Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

Down and Out in Paris and London is a barely fictionalized account of Orwell's experiences in poverty in both of those locations in the early 1930s. Sadly, it doesn't appear that conditions have improved much for the poor over the last 70 or 80 years.

Orwell starts the book by relating his life as a renter in a Parisian slum. It wasn't much of a room, but at least he had some privacy. His daily practice involved looking for work, trying to find money to get his daily tea and daily meal, and trying to fend off boredom. Chronicled here are the scams that the poor can fall victim to, such as promises of employment if one pays a subscription fee up front, or a start-up restauranteur telling you that you'll begin work tomorrow...and then the restaurant doesn't open for another month. Much of the time Orwell has to head to the pawn shop and take what he can get for anything he can sell...including his clothes. Hunger is constantly nipping at his heels. It's a joy when he can afford more than just bread.

Later, when Orwell does find work along with his friend Boris, he describes the subterranean 18 hour days of a plongeur, which is a position that is lowlier even that just dishwashing. This isn't to say that most of the restaurant workers are well off...but the plongeur is simply the worst of the lot. Finally, Orwell heads back home to England with the promise of work caring for a developmentally disabled person.

But of course, when he arrives in London, the child and the parents have gone abroad for a month, so Orwell is left penniless again. He is able to get a tiny loan from a friend, but two pounds doesn't stretch over a month. Now we're introduced to the life of a tramp in England. The situation here seems quite worse. The French seem to ignore their poor, where the English seem quite hostile to this same group. The daily routine here was to find shelter for the night. Common lodging houses were set up by the government and by charities. The cost of lodging was minimal, but often much more than a tramp could afford. What's worse, often the tramps were locked in for the night and their clothes were confiscated until the morning. On can only assume that this was to prevent them from going out and "terrorizing" the neighborhoods in the night. (Orwell notes extensively that tramps might be extremely petty theives, but they're also a broken-spirited lot who, due to poor nutrition among other things, don't have the energy or the inclination to go out raping and pillaging. They're happy just to have a roof over their heads). Another rule of the common houses is that you can't stay at the same one on consecutive nights (I think it might have even been a month between stays). This kept the tramps on the move.

Orwell concludes the book by enumerating the problems of the tramp: that he is a tramp by circumstance, not by inherent flaw; celibacy, because women generally don't fall to the level of tramp-dom; enforced idleness, which is a torture to a thinking being; and general physical discomfort (such as hunger, lack of sleep, and various maladies brought on by malnutrition). He closes by saying that the government should let them stay in one place and grow their own food. It would provide better for the men and it would save the government trouble.

Down and Out in Paris and London is quite a good book. No doubt this is because Orwell was one of the premier writers of the 20th century. But he also went out and lived this life. Educated, with connections, he probably could have made better at this early point in his life. But he lets his readers know about the lives of the indigent. I believe this is the book Barbara Ehrenreich was trying to re-write when she wrote Nickled and Dimed. However, she's not half the writer Orwell was and she's more than twice as preachy. But that's an aside. Orwell gives us pause to think about the poor...not to fear them or ignore them, but to actually consider their situations. It seems like it's well past time we do so.