Na Penúria em Paris e em Londres

by George Orwell

«É bastante curioso, o primeiro contacto que travamos com a pobreza. Pensámos sempre muito, para começar, acerca da pobreza — foi ela o que tememos durante toda a vida, aquilo que sabíamos que nos iria acontecer mais tarde ou mais cedo; mas quando acontece é completamente diferente, na sua configuração absolutamente prosaica. Pensávamos que ia ser muito simples; mas é extraordinariamente complicado. Pensávamos que ia ser terrível; é apenas sórdido e aborrecido. É a extraordinária baixeza da miséria o que se descobre de início; os expedientes que implica, a mesquinhez intrincada, o poupar dos cotos de vela.»

Genres: Nonfiction, Classics, Memoir, Biography, Travel, History, France

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1933

About the author

Eric Arthur Blair was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to all totalitarianism (both fascism and stalinism), and support of democratic socialism.

Orwell is best known for his allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), although his works also encompass literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics, literature, language and culture.

Orwell's work remains influential in popular culture and in political culture, and the adjective "Orwellian"—describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices—is part of the English language, like many of his neologisms, such as "Big Brother", "Thought Police", "Room 101", "Newspeak", "memory hole", "doublethink", and "thoughtcrime". In 2008, The Times named Orwell the second-greatest British writer since 1945.

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 or dismisses the human beings who live in this repulsive environment. The people he describes may be disgusting, but they are often resourceful too, and Orwell makes it clear that it is the economic system itself--not the character flaws of particular individuals caught up in the system--which is to blame for so much squalor and suffering.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wishes to read a vivid description of the conditions of those who live beneath the underbelly of society and the stratagems they use to survive, whether they be recently impoverished men endeavoring to maintain respectability, Paris dishwashers sweating through their underground existence, or British tramps enduring the daily bone-wearying trek for a cheap place to lay their heads.

[Kimley · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 if you are one of those people who carries a hand-sanitizer at all times.

Do not read this book if you are an artist, writer, musician or other creative occupation which certainly guarantees brushes with poverty.

If you do read this book (which I highly recommend) make sure you have some bubble bath on hand as you will need a nice long well-perfumed soak afterwards.

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 4 out of 5]

“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.”



In 1927 Eric Arthur Blair A.K.A. George Orwell gives up his job as a policeman in Burma and moves back to his lodgings on Portobello Road in London with the intention of being a writer. Like with many artists, writers, and those that wished to be one or the other, the siren song of Paris beckoned Orwell. In 1928 he moves to The City of Light.

”It was lamplight--that strange purplish gleam of the Paris lamps--and beyond the river the Eiffel Tower flashed from top to bottom with zigzag skysigns, like enormous snakes of fire.”

His lodgings are robbed by an Italian man a trollop he has brought back to his room for what can be presumed for a carnal dalliance, but one must have a proper story for the parents especially when one is soliciting funds. This is really the beginning of a rather abrupt slide into poverty. Little did he know this change of circumstances was going to provide him with the material he needed to get published.

A gagger--beggar or street performer of any kind.

I do hope that everyone has had an opportunity to experience some poverty. When I was in college I had several moments where my gas tank was on E, that amber dot nearly burned a hole in my retina, and well food, skipping a few meals builds character. The one thing that I learned about my brief bouts of impecuniousness was that I didn’t like it. The anxiety of potentially revealing the precarious nature of my affairs was much more excruciating than the discomfort of hunger or even the tension inspired by the keenly tuned ear listening intently for the first cough of an engine starved for gas.

The mind does sharpen when deprived of nutrients.

A moocher--one who begs outright, without pretense of doing a trade.


A slice of Orwell’s Paris.

Orwell does become truly down and out barely scraping together enough money to maintain lodging. Everything pawnable or salable is already in the shops and now he must find a job. He tramps for miles all over the city following rumors of employment. He finally lands a position at a hotel restaurant washing dishes. It isn’t particularly difficult work, but the hours are unbelievably long. Since he is on the lowest rung of the very tall totem pole he is roundly cursed by everyone.

”Do you see that? That is the type of plongeur they send us nowadays. Where do you come from, idiot? From Charenton I suppose?” (There is a large lunatic asylum at Charenton.)

“From England,” I said.

“I might have known it. Well, mon cher monsieur, L’Anglais, may I inform you that you are the son of a whore?”

I got this kind of reception every time I went to the kitchen, for I always made some mistake; I was expected to know the work, and was cursed accordingly. From curiosity I counted the number of times I was called maquereau during the day, and it was thirty-nine.

A glimmer--one who watches vacant motor-cars.


Down and Out in paris

There is a camaraderie that comes from working long hours, from getting up with aching muscles, and a wool stuffed head from too little sleep. While in college I worked for a used bookstore that was the size of a grocery store. We were always understaffed, sometimes ridiculously understaffed. We needed three cashiers and generally had two. We needed three book buyers and generally had one. It wasn’t infrequent for people to work double shifts, not for the money, but because we couldn’t stand to think of our comrades left facing impossible odds. What was crazy is after we closed the store we would sit out in the parking lot, or when we could afford it go get a drink, and talk about books or about the craziness that happened during our shift until the wee hours of the morning. We were as bonded as soldiers in the trench because we were survivors. We didn’t bother to learn much about newbies until they had been there a month because chances were they would last a week or less.

We were working for $4 an hour.

A drop--money given to a beggar.


The endless stream of dirty dishes is truly an Orwellian nightmare.

While working in this fine restaurant Orwell did reveal some things that made me queasy.

”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 around the dish and licks it to taste the gravy, runs it round and licks again, the steps back and contemplates the piece of meal like an artist judging a picture, then presses it lovingly into place with his fat, pink fingers, every one of which he has licked a hundred times that morning.”

But the place of course is kept spic and span, right?

”Everywhere in the service quarters dirt festered--a secret vein of dirt, running through the garish hotel like the intestines through a man’s body.”

You may reassure yourself that restaurants are much better regulated now than they were in Paris in the 1920s and they are, but chat with a few people who work in the industry and it may not be as easy to reassure yourself.

A flattie--a policeman.

I always marvel at people that make a complete ass out of themselves berating a waiter in a restaurant. The distance that food must be carried from the cook to the table there is so much time for a waiter to enact some form of petty, but very satisfying revenge on some disrespectful jerk.

To knock off--to steal.


”Waiters in good hotels do not wear moustaches, and to show their superiority they decree that plongeurs shall not wear them either; and the cooks wear the moustaches to show their contempt for the waiters”…. Thus Orwell had to shave his moustaches.

Henry Miller was in Paris about the same time as Orwell. Miller wrote his books without worrying about what mommy and daddy might think. Orwell certainly put his remembrances through a strainer and certainly this book does not have the gritty intensity of a Miller novel. The descriptions of his time in the Paris restaurants are superbly drawn. They were certainly my favorite parts of the book. When he gets back to London he spends time tramping through the various charity houses and reveals the absurdity of the way they are run. He also makes a compelling case for changing the public view of who a tramp really is. A quick, enjoyable read, that for me, brought back some surprisingly fond memories of when I REALLY worked for living; and yet, still walked the razor edge of weekly impoverishment.

***3.75 stars out of 5

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book isn't going to cause anyone to have the huge revelation that "poverty is hard!" or anything, because - duh - but it also doesn't piss me off the way morgan spurlock pisses me off, because orwell makes his story come alive and there is so much local color, so many individual life stories in here that this book, despite being horribly depressing, is also full of the resourcefulness of man and the resilience of people that have been left by the wayside. it is triumphant, not manipulative.

i liked the part when he was down and out in paris better than the part he was down and out in england. even though he had a handy exit strategy in england, in the form of someone who was willing to lend him money when he was truly and completely broke, and even though he only had to live the tramp's life for a month in england before his job started, the english parts were just so much more dismal, so horrifyingly bleak.

in paris, poverty is almost a lark. the accommodations are better, the homeless are allowed to congregate beneath bridges and these is almost a romantic tinge to being penniless.

england is just grim. flat-out grim.

big ups to orwell for his details - the smells and the disease and the horror of unwashed men being forced into cramped quarters are unfortunately very well-rendered and can be quite sickening at times. and the conditions of fine parisian restaurants at the time... shudder. don't read this while you are eating.

but this book will make you want to eat, truly. the days without food, the dizziness, the suffering. i ate like a hog on sunday, and felt very guilty for doing so while reading this, but it left such a hollow in me, i had to fill it somehow.

and - yes, this book was somewhat fabricated, and is like thoreau "in the wilderness," but that doesn't make orwell's observations any less legitimate or powerful.

thank you for writing such a fine book, george orwell...

come to my blog!

[Pakinam · Rating 3 out of 5]

في كتب بتقرأها عشان تقييماتها عالية..
وفي كتب بتقرأها عشان شخص تثق في ذوقه رشحها لك..
وفي كتب ، إسم كاتب معين علي غلافها بيكون كفاية إنك تقرأها ومن غير حتي ما تفكر..
متشرداً في باريس ولندن من النوع الأخير...

جورج أورويل- غني عن التعريف أكيد- كاتب وصحفي بريطاني ،من أشهر وأهم أعماله رواية ١٩٨٤ و رواية مزرعة الحيوان..
الروايتين دول-في رأيي-لو قريتهم مستحيل إنك تقدر تنساهم..

متشرداً في باريس ولندن تختلف كتير عنهم..مش بس كونها رواية عادية ولكنها أيضاً رواية مفيهاش أفكار كتير مهمة بس طبعاً يجب أن نضع في الحسبان إنها أول رواية طويلة للكاتب..

الرواية عبارة عن مذكرات شخصية لأورويل-مقسمة إلي جزئين-الجزء الاول بيتكلم فيه كيف كان يعيش حياة المتشردين في باريس لدرجة إنه إضطر أن يعمل غاسلاً للصحون في أحد الفنادق ..و الجزء الثاني بيحكي عن ظروف قاسية جداً مر بها في لندن و كيف عاش لأسابيع بدون مأوي ،ينتقل من مكان لأخر يبحث عن طعام وعمل بدون جدوي..

أورويل في الرواية بيلقي الضوء علي شكل أوروبا بعد الحرب العالمية الأولي وعلي حياة المتشردين و ما يواجهوه من صعوبات و في جزء من الكتاب بيفكر ويطرح بعض الحلول لمشكلتهم..

الجزء الأول في الكتاب كان ممتع وحتحس إنه حقيقي،واقعي جداً و حتي ساخر أحياناً ولكن جاء الجزء الثاني ممل ولم يضف الكثير للكتاب..

الصراحة الكتاب عادي وبعيد تماماً عن مستوي كتب أورويل الأخري و لولا إسم أورويل عليه أظن إن مكانش حد أهتم به أساساً..

تقييمي له كان حيكون نجمتين فقط لولا بس إنها تجربة شخصية صعبة مر بها الكاتب وإتكلم عنها بشجاعة ووضوح بجانب إني أستمتعت بقراءة الجزء الأول وكان فيه تفاصيل 'لذيذة' عن ما يحدث في مطابخ المطاعم والفنادق حتخليك تفكر ألف مرة قبل ما تاكل برة البيت..ودي لوحدها كفاية إننا نديله نجمة زيادة:))

[Lyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Orwell demonstrates his social conscience and empathy for the poor, which I think, makes his more famous attacks on totalitarianism more credible.

This is also an interesting novel to read for a glimpse into Paris and London of that time, between 1900 and 1930. Orwell worked in some restaurants and his view from the kitchen is far less romantic than Hemingway’s perspective from the table.

Not really a classic or a masterpiece, but a book that should be read.

[Steven Godin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Orwell’s take on destitution was every bit as good as I expected it to be: beautifully phrased, meticulous, honest, funny, but also moving, and along with his own vivid experiences of living a hand to mouth existence he blends the testimonies of other refugees and homeless people in Paris and London. This book might not have even come about had it not been for a thief who pinched the last of an ailing Orwell’s savings from his Paris boarding room in 1929, thus leading him to search for dishwashing work in the kitchens of the French capital. Yes Paris was indeed a tough place to find shelter between the wars and even though Orwell eventually found a job at the anonymous Hotel X, a place where dirty roast chickens were served, and chefs spat in soup, he remained without pay for ten days and so was forced to sleep on a bench until he had enough to cover rent. Throughout the book, when he did manage to find somewhere to stay, some of the beds even had blocks of wood for pillows.

“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,” he wrote then, although his sympathies were firmly with his fellow “beggars”.

The book both illuminates the huge change between 1933 and now and exposes horrifying similarities. As Orwell reveals the cruelty of a lack of workers’ rights, where livelihoods are lost overnight or jobs not secure from one day to the next day, a modern audience cannot help but hear the words ‘zero hours contracts’. Job insecurity is still a major driver of homelessness nearly 90 years later. When in London Orwell describes the police arresting rough sleepers or ‘moving them on’, he foreshadows recent events such as the cleansing of the streets of Windsor before the royal wedding, and fines presented to beggars in Coventry. As he describes “the stories in the Sunday papers about beggars…with two thousand pounds sewn into their trousers” we can hear the headlines from this very year in a national newspaper proclaiming “fake homeless are earning £150 a day”.

Orwell’s books, however, are more than just treatises aiming to right the political wrongs. Aside from his political intentions, much of Orwell’s appeal has always rested in his brilliance as a writer: his ability to distil vast ideas or injustices into the most perfect phrases, his descriptive passages artfully conjuring the slum backstreets of 1930s Paris, and his sense of the preciousness of humanity, bringing clarity and colour to people's lives. through all all the filth, dirt, and smelly bodies, Orwell writes here and there with small moments of beauty, that at first don't feel immediately apparent. And when he writes of the people he meets in Down and Out are “just ordinary human beings”, he is stating a simple and obvious fact – but one that, even today, is still too often forgotten.

The seriousness of poverty really makes you sit up and take notice, yet it's not a depressing book, which I thought it might be. I found it all really fascinating, and it's just as much an important book now as it was back then. A must read.

[İntellecta · Rating 5 out of 5]

İ´ve read the Essay “Paris Ve Londra'da Beş Parasız” written by George Orwell. It´s a biography of his own life and personal experiences. After George Orwell´s cancellation as officer of the British colonial power, he flew to Paris to work as an English teacher, because he aspired a job as a committed writer. Unfortunately his job as an English teacher and writer didn´t worked out and consequently he worked as a day labourer, harvester and dishwasher in a luxury restaurant. “Paris Ve Londra'da Beş Parasız” isn´t about political emphasises and has principally an anecdotic character. However this biography shows and emphasises clearly the former living environment of the entirely poverty stricken lower classes. It´s questionable if the business of those big hotels is still the same after 70 years, as Orwell describes. But yet this biography is very enriching and motivates the reader to think about this personal story.

[Rowena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do not read this book while eating! I've been told that this book is semi-autobiographical. If so, George Orwell had an even more interesting life than I'd imagined! This book was disturbing, insightful and also funny (great, great characters, some just plain weird!)

The first half of the book depicts the main character's experiences living in poverty in Paris.Some of the descriptions about the living and working conditions are quite gruesome. All those bugs! Orwell sheds more light on what it must feel like to be poor; the ennui etc.I don't think I'll be able to eat at a Parisian restaurant anytime soon because now I'm a little paranoid about the cooking conditions.

The second half of the book finds the protagonist back in London and we learn more about what it means to be a "tramp." Equally as disgusting descriptions as those in the Paris section, especially the part where several tramps had to use the same bucket of dirty water for cleaning themselves up, yuck!

Orwell definitely puts a human face on the tramps. He explains how tramping is a huge social problem and then suggests how this problem can be remedied. As I live in Vancouver, the Canadian city with the highest number of homeless people, I agree with his explanations and thoughts.


My only gripe was with this particular edition of the book. Way too many typos, both in English and in French. Also, they censored out some of the swear words, bizarre.

Fantastic book! Orwell rarely disappoints me with his wit and insight.

[Melina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Είναι αυτό το καλύτερο βιβλίο του Όργουελ; Μάλλον όχι, αφού μιλάμε για τον συγγραφέα του ‘’1984’’ και της ‘’Φάρμας των Ζώων’’.
Είναι αυτό ένα βιβλίο που κλείνοντάς το νιώθεις πως έχεις πάει ένα βήμα παραπέρα την σκέψη σου, έχεις καλλιεργήσει την κοινωνική σου ενσυναίσθηση και έχεις πάρει απαντήσεις σε ερωτήσεις (δυστυχώς ορμώμενες από προκαταλήψεις) που είχες και εσύ ο ίδιος; Σίγουρα ναι.

Όταν θα είστε σε ένα βιβλιοπωλείο, αν τύχει και ξεφυλλίσετε το συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο, ρίξτε μια ματιά στα κεφάλαια 22, 36 και 38. Όλες οι περιγραφές της αθλιότητας, των στερήσεων, τη βρωμιάς, της φτώχειας, του εξευτελισμού, της εκμετάλλευσης και της εξαθλίωσης που περιγράφονται στο βιβλίο αποσκοπούν στην διατύπωση των προβληματισμών που αναπτύσσονται σε αυτά τα κεφάλαια.

Πρόκειται για μια ιδιαίτερη μείξη δημοσιογραφικής έρευνας, ημερολογιακής καταγραφής, αυτοβιογραφικών στοιχείων και κοινωνικού σχολιασμού. Ο Όργουελ περιπλανιέται στο Παρίσι και το Λονδίνο του Μεσοπολέμου, την περίοδο που η ανεργία θερίζει, και παρέα με άλλους εξαθλιωμένους από τη φτώχεια συνοδοιπόρους του, πασχίζει να εξασφαλίσει κάθε βράδυ ένα κατάλυμα να κοιμηθεί, πολλές φορές μένοντας νηστικός για ως και πέντε μέρες και υποφέροντας ανυπέρβλητες στερήσεις.

Πολιτισμένος λαός δεν είναι αυτός που ακούει όπερα, διαβάζει ψαγμένα βιβλία, ψυχαγωγείται βλέποντας ταινίες του Ταραντίνο και του Κιούμπρικ και συγκινείται από πίνακες και έργα τέχνης στις γκαλερί, αλλά ένας λαός του οποίου το πιο φτωχό στρώμα ζει σε ανθρώπινες συνθήκες, με αξιοπρέπεια και χωρίς να στιγματίζεται σαν επαίτης.

Εκ πρώτης όψεως μοιάζει με ένα άχαρο βιβλίο (πόσο γοητευτικό μπορεί να είναι ένα βιβλίο που πραγματεύεται τη φτώχια και την εξαθλίωση;!), όμως κλείνοντάς το προβληματίζεσαι και μένεις να αναρωτιέσαι πόσο εύκολα η τύχη όλων μας μπορεί να αλλάξει από τη μια μέρα στην άλλη. Όπως λέει και ο Μακεδόνας στο γνωστό τραγούδι :
‘’…Γι' αυτό κάτσε καλά
κοίτα λίγο χαμηλά
η ζωή κατρακυλάει, μη λες πολλά’’.

Κλείνω με ένα απόσπασμα από το βιβλίο που αποτελεί τροφή για (πολλή) σκέψη:

‘’Πράγματι, αν φροντίζει κανείς να μην ξεχνά ότι ο αλήτης δεν είναι παρά μόνο ένας άνεργος Άγγλος, που ο νόμος τον αναγκάζει να ζει περιπλανώμενος, τότε ο <<αλήτης-τέρας>> πάει περίπατο. Δεν ισχυρίζομαι βεβαίως ότι οι περισσότεροι αλήτες είναι ιδανικοί χαρακτήρες. Υποστηρίζω απλώς ότι είναι φυσιολογικές ανθρώπινες υπάρξεις και ότι, αν είναι χειρότεροι από άλλους ανθρώπους, αυτό είναι αποτέλεσμα και όχι αιτία του τρόπου ζωής που ζουν. Συνεπώς, η αντίληψη <<τα θελαν και τα παθαν>>, με την οποία αντιμετωπίζονται συνήθως οι αλήτες, δεν είναι πιο δίκαιη απ’ ότι θα ήταν απέναντι σε ανάπηρους ή ασθενείς’’.

[Daren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Orwell has been interviewed about this book and given slightly different explanation about the accuracy of this book, presented as autobiography. It is somewhere between 'all the events in the book happened' and 'most of the events are factually presented', which is ok for me. Dervla Murphy writes a very good introduction in my edition, where she explains this and other background.

When he originally tried to publish the Paris section of the book it was rejected, as too short, so he added the London section. The two work well together, but Orwell mentions nothing about his returning to his comfortable family home from Paris before setting out to live in the dosshouses of London. Again, that is fine. I would have ruined the flow of the narrative to have a holiday of luxury I expect. Ultimately Eric Blair decide he would publish under a pseudonym, choosing George Orwell - he was not sure how his family would feel about how he had been living, and wanted to offer separation to those who he wrote about (he changed their names too).

What to write about a book with over 8000 reviews on GR?

Well, I will keep it brief, and although when I read it I thought every second page was quotable, I noted down none, and spent 10 minutes looking for something only to come up short.

I loved this. 5 stars.

Well perhaps not that brief.
The two sections of the book both examine poverty. In the case of Paris, poverty of the hard workers at the bottom of the rung. The lowly dishwasher, or plongeur in a Parisian hotel. In the case of London, it is the tramps without jobs and without the prospect of a job, trapped as they are in the system of the boarding lodges, where they must have no money to stay, and they cannot stay in the same house more than once in a month, meaning perpetual moving from one area to another, removing the hope of finding work.

In Paris, teaching English and pursuing authorship, Eric Blair ends up without work and with very little money, in a poverty spiral. Being robbed of his cash, he ends up with great experiences to write of!

I thought the descriptions were excellent, my nose screwed up at the description of the smells; I cringed at stepping on the rubbish and waste he described on the floor; my skin itched as the bedbugs and other vermin were described. I felt sick for the guests of the hotel when Orwell described what the staff were doing, or even just their lack of hygiene. Some of the things described were foul beyond imagination, the lack of kitchen hygiene, safe handling of food, etc. Makes this reader reassured at the modern health inspectors, who notoriously do a poor job, but something is better than no checks and balances, right?
Orwells whole relationship with the Boris the Russian refugee is hilarious and was inevitably a downward spiral based on the Russian's eternal optimism and Orwell's constant hunger and eking out of a few centimes to live on.

In London, having previously read the short essay The Spike I knew what was coming. This was a more leisurely telling of Orwell's experiences though, and again the descriptive writing was great. Orwell makes a great play at explaining the system traps those within it by its rules making it near impossible to ever fight their way back out of the system. More than in Paris, in London Orwell is voluntarily exploring life as a tramp. He has a a job lined up upon leaving Paris, as a caregiver for a mentally ill man, but the family go off on holiday for a month leaving Orwell at a loose end! Poverty tourism? Think of it as research I guess. He pawns his serviceable clothes for rags more in keeping with he fellow vagrants. A diet of bread and butter, shuffling from one spike to another, I think filling in days is the best description for his life for this period.

OK at risk of needing to go back and edit the bit about keeping it brief!

[Luís · Rating 5 out of 5]

At nineteen, young George Orwell joined the Imperial Police of the Indies. Six years later, he resigned to pursue a career as a writer. Orwell left Paris to take his first steps as an author and drag his boots. Penniless, he settled in the slums and lodged in seedy hotels. At first, as best he could, they sold his clothes at the Mont de Piété and gave a few English lessons, which were insufficient to pay his rent. He then had to find work, and he called on an acquaintance, a Russian hotel waiter named Boris, who might be able to get him hired, but the latter was also up to his neck in trouble. As a result, they became pals and tried to work in the restaurant business. After long days of endless wandering, it is in the dishwashing of a large hotel restaurant that Georges will finally sweat, scrub, wash, and toil for a pittance that barely allows him to eat his fill. This job will open his eyes to the sub-proletariat's conditions and the dirt and filth of Parisian luxury hotels. Nostalgic, the Englishman misses the mint sauce, and here he is off to London, where he finds the same misery with other unfortunate friends like Bozo, the artist, or Paddy, the beggar.
This book describes George Orwell's experience in Paris and London. He experienced poverty, hardship, hunger, and one-eyed hotels, as well as asylums, and, above all, he made unforgettable encounters and befriended picturesque characters, vagabonds, tramps, and other slackers he met on the streets of Paris or in the asylums of London. His travel diary, which he describes as banal in its last pages, pays homage to all those who live on the margins. It also reflects a profound transformation in his perspective. He concludes: "Never again will I consider all tramps as scoundrels or drunkards, never again will I expect a beggar to show me his gratitude when I have slipped him a coin, never again will I be surprised that the unemployed lack energy. Never again will I pay a single penny to the Salvation Army, nor pawn my clothes, nor refuse a handbill, nor sit down salivating in advance at a fine restaurant."

[StefanP · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kako da se udam za vojnika, kad ja volim čitav puk?

Odavno nešto originalnije nisam pročitao kada je u pitanju glad, iznurenost i trula bijeda. Napisati knjigu sa dvadeset devet godina koliko je tada Orvel imao kada je ona objavljena i da stranice prosto klize, da rečenice imaju punotu opipljivog i da suptilno prilaze izrabljivanju i radu i uopšte društvenom kretanju kao takvom, za mene nije mala stvar. Roman me dosta podsjeća na rečenicu s početka filma Los Olvidados, Luisa Bunjuela, u parafrazi: “Skoro svaka prestonica kao Njujork, Pariz, London krije, iza svog bogatstva, siromašne domove gdje su slabo uhranjena djeca, lišena zdravlja ili obrazovanja, osuđena na kriminal...Meksiko, veliki moderan grad, nije izuzetak ovog pravila.“

Orvel ne budi vjeru u iznenadnost nastanka nečega čudesnog i velikog niti da elementima slijepog nereda i zanosnog nespokoja pokuša da čitaoca baci u iluzornu pojavu savršenog. U Parizu je akcenat stavljen na rad, dok se u Londonu Orvel više koncentriše na skitanje i beskućnike. Koliko god bijeda bila loša, Orvel joj pristupa kao okviru u kome jedinku prožima olakšanje, pa gotovo i katarza što se nalazi na dnu. Njegova budućnost je poništena i njega kao takvog obuhvata ravnodušnost. Pri tome ovo nije jednostavno jer treba izdržati gladovanje i dosadu, i da još imaš na umu da si zaista u bijedi, da nemaš kuda. Orvel je pokušao da pronađe kopču koja bi bila zajednička za ono što se naziva “normalan rad“ i “pristojan život” ali on je samo nailazio na ogroman međuprostor te dvije sintagme te da bi mogućnost odsustva prekomjernog rada samo ugrozilo bogataševu sloboda: “Zato imućniji ljudi samo i govore o poboljšanju uslova rada, života itd…” Čini se da je ovo zaista jedan beskompromisan roman pa svidilo se to nekome ili ne, on vojuje za veće dostojanstvo i veći značaj čovjeka.

[J.L. Sutton · Rating 4 out of 5]

“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.”



While best known for 1984 and Animal Farm, George Orwell is a fantastic essayist. In Down and Out in Paris and London, he chronicles the struggles of those barely getting enough to survive. At the time, that included our narrator/a fictional version of George Orwell. The narrator details his own trajectory as he slides into near starvation. Orwell approaches this slide from a psychological perspective that was both fascinating and a punch in the gut. In the last section of the book, Orwell discusses his ideas for alleviating this extreme poverty.

“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.”

[Ehsan'Shokraie' · Rating 5 out of 5]

آس و پاس در پاریس و لندن,اولین رمان موفق جورج ارول=اریک ارتور بلر(نام حقیقی,به علت ترس از بی ابرویی موقع چاپ این کتاب از نام مستعار جرج ارول استفاده کرد!)
توی این کتاب بدبختی و فقر طوری هنرمندانه و حقیقی به تصویر اومده که خواننده رو به خنده میندازه,و این نهایت قدرت یه نویسنده ست!

این اثر طبق زندگی جرج ارول هست..و واقعا غیر از این نیست که یک نویسنده پشت در های بسته نمیتونه کتاب بنویسه..و قدرت قلم یک نویسنده وقتی از واقعیت زندگی منشا میگیره است که بر جان مینشینه.
این اثر و دختر کشیش,بیشتر قابل حس و لمس در زندگی روزمره اند..و بنظر من پارت بیشتری از روح نویسنده رو در خودشون دارن..

[Fatma Al Zahraa Yehia · Rating 4 out of 5]

تجربة حياتية ثرية مر بها الكاتب الكبير في بدايات حياته ذاق خلالها مرارة الجوع والحاجة مما كان له كبير الأثر في فكره وشخصيته لباقي حياته.

في الجزء الأول رأيت الجانب المظلم والبائس من باريس الماثلة أمامنا دائماً كنموذج مثالي للجمال والرقي. ذلك الجانب المظلم الذي عاصره أورويل بحكم اضطراره إلى التنقل بين مختلف الوظائف الدُنيا في بداية حياته.

ينزع أورويل عن مطاعم باريس والتي عمل بها غاسلاً للصحون قناع الرُقي والفخامة الذي طالما سمعنا عنه. ونكتشف أن خلف هذا المظهر البرّاق للطبق الباهظ الثمن مطبخاً قذراً لا يُراعي أدنى قواعد النظافة.
لا أريد أن أثير غثيان من يقرأ المراجعة، ولكن أورويل لم يُقصر في وصف الكواليس الخلفية لتلك المطابخ ولا عن ظروف العمل المفزعة لمن يعملون بها في وقت اقامته في نهاية العشرينيات.

في الجزء الثاني يعود أورويل إلى وطنه إلى لندن على وعد بالتحاقه بوظيفة ذات مرتب محترم وقد ظن أنه وجد بها مخرجاُ من حياة الجوع والبؤس التي ذاقها في باريس. ويفاجأ بتبخر تلك الفرصة لدى علمه بسفر أصحاب تلك الوظيفة.
يضطر للجوء إلى عيش حياة التشرد ونرى معه أيضا ما يختبئ خلف مظهر المتشرد الرث القذر المثير للشفقة.

يتعرف المؤلف على نماذج عدة للمشردين، وعلى الأسباب المختلفة التي رمت بهم إلى رصيف الشارع. وكيف يتحايلون على ظروف حياتهم القاسية بالسرقة مرة وبالتسول مرات. ويجرب الحياة في ملاجئ الإعالة للمشردين والتي لا تختلف كثيرا عن أرصفة الشوارع القذرة.

في نهاية تلك التجربة يخلص أورويل بأن حل مشكلة مشردي الشوارع ليست في مجرد محاولات الحكومة المفتعلة لإطعامهم غث الطعام-وأتحدث هنا عن بريطانيا في الثلاثينات من القرن الماضي- ولكن في محاولة استغلال طاقتهم في الأعمال التي تكفل لهم طعامهم مثل الزراعة. إذ أن أورويل قد خلص إلى أن معظم من اعتاد حياة التشرد لن يرضى بأن يلتزم في عمل يقيده. ولكنه من الممكن أن يكلف بأعمال ذات طبيعة مؤقتة أو بسيطة تؤمن الحد الأدني من الأدمية لهم.
الترجمة كانت مليئة بالكلمات الصعبة. كما نقل المترجم العديد من المصطلحات الأجنبية كما هى بدون أن يحفل بترجمتها. وكان ذلك هو مأخذي الوحيد على الكتاب.

[Piyangie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Down and Out in Paris and London is a eulogy to poverty. Based on Orwell's experience, the book explores the theme from different viewpoints. Orwell resigned from the Imperial police to become a writer. It is this decision that led him to lead the life he describes in Down and Out in Paris and London. He lives the life of a destitute in Paris, working in and out as a dishwasher to earn his keep. In London, he lives the life of a vagrant. His lived-in experience in poverty enabled him to make a good account of poverty and its implications.

The main purpose of writing the book was to demolish the misconception of poverty and the poor. Society held the view that poverty was somehow a fault of the people. Either they were lazy or they could not work themselves up. At no point did they consider that perhaps there were things that don't meet the eye. Orwell's book is an effort to enlighten what the eyes don't see. Orwell shows how even educated people struggle to survive, taking on all sorts of jobs just to make ends meet. It is not the absence of will but the opportunity. Also, unforeseen circumstances like illness, accidents, theft, or sheer bad luck can reduce one to poverty. Poverty is not always the fault of the poor. Orwell then demonstrates how badly the poor are generally treated. The shabby clothes, the smell, the unwashed countenance, and the starved look are enough for the public to recoil from them in disgust. This works negatively in the poor's psyche as they withdraw more and more into themselves, demoralising them.

Poverty can, however, work contrarily to what is described above. George Orwell shows how poverty can work as inspiration and motivation. Rather than making poverty one's prison, he can turn his confinement into something that motivates and inspires him so he can break the prison door and step up to the world. Poverty is also a freedom, Orwell says; it helps one to act differently. From an artistic point of view, this freedom is valuable, as we can see from Orwell's life.

Having said that, I don't think the book is a memoir. It is more of what is now called an autobiografiction, partly autobiography and partly fiction. I can't help but think that the Paris and London living was his own choosing, just to find the material for his writing. The first part of the book describes his life in Paris, and the second, London. I enjoyed the first part more. It had more vibrant characters and a colourful story. The second part was monotonous. The story and the characters were dull and insipid. Down and Out in Paris and London is an important book in George Orwell's canon, although it may not be his best.

More of my reviews can be found at http://piyangiejay.com/

[Roya · Rating 4 out of 5]

"زندگی بینِ گداها نشونم داد که گداها تفاوتی با بقیه انسان‌ها ندارند، هرچند همه فکر می‌کنند انگلِ جامعه هستند اما وقتی دقیق نگاه کنی، می‌‌بینی خیلی‌های دیگه هم در جامعه‌ی امروزی انگل‌اند اما چون درآمدشون خوبه، تحقیر نمیشن.
تنها گناه این گداها در برابر این افراد اینه که شغلی رو انتخاب کردن که پولش کمه.
اگر گدایی شغلی با درآمد بالا بود، گداها محترم‌ترین انسان‌های روی زمین می‌شدند."

نمی‌دونم چرا این کتاب، کمتر از مزرعه حیوانات و ۱۹۸۴ مورد بحث قرار گرفته در صورتی که کتابِ واقع‌گرا و کوبنده‌ای بود.
نثر کتاب جوری بود که انگار خودم بی‌خانمانی و فقر و فلاکت رو تجربه کردم، توی پناهگاه‌های بدبو و کثیف، میونِ ساس‌ها خوابیدم و توی وانِ کثیف با آبِ چرک و سیاه حموم کردم، لباس‌هامو برای خرید چای و مارگارین گرو گذاشتم، از دوستام پول قرض کردم و به ناچار ساعاتی رو برای خوردن چای و بیسکوییتِ رایگان مجبور به تحملِ مراسمِ دعا شدم.
اورولِ عزیز، الان من هم مثل تو دیدم نسبت به کارتون‌خواب‌ها و بی‌سرپناه‌ها عوض شده....

[Metodi Markov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Много хора въобще не знаят, какво е да си истински беден. Други са успели да забравят, а на трети им предстои да разберат.

Мизерията, оскотяването и безсилието вървят дружно ръка за ръка, без значение дали това става из Лондон, Париж, Калкута или Перник.

На дъното се живее тегаво и трудно, често безпаметно, но има и нюанси, в това как обществото е уредило преживяването на пропадналите по една или друга причина там.

В Париж, плонжорите и като цяло обслужващия персонал робуват за мизерни надници безбройни часове, докато в Лондон бедните са принудени да скитат непрестанно, за да оцелеят.

За стотина години почти нищо не се е променило. Преди двайсетина години работех на круизен кораб 5* и бях потресен от ниското ниво на хигиена в кухните на ресторантите му, както и от мърлявите готвачи и кухненски персонал.

Дебютната и автобиографична книга на Оруел е добра, макар и да ми изглежда недовършена. Вижда се и талантът му, който ще избуи през годините и ще ни даде много поводи за размисъл!

Цитати:

"Има само един начин да изкараш пари с писане, и той е да се ожениш за дъщерята на издател."

"На практика никой не се интересува полезен ли е един труд или е безполезен, градивен ли е, или паразитен; единственото изискване е да носи печалба."

[B0nnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The film Midnight in Paris begins with some beautiful scenes of Paris: the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Seine, the Sorbonne, the Eiffle Tower, the arc de triomphe. And before long, arrives a parade of artistes from the 1920s milieu - Hemmingway, Bunuel, Dali, etc, - all speaking *SparkNotes*. But in the distant background (very distant) I hear a faint sound of et in arcadia ego and Orwell protests “say, I was there in the 1920s too - I saw all that. And I wrote a damn fine book about it”.

That book is Down and Out in Paris and London, written later on in England (he wrote 2 books while in Paris but he destroyed them after one rejection. He regretted doing that).

If I were to take a stroll, à la “Midnight in Paris”, I might find myself on 6 rue du Pot de Fer, 1928:

‘Salope! Salope! How many times have I told you not to squash bugs on the wallpaper? Do you think you’ve bought the hotel, eh? Why can’t you throw them out of the window like everyone else? Putain! Salope!’ The woman on the third floor: ‘Vache!’

Quarrels, and the desolate cries of street hawkers, and the shouts of children chasing orange-peel over the cobbles, and at night loud singing and the sour reek of the refuse-carts, made up the atmosphere of the street.

It was a very narrow street—a ravine of tall, leprous houses, lurching towards one another in queer attitudes, as though they had all been frozen in the act of collapse. All the houses were hotels and packed to the tiles with lodgers, mostly Poles, Arabs and Italians.

At the foot of the hotels were tiny bistros, where you could be drunk for the equivalent of a shilling. On Saturday nights about a third of the male population of the quarter was drunk. There was fighting over women, and the Arab navvies who lived in the cheapest hotels used to conduct mysterious feuds, and fight them out with chairs and occasionally revolvers.

At night the policemen would only come through the street two together. It was a fairly rackety place. And yet amid the noise and dirt lived the usual respectable French shopkeepers, bakers and laundresses and the like, keeping themselves to themselves and quietly piling up small fortunes. It was quite a representative Paris slum.

No Peugeots here. Orwell was not living a glamourous life. He had recently thrown away a promising career in Burma, and was determined to make it as a writer or die trying.

He published a few articles, but soon runs out of money and must find work. He takes a job (as a foreigner, “not seriously illegal”) washing dishes at the luxury hotel Lotti in 1929. That experience is the ‘Paris’ segment of the book.

He returns to England at the end of the year and “tramps” around with the down and out for the ‘London’ part.

The lifestyle of a tramp was unhealthy and mean. One "ate cat's meat, and wore newspaper instead of underclothes, and used the wainscoting of his room for firewood, and made himself a pair of trousers out of a sack".

It is boring, "a tramp's sufferings are entirely useless. He lives a fantastically disagreeable life, and lives it to no purpose whatever."

It is exhausting, "he had not eaten since the morning, had walked several miles with a twisted leg, his clothes were drenched, and he had a halfpenny between himself and starvation."

And it is no fun, "tramps are cut off from women".

On the bright side, "poverty frees them from ordinary standards of behaviour, just as money frees people from work."

“It is altogether curious, your first contact with poverty. You have thought so much about poverty—it is the thing you have 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 peculiar lowness of poverty that you discover first; the shifts that it puts you to, the complicated meanness, the crust-wiping.”

The first version of Down and Out is completed by Oct 1930, under the name George Orwell (used for the first time, to protect his upper lower middle class parents). The French translation La Vache Enragée is published in 1935.

Orwell’s inspirations for this book, indeed this life:

The Lower Depths
Maggie, a Girl of the Streets and Selected Stories
The People of the Abyss
The Road
The Life of Mr. Richard Savage, Son of the Earl Rivers
Germinal

Themes:
impoverishment, failure, privation, penury, leftovers, overextended, pennilessness, beggary, pauperism, difficulties, reduced circumstances, hunger, lack, want, dearth, depletion, exhaustion, vacuity, meagerness, dogged, indigent, impecuniousness, need, hardship, suffering, misery, dirt, filth, grime, lowness, grunge, muck, dust, rats, bugs, vermin, trapped, penury, destitution, greasiness, smelly icky slums, vagrancy, exiguity, mendicancy, down, out, crust-wiping, and all things squalid

[W · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a harrowing book,with its depiction of stark poverty,menial work and the constant struggle for the basic necessities of life .

I found it hard to read,but it was very moving as well. Orwell also did a similar job in another book,The Road to Wigan Pier. That too,was very bleak and compassionate.

Orwell knew about hardship.He had given up his job in the imperial police,and things were not too bright for him financially. He actually became a dishwasher for a while. He lived that life,he could talk about it with authenticity.

It's been some years since I read it,it stays in memory.But I'd find it difficult to read again,it's too raw and realistic.

[Jesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading this, one thing is very clear: I never want to be down and out in Paris or London.

No one writes disgust better than Orwell! He's the king of filth, the master of hopelessness, the father of despair—an absolute genius when it comes to misery. He's an artist who paints not with oils and fine paints, but with beautiful words and revolting imagery. From the streets and slums of Paris to the filthy boarding houses of London, we experience it all firsthand: fleas, roaches, starvation, debauchery, more fleas, more starvation, poverty, and a general bleakness that gnaws at the entire novel.

I can't say it's my favorite Orwell book; that honor goes to 1984. But it was a good read and well worth my time.

[آلاء · Rating 5 out of 5]

.. رواية رائعة ظلمتها شهرة ابنة أبيها البارة "1984" فهي الرواية الأشهر لجورج أورويل بلا منازع.
• «هنا العالم الذي ينتظرك إن كنت مفلسا في أحد الأيام..»

• تتناول الرواية حياة البائسين بصدق وتدقيق من عاش في تلك الدروب المظلمة من باريس ولندن ..
•بعد قراءة الرواية سوف تعيد التفكير قبل الدخول إلى فندق راق لتناول الطعام، وقبل أن تنتظر كلمة شكر من متسول قد أعطيته بنسا..
_ أمر آخر، إن حدث وزرت لندن ثم لم تجد متسولين ينامون في الشوارع كما في باريس فالأمر ليس مؤشرًا طيبًا.. إنما هي القوانين التي تجبرهم على المبيت في أماكن تعد الشوارع غاية في الراحة بالنسبة لها ولا يمكنه المبيت في نفس المسكن اكثر من مرة في الشهر فبالتالي يقضي المتشرد أغلب عمره على الطريق مجبراً لتجنب للسجن..

_ هنا الوجه المشوه لشوارع باريس ولندن فعلى الجانب الآخر من مطاعمها وفنادقها الفاخرة لا يفصلك إلا باب مزدوج عن البؤس الحقيقي لحياة غاسلي الصحون اليائسة لا هدف من هذه الحياة ولا مستقبل لها ، فلا يملك غاسل الصحون ترف التفكير لما هو أبعد من وجبة طعامه وإيجار نُزله..

«البؤس هو ما أشرع أكتب عنه، البؤس الذي اتصلت به للمرة الأولى من حياتي، في هذا الحي الفقير... كان للوهلة الأولى درسا موضوعيا مادة دراسية للبؤس وصار فيما بعد خلفية تجاربي الخاصة، ولهذا السبب أحاول أن أقدم فكرة ما، عما كانت عليه الحياة هناك»..
قبل نهاية الرواية يقول جورج أورويل « أشعر بأنني لم أعرف من البؤس إلا حافته .!». .

[Grace Tjan · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 scullery maids do “curse like a scullion” (hey, that’s a Hamlet quotation!). No doubt Shakespeare had watched a real-life Elizabethan scullion at work.

4. Men cooks are preferred to women, not because of any superiority in technique, but for their punctuality in delivering orders. The only woman cook featured in the book has nervous breakdowns at exactly 12 pm, 6 pm and 9 pm every day, although it must be noted that they are caused by circumstances that are beyond her control.

5. 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.

6. A steak will not be handled with a fork: the cook will just pick it up in his fingers and slap it down, run his thumb round the dish and lick it to taste the gravy. He will further press it lovingly with his fat, pink fingers, every one of 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.

7. And the waiter, of course, will dip HIS fingers into the gravy --- his nasty, greasy fingers which he is forever running through his briliantined hair.

8. The scullery is the filthiest part of all: it is nothing unusual for a waiter to wash his face in the water in which clean crockery is rinsing.

9. The Plongeur is the lowest kitchen worker in a French restaurant who deals with the dirtiest, sweatiest work available. However, he is allowed two liters of wine a day, because otherwise, he will steal three. Everyone seems to work faster when partially drunk anyway.

10. A bum’s life, whether in Paris or London, is a real BUMMER.

BUT SERIOUSLY,

George Orwell went slumming in Paris and London, and the result is probably one of the best-written accounts of the bumming life ever penned. However, don’t read it if you are sensitive to pungent, unsparing descriptions of filthy kitchens, foul body odors, bug-infested beds and other unsavory aspects of a life gone to the dogs.

[Bionic Jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

“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.”

Homelessness will always be with us. Even now, getting on for a hundred years after parts of Down and Out in Paris and London were written, quite a few of the London areas Orwell describes are still inhabited by the homeless. I mentioned this to a friend. “Druggies,” she announced—dismissively—and even with some contempt. Not all of them, I tried to say, remembering people living on the street who gladly accept food, or those I have seen reading a difficult sort of book; one I might struggle with: “Some of them have just been unlucky.” “Well it’s their own fault,” she insisted. But friend or not, I didn’t want to let this drop, and pursued my point: “Perhaps they lost their job, and then couldn’t pay the rent—or mortgage—and so lost their home. It could happen to anybody!” (the unspoken words here being, it could even happen to you, my white, middle-class, educated friend, who has never had a care in the world). But the first thought returned: “Well most of them are druggies, aren’t they!” and I realised that mentioning that some might indeed in desperation turn to drink or drugs of one type or another, would only confirm her prejudice. The Victorian idea of the “deserving poor” persists, (and presumably some “undeserving” cases) and a bland assumption that “social services” will deal with the homeless, or religious organisations and charities would care for them if not.

Not much has changed. We no longer have workhouses, but we do have hostels—or hotels—for the homeless. “Temporary” holding centres have been developed, and the filth and infection there is so rife, that some homeless people would prefer to chance their luck on the street than go there. Yet this is a developed country—and was so in 1933 when Down and Out in Paris and London was first published.

George Orwell had already witnessed the horror of poverty and homelessness in an underdeveloped country: India (which is now classed as “developing”). He had joined the Indian Imperial Police in 1922, when he was still 18, about to turn 19, and was sent to what was then called Burma, as part of India. (In 1937, Burma became its own colony, in 1948 became independent, and since 1989 has been known as Myanmar). He stayed on for five years, rapidly becoming more and more depressed by the regime. Witnessing colonial oppression, everyday exploitation and degradation, he felt disgusted morally at imperial privilege and colonial rule, citing this as a cause of widespread suffering among ordinary Burmese people. When he contracted dengue fever in 1927, Orwell took his owed leave to recover in Britain, and finally decided not to return, resigning from the Indian Imperial Police to become a writer, in March 1928. His experience there led to several essays and a full length work “Burmese Days”, but it was also responsible for his political awakening, and his lifelong commitment to revealing the “underdogs of society”.

A family friend advised him to write about what he knew, rather than the poetry he strove for. Orwell interpreted this as writing about “certain aspects of the present that he set out to know”. He thought of the appalling poverty and suffering he had witnessed:

“You have thought so much about poverty—it is the thing you have 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 peculiar lowness of poverty that you discover first; the shifts that it puts you to the complicated meanness, the crust-wiping.”

Orwell’s first version was called “A Scullion’s Diary”, completed in October 1930, but this and a slightly expanded version were both rejected by two publishers. Down and Out in Paris and London now seems a perfect title for this book. Yet George Orwell objected to the idea by Gollancz—the only publisher who had decided to risk this full length exposé of social conditions in the two cities—especially by a journalist who had never yet had a full-length work published. They had chosen the title “Confessions of a Down and Outer”, but Orwell argued: “Would The Confessions of a Dishwasher do as well? I would rather answer to ‘dishwasher’ than ‘down and out’.” In 1933 Gollancz were to shorten the title to the one we are familiar with.

Not that its author was yet known as George Orwell. Eric Blair had considered several pseudonyms such as “X,” “P.S. Burton” (an alias he had used when working incognito), “Kenneth Miles” and “H. Lewis Allways” but finally settled on George Orwell. I do not know what decided him, but have wondered if it was a sort of pun. He had a knack of writing persuasive literature, with great clarity and precision. Eric Blair probably had skills as an orator too, and might have been able to “jaw jaw well”, so to speak. But it is just a fancy.

So is this a book about dishwashing? Well yes, quite a lot of it is! And that goes to show how skilfully Eric Blair could write. Thus as a young man of 24, George Orwell made the decision to intentionally live as a vagrant in and around London, so that he would indeed “know about” it. He then took rooms in Portobello Road, London at the end of 1927. He contributed essays to various journals, and went on investigative expeditions in and around London incognito, collecting material for use in “The Spike”, his first published substantial essay, describing a night spent in a Notting Hill tramps’ hostel. LINK HERE for my review.

“You discover boredom and mean complications and the beginnings of hunger, but you also discover the great redeeming feature of poverty: the fact that it annihilates the future.”

“The Spike” covers a longer period, so Orwell edited and rewrote extracts from the essay, for chapters 27 and 35 of this book. My personal opinion is that the original essay packs a lot more punch. Unfortunately, Down and Out in Paris and London is read far more often nowadays, perhaps because most people are not aware what a “spike” was. (It meant the casual ward of a workhouse: an institution affording temporary accommodation for homeless people.) Almost everyone though, is acquainted with the vernacular phrase “down and out”.

In the Spring George Orwell moved to Paris, which had a lively Art scene and drew intellectuals from all over. Also, his aunt lived there, and she would help him out with money from time to time, although he does not mention this in Down and Out in Paris and London. In fact there are quite a few things he does not mention, in order to present a more streamlined account. As he said later:

“I think I can say that I have exaggerated nothing except in so far as all writers exaggerate by selecting. I did not feel that I had to describe events in the exact order in which they happened, but everything I have described did take place at one time or another.”

His account begins in Paris:

“The rue du Coq d’Or, Paris, seven in the morning.”

Its real-life location was a bistro in the “Rue du Pot de Fer”, in an area characterised by quarrels:

“the desolate cries of street hawkers, children chasing orange peels, loud (drunken?) singing at night, and the smell of refuse carts … Poverty is what I am writing about, and I had my first contact with poverty in this slum.”

Orwell described the variety of people who lived there and introduced various characters who appear later in the book. By chapter 3, Orwell’s savings had been stolen, and the tiny income he had teaching English stopped. Desperate for food, he sold some of his clothes, and then pawned the rest. A Russian waiter named Boris with whom he shared a room was in the same position, and together they searched for work and lived on tiny scraps of food. Orwell describes living for two days without any food at all, and how he met some Russian “Communists”, but when they disappeared later, he decided they must be swindlers. Between chapters 3 and 10, he works in an hotel, and these chapters describe his descent into poverty in an entertaining, tragi-comic way:

“You discover that a man who has gone even a week on bread and margarine is not a man any longer, only a belly with a few accessory organs.”

And yet he has a spark of optimism that frees him from worry:

“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.”

What stays with me most from these early chapters is Orwell watching all the bugs walking in line across the ceiling.

Eventually Orwell got a job as a “plongeur” (dishwasher) in the “Hôtel X” near the Place de la Concorde, and began to work extremely long hours. The system was very rigid, with the manager at the top of the pyramid, down through cooks and waiters to plongeurs, right at the bottom, and despised by everyone. Hôtel X was filthy; and the pace was frantic and chaotic, with no organisation of work.

Orwell described his daily routine among the working poor of Paris, slaving and sleeping, and then drinking on Saturday night through to the early hours of Sunday morning. He commented that it was a trap, because nobody had any time to work out how to get out of it.

But Boris had a plan. A new restaurant called the “Auberge de Jehan Cottard” was opening, and both were promised jobs as waiters—a step up—so they left their jobs at the Hôtel X, and were penniless again for a while. Eventually the patron of the Auberge, an ex-colonel of the Russian Army, opened the hotel. The head waiter was also a Russian officer, and many of the customers were titled Russian refugees. “In short, we were decidedly chic” he said, but they were not paid for ten days and Orwell had to spend a night on a bench. He and Boris worked 17-18 hours a day, almost without a break, with Boris working even longer: seven days a week. Orwell had to literally fight for a place on the Paris Métro to reach the “cold, filthy kitchen” by seven, adding: “such hours, though not usual, are nothing extraordinary in Paris.” Despite the filth and incompetence, the restaurant was a success. Orwell thought back to his life as a plongeur, as:

“one of the slaves of the modern world. Not that there is any need to whine over him, for he is better off than many manual workers, but still, he is no freer than if he were bought and sold. His work is servile and without art; he is paid just enough to keep him alive; his only holiday is the sack […. He has] been trapped by a routine which makes thought impossible. If plongeurs thought at all, they would long ago have formed a labour union and gone on strike for better treatment. But they do not think, because they have no leisure for it; their life has made slaves of them.”

Orwell finally decided he had had enough of the long hours, and wrote to a friend, “B,” back in London, asking if he could help. B. sent enough money to get his clothes out of the pawn shop, and Orwell left for London. What happened next is slightly exaggerated. He claimed that on his return from Paris, he found himself down and out in London: “[without] the slightest notion of how to get a cheap bed.” The truth is that in Paris he had already written: “The Spike”, as well as written and published several short articles and opinion pieces for small, avant-garde, local and foreign journals. But before his departure from England he had voluntarily lived among tramps for some time.

As a young man of 24, George Orwell had made the decision to intentionally live as a vagrant in and around London. This was part of the social experiment which would eventually form the basis of Down and Out in Paris and London, yet in the completed book he misrepresents the London episode as following the Paris experience. George Orwell shifts the time frame, to document his London experience in chapters 24 to 38, including within this the shortened version of his hard-hitting essay “The Spike”.

Orwell describes arriving in London, expecting to have the job “B” had arranged waiting for him. However the would-be employers had gone abroad, so for now Orwell was homeless once more. He said that the so-called “four penny coffin” was an inexpensive and comparatively safe sleeping option for the poor of London. I actually slept in one of those years ago at a Youth Hostel in Holland, to the sound of clog dancing downstairs … although there were no bugs (!) and we took our own sleeping bags. Orwell slept in various venues: lodging houses, “spikes”, and Salvation Army shelters. Because vagrants could not enter “any one spike, or any two London spikes, more than once in a month, on pain of being confined for a week” he had to keep on the move, so long hours were spent tramping or waiting for hostels to open. I have given more back story and far more details of this part in my review of “The Spike”, so will move on.

We read about the “screevers” (pavement artists) who are still with us although fewer in number. The remaining chapters in this section were largely written for their entertainment value, and sometimes rang a false note for me. For instance, chapter 33 seemed to show the worst side of human nature from every side. It’s easy enough to give food to the homeless in the streets. They get better food from religious organisations—but of course they have an agenda.

Yet George Orwell said that tramps routinely despised those who give them anything. I can understand this … it would come from resentment at perceived patronage. But does it feel like that from the other, privileged side? Any one of us could be homeless; it’s not always bad planning or an inability to cope in society, but just the luck of the draw.

So Orwell describes how he and other tramps sat in the gallery of a Salvation Army church, being rowdy and deliberately causing mayhem, stamping their feet to disrupt the church service they were expected to attend in order to be given food afterwards:

“Evidently the tramps were not grateful for their free tea. And yet it was excellent [….] I am sure too that it was given in a good spirit, without any intention of humiliating us; so in fairness we ought to have been grateful—still, we were not.”

This cacophony was clearly their only mode of expression, and as such was a matter of solidarity and self-respect. And yet, it disturbed me. Here were genuine Christians, trying to do their best for the poor, but they were presented as figures of fun, and I felt that George Orwell enjoyed every moment he spent creating chaos among the worshippers. Yet it was written in a very lively way … perhaps I am being oversensitive because some of my older relatives were Sally Army folk.

Orwell postulated an original theory: that tramps have a place in society, since what they had to go through—the cold, and the waiting—was just as bad as any other job would be.

Chapter 34 describes how Paddy—a tramp we have got to know and love—got into a fight with another tramp, and how Orwell and Paddy walked the 16 miles to “Cromley” spike. The “no return” rule meant that an entire day for a tramp would often be taken up by walking between spikes. “Cromley” was clearly Bromley, just as Romford spike was called “Romton” spike, in chapter 32. With its busy market and huge shopping centre, Romford is thought of by Essex people as quite a Mecca! Oddly George Orwell used the correct name for Ilford, (another local town to me, but slightly smaller). When George Orwell was discussing locations, he would be accurate, but when he needed to be specific about an institution he altered the name slightly. He was a journalist, after all, so perhaps this was guarding against a fear of being prosecuted for libel.

Of the final chapters, chapter 37 was an essay: Orwell’s thoughts about the poor in London, and chapter 38 encapsulated what he had learned by this experience. There are some sobering thoughts here. It is interesting to see what still pertains now (such as the homeless still sleeping on the Embankment) and what is a thing of the past. Boarding houses nowadays at least have clean sheets.

Although I rate this at 5 stars I do have reservations. It is a reread for me; I first borrowed it as a “talking book” when I was new to such a way of reading, and found myself confused sometimes, as to where Orwell was. But it was unique and profoundly moving in parts, whereas other parts were so absurd that they made me laugh—or cry. Some episodes in Orwell’s life at that time were unforgettable. This time I read it on Kindle, and realised the standard was patchy, and the account as a whole was a little unbalanced. The Paris scenes were both jaw-droppingly awful, but also had some humour. But by the end of the London part it seemed to just be grim. Perhaps this change of mood reflected his own weariness.

Nevertheless it is unique, and Orwell confronts uncomfortable topics, and expresses truths he has learned, with remarkable insight. He never once loses his ability to engage and entertain us, and more importantly, makes us contemplate a horror which for most of us is rarely thought about. I could fill this space alone with apt quotations, but here is just one, from a homeless man he met:

“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’ve just got to say to yourself, “I’m a free man in here”—he tapped his forehead—“and you’re all right.”

Or here is a snappy summing up of the difference between London and Paris in chapter 25:

“[London] was the land of the tea urn and the Labour Exchange, as Paris is the land of the bistro and the sweatshop”.

These are George Orwell’s concluding words:

“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.”

[kian · Rating 5 out of 5]

از اول تا آخر كتاب، انگار در حال پياده‌روي بوده‌اي.. يك پياده‌روي مداوم در كوچه‌پس‌كوچه‌هاي پاريس و لندن.. نه از آن پياده‌روي‌هايي كه باعث شوند گذرت به بخشهاي خوب و رمانتيك و لذت‌بخش شهر بيفتد... برعكس.... انگار روزها در محله‌هاي كثيف و مملو از فقر و فلاكت قدم برداشته‌اي... و شبها را همراه و همگام جورج اورول، در غيرقابل تحمل‌ترين مسافرخانه‌ها و اقامتگاههاي پاريس و لندن، به صبح رسانده‌اي..
همه اين كتاب، روايت فقر است.. نكته دلنشين و برجسته كتاب اين است كه اولا نه از زبان يك فرد گمنام، بلكه از جانب نويسنده 1984 و مزرعه حيوانات، روايت مي‌شود.. و بيان جزئيات قضايا و توصيفهاي اورول، تو را هر چه بيشتر و بيشتر در صحنه‌ها و اتفاقات داستان غرق مي‌كند.. در كنار اين مضمون، لحن اورول كه در قسمت زيادي از بخشها، آميخته به طنز است، اين هنر را دارد كه در غم‌انگيزترين توصيفات داستان هم تو را به خنده بيندازد... يكي از بهترين بخشهاي كتاب هم، آنجاست كه اورول از شخصيتهاي فقير و خيابان‌خوابي در داستان اسم مي‌برد كه برخلاف تصور عموم كه آنها را بي‌ارزش و تنبل و بي‌مصرف مي‌دانند، از فكر و هنر و ويژگيهاي شخصيتي جالبي برخوردارند...
در ضمن، ترجمه (بهمن دارالشفايي) هم عالي بود.
***
بعد از غذا، بوريس آنقدر خوشبين بود كه تاحالا اينطور نديده بودمش. گفت: چي بهت گفتم؟ تقدير جنگ! امروز صبح پنج سو داشتيم. حالا وضعمان را ببين! هميشه گفته‌ام بدست آوردن پول از هر كار ديگري آسانتر است. همين الان ياد دوستي افتادم كه در خيابان فونداري است. بايد برويم و ببينيمش. مردك دزد چهارهزار فرانك سر من كلاه گذاشته. وقتي هشيار است، بزرگترين دزد روي زمين است. اما نكته عجيبش اين است كه وقتي مست مي‌كند كاملا صادق است. فكركنم ساعت شش بعدازظهر ديگر مست شده باشد. احتمال زيادي دارد كه علي‌الحساب صدفرانك بدهد. شايد هم دويست فرانك بدهد. بزن بريم!
به خيابان فونداري رفتيم و طرف را پيدا كرديم. مست بود، ولي پولي به ما نداد. همينكه بوريس و او همديگر را ديدند همانجا در خيابان دعواي لفظي سختي بينشان درگرفت. آن مرد ادعا ميكرد كه يك پني هم به بوريس بدهكار نيست. بلكه اتفاقا اين بوريس است كه چهارهزار فرانك به او بدهكار است. هردوي آنها مدام رو به من ميكردند و نظرم را ميپرسيدند. من آخرش نفهميدم حقيقت ماجرا چه بوده. بعد از اين كه دوساعت تمام، همديگر را دزد خطاب كرده بودند، از من جداشدند و دوتايي رفتند ميگساري...

[Ted · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've loved everything I've ever read by Orwell, including this book which is very autobiographical "fiction", written in the first person. The temporal setting of the "novel" is sometime in the 1920s I think. This is actually not a bad book to sample Orwell with, of course nowhere near as famous as Animal Farm or 1984, but it reads much like a memoir (a very interesting one) and hence can be experienced as a sample of Orwell's writing style and views on society, without those things being masked by the futurist/fantasy plots of the more famous books.

[Mohamed Shady · Rating 5 out of 5]

سمعت الكتاب ده كـ audiobook وكان من أجمل التجارب اللي مريت بيها.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

First published in 1933, this was George Orwell’s first full length book which made it into print. Although it reads as though the events within it were concurrent, in fact much of the latter part of the book was published as an essay, titled, “The Spike,” while the author was in Paris. However, the fact that events do not necessarily follow the narrative, certainly does not invalidate the book, or the points that Orwell makes – sadly still very valid today.

The first half of the book sees Orwell in Paris. Although certainly not flush, he does not experience poverty until his meagre savings are stolen. Orwell’s aunt was, as we now know, in Paris at the time – although we do not know whether she helped him financially. Whether she did or not, it is certainly that he did experience financial hardship and that this led him to taking up work as a lowly dishwasher in hotels and restaurants. The scenes of hotel life are so vividly written that you have no problem imagining the organised chaos, sheer filth and wonderfully exotic characters that exist within the pages. Paris, at that time, had a huge Russian émigré population and Orwell is befriended by Boris, a Russian refugee and waiter. Through him, Orwell embarks on arduous attempts to find work. When work is finally obtained, the seventeen hour days, exhaustion and grinding work is offset by the possibility of eating regularly. Some of the characters in the Paris section of the book work so long that they seem trapped in kitchens and hotels around the city. If you go out for a meal after reading this book I will be very surprised!

In the book, Orwell returns to England after finally being driven to write to a friend to help him find work. When he arrives in London, he is lightly told that his employers had gone abroad for a month, but “I suppose you can hang on till then?” Of course, things did not happen quite this way – as we know, the London part of the book was written before the Paris section. Orwell was later to insist that the events within the book had taken place, albeit not in the order they are written here and it is not necessarily important that a little artistic tension is used to give the storyline a little tension.

The London section of the book sees Orwell living as a tramp in London. A real down and out, tramping from one hostel, or ‘spike’ to another. He shows the reality of that life – of being forced to move on constantly, because of rules which refused a man a bed two nights running, the way the tramps were forced into prayer meetings for a cup of tea and a bun, of their resentment and discomfort, of laws which meant the police could move tramps on if they were asleep and the general discomfort and filth they lived with.

This is moving journalism, which really presents a vivid portrait of a life on the edge. As Orwell points out, when funds are low panic sets in. When there is nothing, there is just existence from one meal to the next. He makes many valid points about how the poor are treated and how their life could be improved. Having just read a news report which suggested that so many people in Britain are reduced to using food banks due to problems with their benefit payments and punitive punishments, you have to sadly conclude that his conclusions about the treatments of people living in poverty are still more than valid.

[Maziyar Yf · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتاب آس و پاس ها در پاریس و لندن ، روایت بسیار ساده ای ایست از زندگی افرادی بی سر پناه و طبیعتا بدون پول و بی کار ، افرادی که از جامعه طرد
شده و دولت هم بدون هیچ گونه حمایتی آنها را رها کرده است.
در این کتاب با افرادی طرف هستیم که کل دارایی آنها معمولا در جیب لباس آنهاست ، افرادی که روز مره زندگی می کنند ، به مدد دولت و سیاستهای احمقانه اش عملا هیچ هدفی به غیر از سیر شدن و بستری برای خواب ندارند ، افرادی که روزگار معنای زندگی را از آنها گرفته و آنها را پوچ و بی هدف به امان خود رها کرده .
مهمترین ویژگی کتاب موفقیت کامل نویسنده در مجسم ساختن زندگی روزمره این افراد بوده ، امری که توسط مترجم کتاب ، جناب آقای دارالشفایی با چیرگ ومهارت به مخاطب انتقال پیدا کرده ، به گونه ای که خواننده کتاب هم همراه و هم گام قهرمانان کتاب پیاده روی و یا ولگردی می کند و آن زمانی هم که آنها غذایی می خورند و به جایی برای خواب پناه می برند ، او هم نفسی به آرامش می کشد و از اینکه روزی دیگر برای آنها بدون فاجعه ای سپری شد احساس رضایت می کند .
در پایان کتاب آس و پاس ها نوشته جناب اورول ، اثری ایست ساده و دوست داشتنی که خواننده را با مصیبت زندگی قشرخیابانگرد جامعه اندکی آشنا می کند .