There are no Franzen-esque footnotes, no fistfights with intellectual heavyweights, no love letters to dead white men. The narrator shows no interest in the intellectual “fashions,” ideological “schools,” or political issues contemporaneous with his Paris existence. Most impressive is the complete lack of BS. What makes Down and Out fantastic is his lucid prose, not the transformation of his moth-like, destitute self to a wealthier butterfly. Starving in Paris as a twentysomething has all the makings of a melodrama, so one needs to watch out for the pitfall of bad writing. Banknotes help one describe them more vividly otherwise the theme can turn excessively emotional. It hardly offers the best environment for describing the lives of the poor. Poverty is a theme that needs gentle handling. If there is improvement in the author’s financial situation, all the better. It takes off a lot of anxiety.”Īnyone can watch a down and out author starve as long as (s)he stands at a safe distance.

“You have talked so often of going to the dogs - and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it. “It is a feeling of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down and out,” Orwell wrote. It can happen to anyone, even to a Penguin Classics author (Morrissey included). The latter is often achieved through learning how to love the former.īeing down and out is a universal, timeless story.

Books like Down and Out show us that the line between deprivation and success can be a very thin one.

Who doesn’t? Those cautionary tales are even better if they end well and turn into tales of triumph, with their narrators metamorphosing into famous authors (or, as in Orwell’s case, the most influential essayist of his time). I love reading about writers experiencing poverty. That struggle is the subject of the book. In most chapters Orwell struggles to add a couple of francs or pounds to his fortune. GEORGE ORWELL’S FIRST BOOK Down and Out in Paris and London, now 80 years old, is almost entirely about money.

Down and out in paris and london book