Down and Out in Paris and London

4 Reviews

• 1 person find this helpful

  

  Interesting as it is some of Orwell's earliest writing, but you can't help getting cross with him for purposefully suffering what a lot of other people could not help but suffer.. it felt a bit voyeuristic; even if his aim was to highlight the social problems of L and P.. hmm...

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  goldtop said on Mar 28, 2007 | Add your feedback

• 

  oh misery...

  This little book has taken me a long, LONG time to get through. I enjoyed it initially finding it well written, I liked the character descriptions, the squalid living conditions, observations on Parisian life (early 1930s) and social-political comment. I imagined myself in the depths of the cellars ... (continue)

  This little book has taken me a long, LONG time to get through. I enjoyed it initially finding it well written, I liked the character descriptions, the squalid living conditions, observations on Parisian life (early 1930s) and social-political comment. I imagined myself in the depths of the cellars of the hotels, living the life of a lowly plongeur.

  However it increasingly became like walking through deeper and deeper wet mud. I wondered if it might ever finish - I didn't want to abandon it and remained hopeful it would speed up. But, frankly, it didn't, instead it got ever more depressing, repetitive, exasperating and mournful. I hoped the transfer to London from Paris might inject a change of pace, but no, with bad luck and drudgery clinging to Orwell.

  Ok, is it a novel or a journal? If it were a "written up" journal then I would look more favourably on the effort I have expended to read this, if it was a novel... hm.

  I feel some affection towards George Orwell, but this book was in dire need of some effective editing, oh-yes.

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  mrpeterryan said on Apr 28, 2010 | Add your feedback

• "It was the land of tea urn ad the Labour Exchange, as Paris is the land of bistro and the sweatshop"...
  Once more Orwell succedes in this book, in capturing the essence of life...street corners and outcast, down and out in Paris and London.
  The added value of the book it's its being a DIA ... (continue)

  "It was the land of tea urn ad the Labour Exchange, as Paris is the land of bistro and the sweatshop"...
  Once more Orwell succedes in this book, in capturing the essence of life...street corners and outcast, down and out in Paris and London.
  The added value of the book it's its being a DIARY and not merely an Essay.
  Misery, hunger, squalor, Orwell's travel amongst the desperates is at the same time a real life experience and a reflection on society.
  Amazing his remarks on the stereotype of london's "tramp-monsters", parisian "plongeurs"...and even "the magic of swearing".
  Striking the ending lines of the book.
  As through his own words" I should like to understand what really goes on in the souls of plongeurs and tramps at Embankment sleepers. At present I do not feel that I have seen more than the fringe of poverty. (....) That is a beginning".

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  Bryterlayter said on Sep 22, 2008 | Add your feedback

• Front cover photograph by Humphrey Sutton

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  scatterkeir said on Jan 27, 2008 | Add your feedback

Book Details

• Rating:
  (115)
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• English Books
• Paperback 240 Pages
• Edition: New Ed
• ISBN-10: 0141187360
• ISBN-13: 9780141187365
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Pub date: Jun 05, 2003
• Dimensions: 1290 mm x 774 mm x 129 mm Just how big is that?
• Also available as: Hardcover, Audio CD, Audio Cassette, Others and eBook
• In other languages: other languages Libri Italiani

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