiri turun kebawah, bahwa dia menjadi turun kebawah dan benar-benar terperosok

sampai disini aku jadi tahu bagaimana susahnya menjadi pekerja hotel dan restoran. Meskipun terlihat remeh tapi ternyata rumit juga.

Aku suka dengan gaya berceritanya, otobiografi tapi seperti Novel atau cerpen. Detail yang menarik juga karakter yang kuat.

أن قواعد الشطرنج هي ذاتها قواعد الحب والحرب ، وأنك إن استطعت أن تكسب في واحد ، تستطيع أن تكسب في الأمور الأخرى .
لكنه قال أيضاً إنك لو كان لديك رقعة شطرنج فلا يهمك أن تجوع :( ..

Orwell’s observations on the greed of “charitable” people who run lodging houses is interesting to me because I’ve heard a lot recently about people who are seemingly charitable but secretly are using their charity to make tons of money for themselves, and it’s interesting how this is no recent occurrence.

This book doesn’t have much of a story, but is really the authors observations on society and life, which he organizes around his own experiences with poverty. I wasn’t expecting that when I went into it, but I actually like it and I think Orwell is really smart. There are also some ideas in this that are similar to those that are written in 1984

If you set yourself to it, you can live the same life, rich or poor. You can keep on with your books and your ideas. You just got to say to yourself, ‘I'm a free man in here’ - he tapped his forehead - ‘and you're all right.’

“Boris, who lives near by and had not to catch the last metro home, worked from eight in the morning till two the next morning- eighteen hours a day, seven days a week. Such hours, though not usual, are nothing extraordinary in Paris.”
In current times, it would be insane for people to work 18 hour days for 7 days a week, but in the past it wasn’t that strange. It is really hard for me to imagine this.

London beggars vary greatly, and there is a sharp social line between those who merely cadge and those who attempt to give some value for money. The stories in the Sunday papers about beggars who die with two thousand pounds sewn into their trousers are, of course, lies; but the better-class beggars do have runs of luck, when they earn a living wage for weeks at a time.

Two bad days followed. We had only sixty centimes left, and we spent it on half a pound of bread, with a piece of garlic to rub it with. The point of rubbing garlic on bread is that the taste lingers and gives one the illusion of having fed recently.

“Appearance—appearance is everything, mon ami. Give me a new suit and I will borrow a thousand francs by dinner-time.”
I like this quote because it shows how appearance is often the most important aspect in life, and no matter what your situation is, if you look good, you can find success

My favorite thing I read today was the description of Boris’s routine to freshen up, despite the fact that he lives in extreme poverty. All the little tricks he does to appear neat are cool, and my favorite is that he “inked the skin of his ankles where it showed through the holes in his socks”

My favorite thing I read today was the description of Boris’s routine to freshen up, despite the fact that he lives in extreme poverty. All the little tricks he does to appear neat are cool, and my favorite is that he “inked the skin of his ankles where it showed through the holes in his socks”

The start of this book is a very vivid description of the street where the narrator is living in Paris. I like how much detail he puts into it, and I really can imagine what his room and the surrounding area look like.

A confronting second chapter, which I was not expecting considering all the edits that were forced on the book by editorial standards of the time.

إنه لأمر ذو غرابة، ارتطامك الأول بالبؤس. لقد فكرت طويلا بالبؤس- فهو الشيء الذي خشيته طوال حياتك، الشيء الذي تعرف أنه سيحصل لك عاجلا أو آجلا، لكن ما فكرت به مختلف كلية. أنت ظننت أنه سيكون في غاية البساطة، غير أنه معقد جدا. أنت حسبته رهيبا، والحق أنه وسخ ومضجر فقط. إن ما تكتشفه أولا هو الضعة الخاصة بالبؤس، الحيل التي يضعك فيها، الشح المعقد، ومسح الفتات.

Ugh at the rape scene, especially since the narrator says they included it just to show the sorts of people they came across there...

From about page 54 to 118 Orwell relates his experiences working as a Plongeur (dishwasher) in Paris first at Hôtel X and then at Auberge de Jehan Cottard.

which he has licked a hundred times that morning. When he is satisfied, he takes a cloth and wipes his fingerprints from the dish and hands it to the waiter. And the waiter, of course, dips his fingers into the gravy-his nasty, greasy fingers which he is for ever running through his brilliantined hair. Whenever one pays more than, say ten francs for a dish of meat in Paris one may be certain that it has been fingered

When a steak, for instance, is brought up for the head cook's inspection, he does not handle it with a fork. He picks it up in his fingers and slaps it down, runs his thumb round the dish and licks it to taste the gravy, runs it round and licks it again, then steps back and contemplates the piece of meat like an artist judging a picture, then presses it lovingly into place with his fat, pink fingers, every one of

In the kitchen the dirt was worse. It is not a figure of speech, it is a mere statement of fact to say that a French cook, will spit in the soup-that is, if he is not going to drink it himself. He is an artist, but his art is not cleanliness. To a certain extent he is even dirty because he is an artist, for food, to look smart, needs dirty treatment

late everything is out of gear. He despises the whole non-cooking staff, and makes it a point of honour to insult everyone below the head waiter. And he takes a genuine artistic pride in his work, which demands very great skill. It is not the cooking that is so difficult, but the doing everything to time. Between breakfast and luncheon the head cook at the Hôtel X. would receive orders for several hundred dishes

Undoubtedly the most workmanlike class, and the least servile , are the cooks. They do not earn quite so much as waiters, but their prestige is higher and their employment steadier. The cook does not look upon himself as a servant but as a skilled workman: he is generally called "un ouvrier", which a waiter never is. He knows his power-knows that he alone makes or mars a restaurant, and that if he is five minutes