Down and Out in Paris and London

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5 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 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• 

  mi è piaciuto molto.
  il romanzo è divuso in due parti e la protagonista è la fame. nella prima, più lunga, orwell raxcconta il suo soggiorno a parrigi, quando, rimasto senza lavoro, rischiò di morire di fame e i vari colpi di fortuna che lo portarono a salvarsi. fantastica è la descrizione di come ... (continue)

  mi è piaciuto molto.
  il romanzo è divuso in due parti e la protagonista è la fame. nella prima, più lunga, orwell raxcconta il suo soggiorno a parrigi, quando, rimasto senza lavoro, rischiò di morire di fame e i vari colpi di fortuna che lo portarono a salvarsi. fantastica è la descrizione di come funzionano le cucine dei ristoranti. ad esempio: a ccustomer orders, for example, a piece of toast. somebody, pressed with work in a cellar deep underground, has to prepare it. how can he stop and say to himself, "this toast has to be eaten - i must make it eatable"? all he knows is that it must look right and must be ready in three minutes. some large drops of sweat fall from his forehead onto the toast. why should he worry? presently the toast falls among the filthy sawdust on the floor. why trouble to make a new piece? it is muchquicker to wipe the sawdust off. on the way upstair the toast falls again, butter side down. another wipe is all it needs and so with eberything", ed è vero... tanto, la maggior parte dei clienti all'hotel, racconta orwell, sono americani, e non ci capiscono di cibo: mangiano marmedlade at tea, and drink vermouth after dinner and order a poulet à la reine at a hunderd francs and then souse it in worcester sauce. one costumer dined every night in his bedroom on grape-nuts, scrampled eggs and cocoa. prhaps it hardly matters such people are swindled or not.
  orwell, dopo un lungo periodo di fame, va a fare il plongeur.
  a plongeur is a slave, and a wasted slave, doing stupid and largely unnecessary work. he is kept at work, ultimately, because of a vague feeling that he would be dangerous if he had leisure. and educated people, who should be on his side, acquiesce in the process, because they know nothing about him and consequently are afraid of him. tutto questio anche se orwell non è comunista, neh. (lo ripete più volte nel romanzo).
  orwell, stufo di fare la fame, torna a londra e scopre dovrà fare ancora più fame.
  diventa un vero e proprio barbone e la seconda parte del romanzo descrive la vita dei barboni negli anni '30: che tipo di rifugi ci sono, cosa ci si può aspettare, cosa è richiesto (nella maggior parte di essi, si prega).
  orwell in pochi giorni per strada è lurido: dirt is a great respecter of persons: it lets you alone when you are well dressed, but as soon as your collar is gone it flies towards you from all directions.
  già a quei tempi, i barboni stavano nella parte sud o est del paese. i barboni si trascinano avanti e indietro tra i rifugi, reagebdo in modi diversi, anche se per lo più lo spirito è che when you take a man's money away he's fit for nothing from that moment. anche se c'è chi (l'affascinantissimo bozo) reputa che non sia così, perché essere poveri non signfica non pensare più: you can still keep on with your books and your ideas. you just got to say to yourself, i'm a free man in here (he tapped his forehead) and you're all right.
  si descrivono le ricerche di cibo, da king's cross a lambeth, per il tea and two slices (3 pence) e l'accantonare denaro per pagare il letto (8 pence), si descrive l'essere presi in ostaggio dei barboni
  da parte dei predicatori, perché "it is curious how peopple take it for granted that they have a right to preach at you and pray over you as soon as your income falls below a certain level".
  interessantissimo il vocabolario, conparole quali gagger, nobber, judy (donna!), to bawl, to skipper, smoke (londra), flattie (poliziotto) o a gee. da studiarsi a memoria!

  in conclusione: a beggar, looked at realistil
  cally, is simply a businessman, getting his living, like other business men, in the way that comes to hand. he has not sold his honour; he has merely made the mistake of choosing a trade at which it is impossible to grow rich.

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  inquisizione spagnola said on Sep 1, 2010 about the Paperback edition | 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 about the Paperback edition | 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 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• Front cover photograph by Humphrey Sutton

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  scatterkeir said on Jan 27, 2008 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

Book Details

• Rating:
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• English Books
• eBook 256 Pages
• ISBN-10: 0141906189
• ISBN-13: 9780141906188
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Pub date: Sep 27, 2001
• Also available as: Paperback, Hardcover, Audio CD, Audio Cassette and Others
• In other languages: other languages Libri Italiani

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