Down and Out in Paris and London

George Orwell’s first book is a memoir of his times tramping about Paris and London scrounging around for food and shelter. The first half of the book covers his time living in Paris, working as a dishwasher in hotels and desperately trying to pay the rent. The second half of the book reveals his time living as a tramp (literally!) around the London area, moving from shelter to shelter and living on a daily ration of bread and butter.

As a memoir, it contains nearly now plot arc, but is merely sequenced by the order of the events, regardless of their value as part of the narrative. The closest parallel to a plot arc in the text is the fact that, as the book goes on, Orwell’s situation becomes more and more dire. The characters in the Paris portion of the book are much more entertaining and funny and, although he is often pawning most of his clothing for food money, it never seems as though he is in any real danger. This may be because he has his own apartment (even though shabby) and his friends are very creative when it comes to finding money. Regardless of the reason, in Paris his poverty felt more like watching a sitcom than reading the pleas for help of a desperate man.

Yet, when he arrives in London, he is suddenly is homeless and destitute. He is forced to wander from shelter to shelter each day, surviving on bread and butter and smoking cigarettes made from the tobacco of cigarettes other people threw away. At times, the reader actually fears for his life as he is locked in with strangers in cells at shelters. Despite the intellect that we know he has, he is caught in a situation with seemingly no way out (until a job he was promised before he moved to London becomes available). He is a man lost in a sea of impoverished masses.

As his situation grows worse, his prose becomes much more purpose driven. We begin to see the seeds of class and political ideals which would flavor his later (and much more famous) work, such as “Animal Farm” and “1984.” He blames the plight of the tramp on the capitalist society which punishes people who are productive but whose skills are not valued, while sometimes rewarding those whose skills are valued regardless of whether or not they are productive. Although his later texts would be characterized as blatantly anti-communist, certain passages of this book would be clearly anti-capitalist. (From these opposing points, then, we cannot infer any political leanings from his books, except an opposition to politics and institutions that would repress and control any part of those it purports to represent.

Ultimately, this is a pretty good start for a writer whose influence on literature (and the politics in literature) would become very powerful. It is not a great book, by any means, but it shows glimmers of the potential greatness that he would later achieve.