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

this is so entertaining omg

boris my guy ur so delulu

“the strange thing is that when a word is well established as a swear word, it seems to lose its original meaning; that is, it loses the thing that made it into a swear word. A word becomes an oath because it means a certain thing, and, because it has become an oath, it ceases to mean that thing.”

“The food we were given was no more than eatable, but the patron was not mean about drink; he allowed us two litres of wine a day each, knowing that if a plongeur is not given two litres he will steal three.”

“In practice nobody cares if work is useful or useless, productive or parasitic; the sole thing demanded is that it shall be profitable. In all the modern talk about energy, efficiency, social service and the rest of it, what meaning is there except " Get money, get it legally, and get a lot of it"? Money has become the grand test of virtue. By this test beggars fail, and for this they are despised.”

“The Paris slums are a gathering-place for eccentric people - people who have fallen into solitary, half-mad grooves of life and given up trying to be normal or decent. "

“Poverty frees them from ordinary standards of behaviour, just as money frees people from work.”

“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.”

“It is fatal to look hungry. It makes people want to kick you.”

“Within certain limits, it is actually true that the less money you have, the less you worry.”

“A plongeur is a slave, and a wasted slave, doing stupid and largely unnecessary work. He is kept at work, ultimately, because of a vague feeling that he would be dangerous if he had leisure. And educated people, who should be on his side, acquiesce in the process, because they know nothing about him and consequently are afraid of him.”

“The stars are a free show; it don’t cost anything to use your eyes”

“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.”

“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.”

"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.”

120

he kinda ate here

Mon ami!

60

If “Kitchen Confidential” was written in 1920’s Paris

Tiedän jo nyt että tämä kirja tulee olemaan mentaalisen kehitykseni kulmakivi

The idea he puts forward, that being a beggar, if they earned more, would become a respectable job is rather fascinating to me. it reminds me of how you get told to study or you'll end up working at McDonald's, how that job is respected so little and why? Because of the income? I doubt it's because of the skill required, for being a flight attendant is respected more.

men.

ch. 33

Magnificent!

Super interesting!

This book is so relatable!!

So far thoroughly invested in this. My own novels have followed along a similar journey of describing the struggles of everyday people in a city, only in this one we get to witness Orwell's personal experience with poverty, however brief it may have been. Although ... I might mention that there are a few instances that have aged very poorly since the 1930s.

i am already enamored by this book, this is going to be one of my absolute favorites

Love it so far. I cannot help but compare it to Hemingway's A moveable feast even though the subject is different. It is fascinating to see Paris in the 1920s through a different set of eyes and from an entirely different perspective.