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ijon 's review for:
Down and Out in Paris and London
by George Orwell
The book has two distinct parts, consisting of his experiments in living in squalor in Paris and then London. Experiments, I call them, because Orwell had a safety net -- family and friends -- who were in a position to provide money as a last resort (and who do in fact do so, in the latter, London, section).
The Paris experiment is naturally stronger -- Orwell doesn't know much of anyone there, and his belonging to the "lower-upper-middle-class" (his phrase), obvious to any Englishman, would have been lost on Parisians.
He lives in a moldy cheap hotel, and works as a _plongeur_ (dish-washer) at a number of restaurants.
Orwell does a wonderful job of describing, in plain and powerful English, what it's like, physically and mentally; what his co-workers and bosses are like; and what their after-hours life is like. He succeeds in describing the psychological stress caused by poverty, how one spends one's days calculating how much bread one's few remaining sous would buy, or how to pass the weekend without spending anything on heating.
So the French half of the book is a wonderful piece of gonzo journalism, essentially. It's a fantastic read.
When he returns to England, he lives at a succession of "spikes" (workhouses), and again describes the physical and mental conditions they create for their tenants, including the constant need to "move on", the religious proselytizers looking for captive audiences, etc.
In England, however, it is clear than Orwell feels he is more than a journalist, but a social critic, and he explicitly offers an analysis of the socio-economic complex comprising the poor and the workhouse system of the day, suggesting it is both inefficient and unjust.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and despite all the dank and suffocating spaces it describes, it is fresh and insightful.
The Paris experiment is naturally stronger -- Orwell doesn't know much of anyone there, and his belonging to the "lower-upper-middle-class" (his phrase), obvious to any Englishman, would have been lost on Parisians.
He lives in a moldy cheap hotel, and works as a _plongeur_ (dish-washer) at a number of restaurants.
Orwell does a wonderful job of describing, in plain and powerful English, what it's like, physically and mentally; what his co-workers and bosses are like; and what their after-hours life is like. He succeeds in describing the psychological stress caused by poverty, how one spends one's days calculating how much bread one's few remaining sous would buy, or how to pass the weekend without spending anything on heating.
So the French half of the book is a wonderful piece of gonzo journalism, essentially. It's a fantastic read.
When he returns to England, he lives at a succession of "spikes" (workhouses), and again describes the physical and mental conditions they create for their tenants, including the constant need to "move on", the religious proselytizers looking for captive audiences, etc.
In England, however, it is clear than Orwell feels he is more than a journalist, but a social critic, and he explicitly offers an analysis of the socio-economic complex comprising the poor and the workhouse system of the day, suggesting it is both inefficient and unjust.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and despite all the dank and suffocating spaces it describes, it is fresh and insightful.