Down and Out in Paris and London

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Average customer rating 4.3 (4 comments)

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I'd assumed this was a roman a clef about Orwell's lean college years where he took some humorously terrible jobs. In fact, this is a rather harrowing account of restaurant life(in Paris) before labor laws, health inspections or social safety nets, and (in London) the life of beggars and transients in the early days of workhouses and bare bones shelters. The first half of the book will be a terrible revelation to anyone shocked by "Kitchen Confidential" or "Waiter Rant," as you won't find restaurants in the civilized world operating in any way similar to what Orwell describes (one hopes). No restaurant job anybody reading this has had in the free world could be worse. It might put an end to any lofty Lost Generation fantasies you might have about fine dining with Stein and Hemingway in 1920s Paris. Orwell's account of homelessness and observations of the perceptions of the homeless are startingly modern. I can't think of much that has changed for the better in the 80 years since he wrote about it: not in the way homeless people actually live nor in the way they are perceived. Though I'm giving the book a great rating, it's not without its flaws. It lacks a narrative voice or structure, and consequently it often reads like a laundry list of experiences rather than a cohesive story. Orwell also shares the early 20th Century writer's fascination with race and ethnicity. This is a great read for anyone who has worked in the margins or found themselves at the bottom of the totem pole.

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I started reading a battered little copy of this book when I couldn't find anything else lying around to read. Once I picked it up, I couldn't stop. It's very real and gritty, the sort of story you don't think you want to hear but can't stop listening to, the same way you might ogle in fascination at a train wreck. The author, quasi-autobiographically, plunges deeper and deeper into the ruined fringes of the civilized world, barely scraping together a living, describing every dreck and dive in intimate detail until you feel like you need to go take a shower. (It helped that my own copy was so dusty.) Yet no matter how pathetic his plight becomes, there is always the slightest tinge of humor, the hope that rock bottom has been hit at last. A memorable story; I don't think I will easily eat in a Parisian restaurant after reading this book!

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Read the first half (down and out in Paris) of "Down and Out in Paris and London" in your favorite café or restaurant, and you might lose your appetite. Read the second half (down and out in London) on an empty stomach, and you might be better able to relate to the day in, day out hunger chronicled therein. This short read is labeled a novel, though it truly seems more an accounting, a diary—or a memoir of a time of extreme poverty in Orwell's own life. I would not call his portrait of those times "Orwellian", as its publisher, Harvest, does. Rather, as an avid reader and thrice-read student of "1984" ("'Oranges and lemons,' say the bells of St. Clemens…"), I was pleasantly surprised by the comme ci, comme ca position of the book's narrator, which comes through both in its obvious resentment of poverty's conditions and in its powerfully retained joy for living. It is this very mixture that allows the novel to read as if Orwell has laid his head on the pillow next to yours and is telling you, just you, this (unfortunately) timeless story. A mellow, marvelous piece of writing.

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This is a detailed account of living in poverty in Paris and London. The narrator, an impoverished writer, describes his experiences living in Paris as a dishwasher for a posh French restaurant, and wandering the streets of London usually homeless, searching for lodging and food, consorting with pawnshops, sleeping in charity shelters, rubbing shoulders with bag ladies and tramps. His descriptions of what goes on in the bowels of the French hotel where the restaurant food is prepared are nauseating. The attitudes of British law towards vagrants was appalling. Mostly the book described pure misery and frustration trying to live without stable income and thus, a proper roof over one's head. In spite of how depressing it is, this remains one of my favorites of Orwell's books. It's a very engaging read.