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twistingsnake's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
A damning look into the realities of the slums and also an introspective in the ways that poverty and classism haven’t changed. I read this as a research material for writing and I found it applicable and helpful in regards to detail and perspective.
thepaige_turner's review against another edition
1.0
Racist, classist, just horrible. Very interested to see what my professor is going to say about this book since I had to read it for class.
jhbandcats's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
fast-paced
5.0
Jack London, best known for The Call of the Wild and White Fang, spent the summer of 1902 in London pretending to be penniless. He had a safe house where he could bathe and eat if life on the streets proved to be too much. He had the grace to feel guilty that he could get a meal and a good sleep even while London’s poor could not.
I found a quote by Jack London in The Five: the Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper. I’d not known he’d gone undercover to see the underside of London. I read this book at the same time as The Five, alternating chapters. This one took place almost 15 years after the murders and little had changed in the slums.
The misery and utter waste of humankind was appalling. I know the US had the same slums - similar exposés were done in NYC. Jack London wasn’t trying to say the US was better at dealing with poverty than England; rather, he’d seen something that prompted his curiosity so he went to investigate.
This book is written in an easy style, almost as if it’s a conversation with the reader. He quotes some of the many destitute people he encounters - there’s absolutely nothing they can do to get ahead. There was so much starvation and disease, and so many people had to sleep outside because they couldn’t afford four pence for a bed. More than 50% of slum children died before the age of five.
Illuminating and heartbreaking, and an exception companion to anyone reading The Five.
I found a quote by Jack London in The Five: the Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper. I’d not known he’d gone undercover to see the underside of London. I read this book at the same time as The Five, alternating chapters. This one took place almost 15 years after the murders and little had changed in the slums.
The misery and utter waste of humankind was appalling. I know the US had the same slums - similar exposés were done in NYC. Jack London wasn’t trying to say the US was better at dealing with poverty than England; rather, he’d seen something that prompted his curiosity so he went to investigate.
This book is written in an easy style, almost as if it’s a conversation with the reader. He quotes some of the many destitute people he encounters - there’s absolutely nothing they can do to get ahead. There was so much starvation and disease, and so many people had to sleep outside because they couldn’t afford four pence for a bed. More than 50% of slum children died before the age of five.
Illuminating and heartbreaking, and an exception companion to anyone reading The Five.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Classism, Grief, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Death of parent, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Addiction, Medical trauma, Chronic illness, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Suicide, Confinement, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, and Police brutality
anscha3000's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.0
kathrinpassig's review against another edition
4.0
Lebensbedingungen in den ärmeren Teilen Londons um 1900, man bekommt sehr gründlich erklärt, warum die Situation ausweglos ist und arme Leute nicht "einfach nur" irgendwas anders machen können. Im letzten Viertel wurde es ein bisschen redundant.
lgpiper's review against another edition
3.0
This was a tough book. It was sort of first-hand sociology. Jack London decided to live in London's East End, as one of the down-and-outs there. This was back around 1900 (the book came out in 1902). His cover was that he was a stranded seaman. Once he dressed up shabbily enough, no one doubted him.
The book was essentially written in two parts. In the first half or so, London relates his experiences of living on the streets, visiting the homes of the destitute, getting in line for soup kitchens and work houses and so forth. Then in the second half, he discusses more the numbers of people involved, how 55% of the children born into extreme poverty in the East End die by age 5, how the British Empire is exporting the strong and abled out into their empire and away from England. As a result, England is becoming non-competitive on the world stage.
It's kind of the same problem as we have a century later on, the 1% at the top of the economic ladder are plundering the work and wages of the 50% at the bottom of the economic structure, and then blaming their victims for their being stunted and starved.
One interesting feature, to me, was that they kept wandering along Mile End Road. For a year, back in the dark ages, I worked at an establishment on Mile End Road: Queen Mary College, a part of the University of London. The section of Mile End Road along which I scurried daily, wasn't so bleak as the parts London trod some three quarters of a century earlier.
The book was essentially written in two parts. In the first half or so, London relates his experiences of living on the streets, visiting the homes of the destitute, getting in line for soup kitchens and work houses and so forth. Then in the second half, he discusses more the numbers of people involved, how 55% of the children born into extreme poverty in the East End die by age 5, how the British Empire is exporting the strong and abled out into their empire and away from England. As a result, England is becoming non-competitive on the world stage.
It's kind of the same problem as we have a century later on, the 1% at the top of the economic ladder are plundering the work and wages of the 50% at the bottom of the economic structure, and then blaming their victims for their being stunted and starved.
One interesting feature, to me, was that they kept wandering along Mile End Road. For a year, back in the dark ages, I worked at an establishment on Mile End Road: Queen Mary College, a part of the University of London. The section of Mile End Road along which I scurried daily, wasn't so bleak as the parts London trod some three quarters of a century earlier.