In one sense an easy read, in that the narrative sweeps the reader along: in another, difficult, because the story, describing conditions of brutal poverty as a 'plongeur' in a Paris hotel kitchen, then as an English tramp in southern England is unappetising in the extreme. The diary-like narrative is interspersed with anecdotes from the lives of other characters, such as his Russian friend Boris, and with more political reflections to make a striking and unforgettable short book. Not to be read before going out to a restaurant for dinner.... ( )

I've re-read this book many times over fifty years, and each time seems to resonate with a different dimension of my own experiences. ( )

The fact that all I wanted to eat when reading this book was a loaf of stale bread and milk speaks volumes about his writing. He writes about poverty in a way that sucks you in - he both glamorizes it and shows the awful truth about it. Loved this book! ( )

Orwell has been called a master of plain style. You need not read further than the first page of this, his first book, to learn this doesn’t mean dull or simple. He describes his street in Paris as a “ravine of tall, leprous houses, lurching toward one another in queer attitudes, as though they had all been frozen in the act of collapse.” Anyone who has ever tried to write recognizes the keen observation and quest for just the right word—and then the next, and the next—that goes into producing just one sentence as good as this.
Yet this skillful prose doesn’t exist just to be good writing. This is prose with a purpose. Determined to become a writer, he was equally determined to find something that seemed worth writing about: the life of the absolutely destitute. Despite having a family ready to take him in (something he never mentions), as well as helpful acquaintances, he allows himself to slide down the social scale to a life of absolute poverty.
This gives a dual optic to the book. Most of the book describes Orwell’s life as a penniless dishwasher in a fashionable Paris hotel and then as a tramp in England. Then, toward the end of each half of the book, Orwell includes reflections: an essay that asks why the life of the plongeur is as it is, a brief chapter on slang and swearing, then a short essay on tramps, followed by one describing sleeping accommodations. These contain practical suggestions for improvement. Above all, Orwell argues for a change in perception from that of the “tramp-monster” to what he experienced: “A tramp is only an Englishman out of work.”
Whether Boris, the Russian emigré Orwell befriends in Paris, his tramp companion Paddy, or Bozo the screever (sidewalk chalk artist), it is the unforgettable portraits as well as the record of lived experience that gives Orwell’s prescriptions their credibility.
One more thing: Orwell is the master of the closing sentence. ( )

I enjoyed the Paris part more. Boris was very entertaining and in comparison being down and out in London just seemed depressing and bleak. At least in Paris there was some life and fun in between the hardship of it all.

Pretty good stuff. I liked the Paris section much better than the London section because it was more interesting to read about the behind-the-scenes of hotels and restaurants rather than the toils of tramp life. ( )

Fantastic introspective view of poverty in two iconic European cities a century ago. ( )

Not knowing what to expect, I was very pleasantly surprised by this book. Orwell successfully told a tale of the downtrodden and oppressed in a way that was interesting, informative and at the same time extremely witty and entertaining.

The majority of the book is dedicated to the protagonist's experiences in Paris. His interactions with his compatriot Boris the Russian, and his time as a menial worker at the Paris Cafes were often hilarious. Other experiences were quite sobering indeed.

I would have ranked this five stars except that the ending of the book with regard to his time in London was a bit slow and anti-climatic.

A highly recommended and outstanding work! ( )

Yoksulluğa dair yazılmış çarpıcı bir eser. Paris ve Londra'dan ayrıntılı sefalet tasvirleri, zaman zaman istatistikler ile birlikte verilmiş. Kitapta her ne kadar doğrulayan bir ifade olmasa da, eserin yazarın hatıralarından oluştuğu hissediliyor. ( )

Interesting account of the author's time spent with the poor and homeless in Paris and London in the 30s. I like the way he writes. ( )

A fantastic book that means a lot to me (was pretty down and out myself when I first read it, albeit nowhere near as down and out as George was!). The writing is fantastic, he creates a picture and a character so well ( )

A good read, more of a journal of George Orwell’s experience during pre-war Europe in Paris and London.
In Paris, George worked in a French Hotel restaurant, but in less than fancy working conditions. Cramped, filthy floors, less than sanitary cooking, and a class system of workers in the kitchen from the porters carting in ice or sides of beef all the way up to the head chef and hotel owner.
In London, he joined a group of “Tramps” walking around London from one rooming house to the next on a shoestring budget. Orwell documents the sub-society that existed in London where thousands of people in extreme poverty wander the streets crisscrossing the city to their next bed (if they are lucky) collecting cigarette butts along the way to eventually have enough tobacco for one cigarette. ( )

If you want to know how it is to be poor and work hard in Paris or be poor and a tramp in London in the 1930ies read this book. Makes you feel blessed. (Also you can follow up with Knut Hansum´s Hunger) ( )

This book is based, at least in part, on Orwell’s own experiences as a poor person in Paris and London. I suspect that most of which he recounts was true. I found it extremely readable but I cannot say enjoyable.

He begins by recounting his time as a washer-up in Paris.

He lived in a Paris slum where “a third of the male population of the quarter was drunk”. There were lots of fights and at night the policemen could only come through the street two together.

He stayed at a dirty hotel with thin walls, down which long lines of bugs “marched all day like columns of soldiers and at night come down enormously hungry”; one had to get up every four hours and kill them.

Some of the lodgers, mostly foreigners, were “fantastically poor”.

There were many eccentric characters, some half-mad. Some lived lives “”curious beyond words”.

Some were always half-starved and half-drunk. (If I were half-starved, I wouldn’t waste money on booze, but then I’m not an alcoholic.) The filth of one couple’s room was such that one could smell it on the floor below. According to the Madame, neither of them had taken off their clothes for four years.

Orwell tells us the stories, circumstances, etc of the various hotel occupants.

At first, he could earn a little money by giving English lessons, but this source of income did not last.

He informs us of how many francs he earned and how many francs everything cost, also how many shillings this amounted to; but all this was long ago, and how much or little, this was, means nothing to us these days, neither the value of francs or shillings.

He mostly goes hungry, existing only on bread and margarine.

He discovers 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”.

Sometimes he is obliged to sell some of his clothes in a second-hand shop but gets practically nothing for them.

He tells us that when one has almost no money left one gets “a feeling of relief, almost of pleasure, at feeling yourself at last genuinely down and out”.

He tells us about his close friend, Boris, a Russian, who after becoming ill, has grown immensely fat from lying in bed. He had been a dish -washer and worked his way up to becoming a waiter.

Boris warns Orwell he will never make any money at writing, but he would help him get a job in a kitchen. (I don’t know if Orwell ever earned much money from his writing, but he certainly became world famous!)

Orwell works as a “plongeur”, a dish-washer, for a minimum wage.

He later works at a hotel; the dirt here is revolting, and worse in the kitchen. Conditions are disgusting, although the hotel was one of the most expensive in Paris.

I rarely eat in restaurants, but after reading this book, I may never eat in one again.

The second half of the book is about the author’s time in London.

He found a lodging-house where he could sleep in a dormitory for 15-20 men. The beds were cold and hard but the sheets were “not more than a week from the wash, which was an improvement”.

There was a kitchen, which was hot and drowsy with coke fumes. There was a general sharing of food; men who were out of work got fed by the others.

London was “cleaner and quieter and drearier” than Paris. The crowds were better dressed and the faces “comelier and milder and more alike”.

There was less drunkenness, less dirt, less quarrelling, and more idling.

There were places called casual wards, or spikes, where tramps, or others in Orwell’s situation, could spend the night.

There were other places where you could get a free cup of tea and a bun, but you had to say “a lot of bloody prayers” afterwards.

The tea was excellent but the men were not grateful for it because of all the forced praying.

One spike was a “smoky yellow cube of brick --- in a corner of the workhouse grounds”. There was a long queue of ragged men waiting for the gates to open. They were palpably underfed but friendly and many offered O tobacco, i.e. cigarette ends.

The spikes were all different; in some you could smoke but there were bugs in the cells, in one the beds were comfortable but the porter was a bully. And so on. You were not allowed to enter any one spike or two London spikes, more than once a month.

If you had more than eight-pence you had to hand it over at the gate.

A spike consisted of a bathroom and lavatory and perhaps a hundred cells in all.

Each man got rations of a half-pound wedge of bread covered with margarine, and a pint of bitter sugarless cocoa in a tin billy.

It was a normal condition for a spike that there were no beds – you had to sleep on the floor. Though you did get a blanket. There was a chamber-pot and a hot-water pipe. You could roll up your coat and put it against the hot-water pipe.

There was only one tub of water for all the men, so on one occasion O took a look at the black scum floating on the water from the other men’s faces and went unwashed.

O made friends with some of the tramps and tells us their stories.

The men were in a poor state of health owing to living for years on bread and margarine – they were destroyed by malnutrition.

I found Orwell’s account of his impoverished life in Paris and London fascinating though depressing. It made my own diet seem like one fit for a queen and also made me in comparison feel like a millionaire.

I highly recommend that you read the book, which is in my view his best, or one of his best, of those I’ve read. ( )

My comments refer to the Prabhat e-book edition instead of the Penguin edition.

George Orwell describes his personal experiences living among the poor and homeless in Paris and in London. He describes the everyday struggles of people who often went days without anything to eat. Telling the stories of many of the people he spent time with brings their world to life. The book concludes with a short essay urging people to view tramps in a better light. ( )

Narrative of being poor in Paris and London

George Orwells Down and out in Paris and London ter sig inledningsvis som en efterföljare till Svält: berättaren finner att han knappt har pengar kvar till hyran på sitt parisiska boende, och gör allt vad han kan för att dölja detta, med underliga tankebanor som följd. Orwell är dock inte Hamsun, och detta är snarare en reportagebok än ett experiment i berättande.

Temat är således snarast överlevnad: berättaren försöker hitta småinkomster eller helst jobb, pantsätter kläder, försöker få hjälp av vänner. Han hamnar ett tag i restaurangvärlden, först på fint hotell, sedan på nystartad krog, och registrerar vad han där ser: hur man jobbar och sliter, hur skenet är viktigare än faktisk renlighet, hierarkierna. Till slut får han nog av att jobba 17 timmar i sträck i ett för litet kök som handräckning, och flyr till ett jobb i London.

Väl där märker han dock att jobbet inte kan tillträdas förrän om en månad, och pengar har han fortfarande inga. Lösningen blir ett liv som tiggare och luffare: lagarna tvingar honom att ständigt sova i nya fattighus, och även om han ibland kan skrapa ihop pengar för den enklaste formen av härbärge så räcker det sällan mer än några nätter.

Berättarens egna mödor varvas med iakttagelser av personerna runt honom: de som visar hur man kan överleva på småpengar, hur jobbet i restaurangen går till, hur man kan tigga till sig tillräckligt för nästa dag. Inskjutet finns också Orwells politiska betraktelser om hur dessa enkla arbetare utför i stort sett meningslösa uppgifter som mest verkar till för att de aldrig skall kunna stanna upp och tänka, om fattigvården och synen på luffare.

Det är knappast den mest rafflande av böcker, ej heller den politiskt mest utmanande – nästan ett sekel senare är det intressant att jämföra vad som skiljer sig och vad som är detsamma, men inget av det som sägs framstår som direkt omskakande. ( )

Delves deep into the seedy underbelly of Paris and London, showing how the poor and the unemployed live.

Orwell presents a compelling and journalistic look at the penniless in Paris, focusing on fascinating characters that are interesting to read. His expose into the heart of Paris restaurants was damning and kept me wondering if they're the same still.

As for London, the life of the tramp wasn't very interesting or amusing as the Paris one. This is mostly because he wasn't working yet, so the chapters were very brief and felt tedious with description after description of life on the road. ( )

Wow! My 15 year old daughter recently got a job as a dishwasher in a little cafe. She only works weekends as high school etc. takes up the rest of her time. Someone recommended this book because Orwell worked as a dishwasher when he was stony broke in Paris in the 20s. His descriptions of the buggy and dirty rooms for rent are stomach turning. (What kind of bugs were they? Big enough to be seen so maybe roaches not bedbugs? He uses pepper in the sheets to keep them out of his bed. Horrible!) Even as a small cog in the engine as it were, he is fascinated by the social engineering that goes into the labor of a prosperous Parisian hotel. Oh and food in a Paris hotel is also presented as something you wouldn't want to eat. He describes all the (dirty) hands that touch the food so it can be dressed up and presented as fancily as possible. He says that if you go to a lower class restaurant you get cleaner food because they just put it on a plate without all the handling.

The two halves of the book don't mesh but both are compelling. The description of tramps (unemployed men with no means of support) in England is a vivid and mostly dispassionate view of life for unfortunates in a country with very little social safety net. They are 'tramps' because they must keep on the move. Begging is illegal and hostels (formerly workhouses) where they can sleep for free can only be used one night, after that it's time to walk down the road to sleep in the woods or find the next hostel. Most of these men subsist on bread and margarine and tea and very little else. Some are crippled, some are 'imbeciles'. ( )

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

In this book, George Orwell recounts his harsh experience living (down and out) in the slums of Paris and London. The book gives an account of poverty in general at that time, through describing a complicated period in the life of Orwell. I found the Paris part more endearing and engaging as Orwell's vivid and sharp descriptions made it possible to picture how life was like back then. ( )

> On the second day I thought of pawning my overcoat, but it seemed too far to walk to the pawnshop, and I spent the day in bed, reading the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes . It was all that I felt equal to, without food. Hunger reduces one to an utterly spineless, brainless condition, more like the after-effects of influenza than anything else. It is as though one had been turned into a jellyfish, or as though all one’s blood had been pumped out and lukewarm water substituted. Complete inertia is my chief memory of hunger; that, and being obliged to spit very frequently, and the spittle being curiously white and flocculent, like cuckoo-spit.

> Sometimes, he said, when sleeping on the Embankment, it had consoled him to look up at Mars or Jupiter and think that there were probably Embankment sleepers there. He had a curious theory about this. Life on earth, he said, is harsh because the planet is poor in the necessities of existence. Mars, with its cold climate and scanty water, must be far poorer, and life correspondingly harsher. Whereas on earth you are merely imprisoned for stealing sixpence, on Mars you are probably boiled alive. This thought cheered Bozo, I do not know why. He was a very exceptional man.

> Then the question arises, Why are beggars despised? – for they are despised, universally. I believe it is for the simple reason that they fail to earn a decent living. In practice nobody cares whether 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. ( )

George Orwell, who was by his own admission born to the "lower upper middle class" and educated at English public schools, was never really down and out; but he sympathized with the working classes and embraced socialism. He also lived with the working classes to gather material for his writing. This book, his first commercial success portrays a thinly disguised Orwell living the low life in both Paris and London.

It's no picnic to be poor in either city. However, to me, it seemed a whole lot more palatable in Paris than in bleak and chilly London. The beliefs that would drive him to write his most famous novels are clearly in evidence here. ( )

A fascinating glimpse into early 20th century poverty in Europe. It really gives good perspective on those who are food insecure, or without a stable place to live and work. After reading this, and [b:Homage to Catalonia|9646|Homage to Catalonia|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1394868278l/9646._SY75_.jpg|2566499]Homage to Catalonia, I'm starting to understand Orwell's perspective a bit more. ( )

Brutal depiction of poverty in Paris and London, with descriptions of food-service work that both set your hair on end and bust a gut laughing. Absolutely fascinating and harrowing detail about homelessness in London and how one might survive on no resources. Orwell analyzes the social structure that allows for such a brutal wringing through of human bodies, as well as provides practical solutions and the reason why these practical solutions cannot possibly come to fruition. ( )

An excellent memoir, although one that is slightly fictionalized, based on the author's research "slumming it" amongst the poor. The work suffers from attitudes of sexism and anti-semitism, although less than one might fear. I plan to continuing reading Orwell's early work. ( )