This book falls into two distinct parts, both with an underlying
common theme, the revealing of poverty at close range. Not an
appealing subject, you will say. But have a look at the book and
catch the strange fascination of the telling. First there is Paris,
not the Paris of the boulevards or the Bois, nor yet of the Latin
Quarter. But Paris of the slums, the Paris of those who live a
precarious existence, always on the verge of actual starvation, a
hand to mouth existence, from pawn shop to pawn shop. The youth who
is telling of his own experiences, and of those around him,
eventually lands a job as a dishwasher behind the scenes of a smart
hotel restaurant. Vivid and lurid and unappetizing, are the
pictures he gives of what goes on behind the scenes, human and
otherwise. The second part of the book brings him to England, and
the story recalls Josiah Flint's TRAMPING WITH TRAMPS, that expose
of our own hobodom. Here is the English side of the picture today,
exaggerated by the unemployment situation and the aftermath of war.
It is particularly timely in showing the measures in active use for
dealing with the many sorts and conditions of men who have hit the
trail today, and who travel in hordes from one encampment to
another. One wonders, in reading this book whether there is not
here another Thomas Burke in the making. (Kirkus Reviews)
George Orwell's first published work, Down and Out in Paris and London, is a vivid, sensitive account of the time he lived as one of the poor in the late twenties. In a bug-infested hotel, surviving only between the pawnbroker and a little teaching and writing, Orwell shocked the middle-class establishment with his observation of the misery, the hopelessness and the despair of the poor of a previously unexplored Paris and London.
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