“It is a feeling of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down and out. 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 takes off a lot of anxiety.”

n  n

In 1927 Eric Arthur Blair A.K.A. George Orwell gives up his job as a policeman in Burma and moves back to his lodgings on Portobello Road in London with the intention of being a writer. Like with many artists, writers, and those that wished to be one or the other, the siren song of Paris beckoned Orwell. In 1928 he moves to The City of Light.

”It was lamplight--that strange purplish gleam of the Paris lamps--and beyond the river the Eiffel Tower flashed from top to bottom with zigzag skysigns, like enormous snakes of fire.”

His lodgings are robbed by an Italian man a trollop he has brought back to his room for what can be presumed for a carnal dalliance, but one must have a proper story for the parents especially when one is soliciting funds. This is really the beginning of a rather abrupt slide into poverty. Little did he know this change of circumstances was going to provide him with the material he needed to get published.

A gagger--beggar or street performer of any kind.

I do hope that everyone has had an opportunity to experience some poverty. When I was in college I had several moments where my gas tank was on E, that amber dot nearly burned a hole in my retina, and well food, skipping a few meals builds character. The one thing that I learned about my brief bouts of impecuniousness was that I didn’t like it. The anxiety of potentially revealing the precarious nature of my affairs was much more excruciating than the discomfort of hunger or even the tension inspired by the keenly tuned ear listening intently for the first cough of an engine starved for gas.

The mind does sharpen when deprived of nutrients.

A moocher--one who begs outright, without pretense of doing a trade.

n  n
A slice of Orwell’s Paris.

Orwell does become truly down and out barely scraping together enough money to maintain lodging. Everything pawnable or salable is already in the shops and now he must find a job. He tramps for miles all over the city following rumors of employment. He finally lands a position at a hotel restaurant washing dishes. It isn’t particularly difficult work, but the hours are unbelievably long. Since he is on the lowest rung of the very tall totem pole he is roundly cursed by everyone.

”Do you see that? That is the type of plongeur they send us nowadays. Where do you come from, idiot? From Charenton I suppose?” (There is a large lunatic asylum at Charenton.)

“From England,” I said.

“I might have known it. Well, mon cher monsieur, L’Anglais, may I inform you that you are the son of a whore?”

I got this kind of reception every time I went to the kitchen, for I always made some mistake; I was expected to know the work, and was cursed accordingly. From curiosity I counted the number of times I was called maquereau during the day, and it was thirty-nine.

A glimmer--one who watches vacant motor-cars.

n  n
Down and Out in paris

There is a camaraderie that comes from working long hours, from getting up with aching muscles, and a wool stuffed head from too little sleep. While in college I worked for a used bookstore that was the size of a grocery store. We were always understaffed, sometimes ridiculously understaffed. We needed three cashiers and generally had two. We needed three book buyers and generally had one. It wasn’t infrequent for people to work double shifts, not for the money, but because we couldn’t stand to think of our comrades left facing impossible odds. What was crazy is after we closed the store we would sit out in the parking lot, or when we could afford it go get a drink, and talk about books or about the craziness that happened during our shift until the wee hours of the morning. We were as bonded as soldiers in the trench because we were survivors. We didn’t bother to learn much about newbies until they had been there a month because chances were they would last a week or less.

We were working for $4 an hour.

A drop--money given to a beggar.

n  n
The endless stream of dirty dishes is truly an Orwellian nightmare.

While working in this fine restaurant Orwell did reveal some things that made me queasy.

”When a steak, for instance, is brought up for the head cook’s inspection, he does not handle it with a fork. He picks it up in his fingers and slaps it down, runs his thumb around the dish and licks it to taste the gravy, runs it round and licks again, the steps back and contemplates the piece of meal like an artist judging a picture, then presses it lovingly into place with his fat, pink fingers, every one of which he has licked a hundred times that morning.”

But the place of course is kept spic and span, right?

”Everywhere in the service quarters dirt festered--a secret vein of dirt, running through the garish hotel like the intestines through a man’s body.”

You may reassure yourself that restaurants are much better regulated now than they were in Paris in the 1920s and they are, but chat with a few people who work in the industry and it may not be as easy to reassure yourself.

A flattie--a policeman.

I always marvel at people that make a complete ass out of themselves berating a waiter in a restaurant. The distance that food must be carried from the cook to the table there is so much time for a waiter to enact some form of petty, but very satisfying revenge on some disrespectful jerk.

To knock off--to steal.

n  n
”Waiters in good hotels do not wear moustaches, and to show their superiority they decree that plongeurs shall not wear them either; and the cooks wear the moustaches to show their contempt for the waiters”…. Thus Orwell had to shave his moustaches.

Henry Miller was in Paris about the same time as Orwell. Miller wrote his books without worrying about what mommy and daddy might think. Orwell certainly put his remembrances through a strainer and certainly this book does not have the gritty intensity of a Miller novel. The descriptions of his time in the Paris restaurants are superbly drawn. They were certainly my favorite parts of the book. When he gets back to London he spends time tramping through the various charity houses and reveals the absurdity of the way they are run. He also makes a compelling case for changing the public view of who a tramp really is. A quick, enjoyable read, that for me, brought back some surprisingly fond memories of when I REALLY worked for living; and yet, still walked the razor edge of weekly impoverishment.

***3.75 stars out of 5

Workplace anthropology

'The Hôtel X was a vast, grandiose place with a classical facade, and at one side a little, dark doorway like a rat-hole, which was the service entrance. I arrived at a quarter to seven in the morning. A stream of men with greasy trousers were hurrying in and being checked by a doorkeeper who sat in a tiny office. I waited, and presently the chef du personnel, a sort of assistant manager, arrived and began to question me.'

-----

'Except for about an hour, I was at work from seven in the morning till a quarter past nine at night; first at washing crockery, then at scrubbing the tables and floors of the employees’ dining-room, then at polishing glasses and knives, then at fetching meals, then at washing crockery again, then at fetching more meals and washing more crockery. It was easy work, and I got on well with it except when I went to the kitchen to fetch meals. The kitchen was like nothing I had ever seen or imagined—a stifling, low-ceilinged inferno of a cellar, red-lit from the fires, and deafening with oaths and the clanging of pots and pans. It was so hot that all the metal-work except the stoves had to be covered with cloth. In the middle were furnaces, where twelve cooks skipped to and fro, their faces dripping sweat in spite of their white caps. Round that were counters where a mob of waiters and plongeurs clamoured with trays. Scullions, naked to the waist, were stoking the fires and scouring huge copper saucepans with sand. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry and a rage. The head cook, a fine, scarlet man with big moustachios, stood in the middle booming continuously, ‘ça marche deux œufs brouillés! ça marche un Chateaubriand aux pommes sautées!’ except when he broke off to curse at a plongeur.'

-----

'I hurried back, found the chef du personnel, and told him that I would work for a month, whereat he signed me on. This was my first lesson in plongeur morality. Later I realized how foolish it had been to have any scruples, for the big hotels are quite merciless towards their employees. They engage or discharge men as the work demands, and they all sack ten per cent or more of their staff when the season is over. Nor have they any difficulty in replacing a man who leaves at short notice, for Paris is thronged by hotel employees out of work.'

-----

The work in the cafeterie was spasmodic. We were never idle, but the real work only came in bursts of two hours at a time—we called each burst ‘un coup de feu’. The first coup de feu came at eight, when the guests upstairs began to wake up and demand breakfast. At eight a sudden banging and yelling would break out all through the basement; bells rang on all sides, blue-aproned men rushed through the passages, our service lifts came down with a simultaneous crash, and the waiters on all five floors began shouting Italian oaths down the shafts. I don’t remember all our duties, but they included making tea, coffee and chocolate, fetching meals from the kitchen, wines from the cellar and fruit and so forth from the dining-room, slicing bread, making toast, rolling pats of butter, measuring jam, opening milk-cans, counting lumps of sugar, boiling eggs, cooking porridge, pounding ice, grinding coffee—all this for from a hundred to two hundred customers. The kitchen was thirty yards away, and the dining-room sixty or seventy yards. Everything we sent up in the service lifts had to be covered by a voucher, and the vouchers had to be carefully filed, and there was trouble if even a lump of sugar was lost. Besides this, we had to supply the staff with bread and coffee, and fetch the meals for the waiters upstairs. All in all, it was a complicated job.
I calculated that one had to walk and run about fifteen miles during the day, and yet the strain of the work was more mental than physical. Nothing could be easier, on the face of it, than this stupid scullion work, but it is astonishingly hard when one is in a hurry. One has to leap to and fro between a multitude of jobs—it is like sorting a pack of cards against the clock. You are, for example, making toast, when bang! down comes a service lift with an order for tea, rolls and three different kinds of jam, and simultaneously bang! down comes another demanding scrambled eggs, coffee and grapefruit; you run to the kitchen for the eggs and to the dining-room for the fruit, going like lightning so as to be back before your toast bums, and having to remember about the tea and coffee, besides half a dozen other orders that are still pending; and at the same time some waiter is following you and making trouble about a lost bottle of soda-water, and you are arguing with him. It needs more brains than one might think. Mario said, no doubt truly, that it took a year to make a reliable cafetier.
The time between eight and half past ten was a sort of delirium. Sometimes we were going as though we had only five minutes to live; sometimes there were sudden lulls when the orders stopped and everything seemed quiet for a moment. Then we swept up the litter from the floor, threw down fresh sawdust, and swallowed gallipots of wine or coffee or water—anything, so long as it was wet. Very often we used to break off chunks of ice and suck them while we worked. The heat among the gas-fires was nauseating; we swallowed quarts of drink during the day, and after a few hours even our aprons were drenched with sweat. At times we were hopelessly behind with the work, and some of the customers would have gone without their breakfast, but Mario always pulled us through. He had worked fourteen years in the cafeterie, and he had the skill that never wastes a second between jobs. The Magyar was very stupid and I was inexperienced, and Boris was inclined to shirk, partly because of his lame leg, partly because he was ashamed of working in the cafeterie after being a waiter; but Mario was wonderful. The way he would stretch his great arms right across the cafeterie to fill a coffee-pot with one hand and boil an egg with the other, at the same time watching toast and shouting directions to the Magyar, and between whiles singing snatches from Rigoletto, was beyond all praise. The patron knew his value, and he was paid a thousand francs a month, instead of five hundred like the rest of us.

The breakfast pandemonium stopped at half past ten. Then we scrubbed the cafeterie tables, swept the floor and polished the brasswork, and, on good mornings, went one at a time to the lavatory for a smoke. This was our slack time—only relatively slack, however, for we had only ten minutes for lunch, and we never got through it uninterrupted. The customers’ luncheon hour, between twelve and two, was another period of turmoil like the breakfast hour. [...]

Then the grand turmoil of the day started—the dinner hour. I wish I could be Zola for a little while, just to describe that dinner hour. The essence of the situation was that a hundred or two hundred people were demanding individually different meals of five or six courses, and that fifty or sixty people had to cook and serve them and clean up the mess afterwards; anyone with experience of catering will know what that means. And at this time when the work was doubled, the whole staff was tired out, and a number of them were drunk. I could write pages about the scene without giving a true idea of it. The chargings to and fro in the narrow passages, the collisions, the yells, the struggling with crates and trays and blocks of ice, the heat, the darkness, the furious festering quarrels which there was no time to fight out—they pass description. Anyone coming into the basement for the first time would have thought himself in a den of maniacs. It was only later, when I understood the working of a hotel, that I saw order in all this chaos. [...]


At half past five I was suddenly awakened. A night-watchman, sent from the hotel, was standing at my bedside. He stripped the clothes back and shook me roughly.
‘Get up!’ he said. ‘Tu t’es bien saoulé la gueule, eh? Well, never mind that, the hotel’s a man short. You’ve got to work today.’
‘Why should I work?’ I protested. ‘This is my day off.’
‘Day off, nothing! The work’s got to be done. Get up!’

-----

In a few days I had grasped the main principles on which the hotel was run. The thing that would astonish anyone coming for the first time into the service quarters of a hotel would be the fearful noise and disorder during the rush hours. It is something so different from the steady work in a shop or a factory that it looks at first sight like mere bad management. But it is really quite unavoidable, and for this reason. Hotel work is not particularly hard, but by its nature it comes in rushes and cannot be economized. You cannot, for instance, grill a steak two hours before it is wanted; you have to wait till the last moment, by which time a mass of other work has accumulated, and then do it all together, in frantic haste. The result is that at mealtimes everyone is doing two men’s work, which is impossible without noise and quarrelling. Indeed the quarrels are a necessary part of the process, for the pace would never be kept up if everyone did not accuse everyone else of idling. It was for this reason that during the rush hours the whole staff raged and cursed like demons. 

-----

In a fortnight I had got so used to the routine of a plongeur’s life that I could hardly imagine anything different. It was a life without much variation. At a quarter to six one woke with a sudden start, tumbled into grease-stiffened clothes, and hurried out with dirty face and protesting muscles. It was dawn, and the windows were dark except for the workmen’s cafés. The sky was like a vast flat wall of cobalt, with roofs and spires of black paper pasted upon it. Drowsy men were sweeping the pavements with ten-foot besoms, and ragged families picking over the dustbins. Workmen, and girls with a piece of chocolate in one hand and a croissant in the other, were pouring into the Métro stations. Trams, filled with more workmen, boomed gloomily past. One hastened down to the station, fought for a place—one does literally have to fight on the Paris Métro at six in the morning—and stood jammed in the swaying mass of passengers, nose to nose with some hideous French face, breathing sour wine and garlic. And then one descended into the labyrinth of the hotel basement, and forgot daylight till two o’clock, when the sun was hot and the town black with people and cars.

[...]

There was—it is hard to express it—a sort of heavy contentment, the contentment a well-fed beast might feel, in a life which had become so simple. For nothing could be simpler than the life of a plongeur. He lives in a rhythm between work and sleep, without time to think, hardly conscious of the exterior world; his Paris has shrunk to the hotel, the Métro, a few bistros and his bed. If he goes afield, it is only a few streets away, on a trip with some servant-girl who sits on his knee swallowing oysters and beer. On his free day he lies in bed till noon, puts on a clean shirt, throws dice for drinks, and after lunch goes back to bed again. Nothing is quite real to him but the boulot, drinks and sleep; and of these sleep is the most important.'


Poor house etiquette, and the trade of the beggar

'It is worth saying something about the social position of beggars, for when one has consorted with them, and found that they are ordinary human beings, one cannot help being struck by the curious attitude that society takes towards them. People seem to feel that there is some essential difference between beggars and ordinary 'working' men. They are a race apart--outcasts, like criminals and prostitutes. Working men 'work', beggars do not 'work'; they are parasites, worthless in their very nature. It is taken for granted that a beggar does not 'earn' his living, as a bricklayer or a literary critic 'earns' his. He is a mere social excrescence, tolerated because we live in a humane age, but essentially despicable.

Yet if one looks closely one sees that there is no ESSENTIAL difference between a beggar's livelihood and that of numberless respectable people. Beggars do not work, it is said; but, then, what is WORK? A navvy works by swinging a pick. An accountant works by adding up figures. A beggar works by standing out of doors in all weathers and getting varicose veins, chronic bronchitis, etc. It is a trade like any other; quite useless, of course--but, then, many reputable trades are quite useless. And as a social type a beggar compares well with scores of others. He is honest compared with the sellers of most patent medicines, high-minded compared with a Sunday newspaper proprietor, amiable compared with a hire-purchase tout--in short, a parasite, but a fairly harmless parasite. He seldom extracts more than a bare living from the community, and, what should justify him according to our ethical ideas, he pays for it over and over in suffering. I do not think there is anything about a beggar that sets him in a different class from other people, or gives most modern men the right to despise him.

Then the question arises, Why are beggars despised?--for they are despised, universally. I believe it is for the simple reason that they fail to earn a decent living. In practice nobody cares whether work is useful or useless, productive or parasitic; the sole thing demanded is that it shall be profitable. In all the modem talk about energy, efficiency, social service and the rest of it, what meaning is there except 'Get money, get it legally, and get a lot of it'? Money has become the grand test of virtue. By this test beggars fail, and for this they are despised. If one could earn even ten pounds a week at begging, it would become a respectable profession immediately. A beggar, looked at realistically, is simply a businessman, getting his living, like other businessmen, in the way that comes to hand. He has not, more than most modem people, sold his honour; he has merely made the mistake of choosing a trade at which it is impossible to grow rich.'

----

'To take a fundamental question about vagrancy: Why do tramps exist at all? It is a curious thing, but very few people know what makes a tramp take to the road. And, because of the belief in the tramp-monster, the most fantastic reasons are suggested. It is said, for instance, that tramps tramp to avoid work, to beg more easily, to seek opportunities for crime, even—least probable of reasons—because they like tramping. I have even read in a book of criminology that the tramp is an atavism, a throw-back to the nomadic stage of humanity. And meanwhile the quite obvious cause of vagrancy is staring one in the face. [...] A tramp tramps, not because he likes it, but for the same reason as a car keeps to the left; because there happens to be a law compelling him to do so. A destitute man, if he is not supported by the parish, can only get relief at the casual wards, and as each casual ward will only admit him for one night, he is automatically kept moving. He is a vagrant because, in the state of the law, it is that or starve. But people have been brought up to believe in the tramp-monster, and so they prefer to think that there must be some more or less villainous motive for tramping.'

"زندگی بینِ گداها نشونم داد که گداها تفاوتی با بقیه انسان‌ها ندارند، هرچند همه فکر می‌کنند انگلِ جامعه هستند اما وقتی دقیق نگاه کنی، می‌‌بینی خیلی‌های دیگه هم در جامعه‌ی امروزی انگل‌اند اما چون درآمدشون خوبه، تحقیر نمیشن.
تنها گناه این گداها در برابر این افراد اینه که شغلی رو انتخاب کردن که پولش کمه.
اگر گدایی شغلی با درآمد بالا بود، گداها محترم‌ترین انسان‌های روی زمین می‌شدند."

نمی‌دونم چرا این کتاب، کمتر از مزرعه حیوانات و ۱۹۸۴ مورد بحث قرار گرفته در صورتی که کتابِ واقع‌گرا و کوبنده‌ای بود.
نثر کتاب جوری بود که انگار خودم بی‌خانمانی و فقر و فلاکت رو تجربه کردم، توی پناهگاه‌های بدبو و کثیف، میونِ ساس‌ها خوابیدم و توی وانِ کثیف با آبِ چرک و سیاه حموم کردم، لباس‌هامو برای خرید چای و مارگارین گرو گذاشتم، از دوستام پول قرض کردم و به ناچار ساعاتی رو برای خوردن چای و بیسکوییتِ رایگان مجبور به تحملِ مراسمِ دعا شدم.
اورولِ عزیز، الان من هم مثل تو دیدم نسبت به کارتون‌خواب‌ها و بی‌سرپناه‌ها عوض شده....

آس و پاس در پاریس و لندن,اولین رمان موفق جورج ارول=اریک ارتور بلر(نام حقیقی,به علت ترس از بی ابرویی موقع چاپ این کتاب از نام مستعار جرج ارول استفاده کرد!)
توی این کتاب بدبختی و فقر طوری هنرمندانه و حقیقی به تصویر اومده که خواننده رو به خنده میندازه,و این نهایت قدرت یه نویسنده ست!

این اثر طبق زندگی جرج ارول هست..و واقعا غیر از این نیست که یک نویسنده پشت در های بسته نمیتونه کتاب بنویسه..و قدرت قلم یک نویسنده وقتی از واقعیت زندگی منشا میگیره است که بر جان مینشینه.
این اثر و دختر کشیش,بیشتر قابل حس و لمس در زندگی روزمره اند..و بنظر من پارت بیشتری از روح نویسنده رو در خودشون دارن..

Орвел, исто као и Хемингвеј, пише кратке, сажете и јасне реченице, што је пре свега стил новинских извештача. У том смислу сам књигу о људима са најниже друштвене лествице, којима се живот свео на свакодневно налажење начина да дођу до залогаја и топле шоље чаја, прочитао са великом лакоћом и одушевљењем.

After reading this, one thing is very clear: I never want to be down and out in Paris or London.

No one writes disgust better than Orwell! He's the king of filth, the master of hopelessness, the father of despair—an absolute genius when it comes to misery. He's an artist who paints not with oils and fine paints, but with beautiful words and revolting imagery. From the streets and slums of Paris to the filthy boarding houses of London, we experience it all firsthand: fleas, roaches, starvation, debauchery, more fleas, more starvation, poverty, and a general bleakness that gnaws at the entire novel.

I can't say it's my favorite Orwell book; that honor goes to 1984. But it was a good read and well worth my time.

This book tells the story of a destitute British writer - Mr George Orwell himself, experiencing and witnessing the harsh lives of Europe's lower - class people in Paris and London. The entire novel lacks a continuous, extraordinary storyline, instead using a first - person perspective to describe everything he goes through, making it captivating.

In Paris, working as a dishwasher who is constantly ordered around by managers, chefs, and waiters, and working 15 hours a day, he uses unique insights and vivid details to describe the dirty, exhausting, and inhumane realities beneath the glamorous facade of French hotels and restaurants. In London, due to the "absurd" law - a homeless person can only stay 1 night at a shelter before being kicked out the next day - he joins the masses of homeless people, either squatting in shelters or constantly walking from one shelter to another, never daring to rest or beg. His deep experience and sharp senses describe the mental torment brought by cruel laws and cold shelters. All of this is based on his real experiences among the lower class, making it extremely believable and authentic.

Orwell's exhaustive depiction of the extreme poverty of Paris and London's lower - class people is damn suffocating. Hard work yields only meager pay, with no guarantee of the next meal; endless hunger shadows them; crowded and filthy living conditions, harsh working environments, and stingy, greedy hotel managers... This is beyond "down and out" and verges on "destitute" and "dying!"

Yet, Orwell’s black humor allows me to thoroughly enjoy the book despite the suffering it describes. Starving in bed, he still observes "a pair of S - shaped bugs crawling leisurely across the wall above the bed," and during the grueling work as a dishwasher, he humorously notes, "Generally, the more expensive the dish you order, the more likely it is that you are eating sweat and spit." Stories about pawning clothes and deceiving landlords are equally engaging. This sensitive writer, even in extreme poverty, displays the unique sensitivity and pride of an intellectual. He was honest to the point of nearly quitting his dishwashing job, which he depended on, to keep a promise to a swindling boss. And when forced to stay in a cheap, crowded, and dirty hotel, seeing the black foam in the wash water, he "never wanted to wash again," which made me "love and hate" this pedantic yet endearing writer.

While Orwell’s narrative sometimes seems long and dull due to the lack of a central plot, his subtle touches still move me. For example, in Chapter 25, he describes an argument between a seventy-year-old man living on welfare and a young, strong dockworker. The argument is sudden and fierce, with neither side giving in, but it ends unexpectedly when the old man "suddenly collapses onto a chair, covers his face with his hands, and starts to cry." My heart ached for a moment; the old man's anger, shame, and despair are vividly conveyed in just a few words. He also captures the complex emotions of homeless people deceiving churches for food and drink, using commotion as "revenge against being shamed in the name of feeding" to regain some dignity.

We don’t need to overstate that this early work is Orwell’s depiction of Europe's lower - class people and a precursor to dissecting totalitarianism. This is hard to discern from the text. But one thing is undeniable: his black humor narrative is supported by profound wisdom and insight, clearly revealing his strong desire to reform society and change the tragic fate of the lower class. In Chapters 22, 31, 36, and 37, he can't help but step out of the story to express his views on the roots of inequality imposed on the lower class. He questions the meaning of the hard work of dishwashers supporting luxurious dining, believes that beggars are looked down upon because society always treats money as a "moral test," and that homeless people are not lazy - "On the contrary, an uneducated person would have a more profound desire to work due to an inherent work instinct, a desire stronger than the wish to be rewarded" - but are forced to wander by law. Such insights are scattered throughout the book.

Orwell is meticulous, sensitive, humorous, but also profound and upright. At the novel's end, he even proposes government measures to let the homeless support themselves. At that moment, he might seem more like a journalist, and his writing more like a blood-written social investigation report. This impacts the character portrayal, plot description, and overall structure, even if aiming for the public's heart yet missing the mark. Nevertheless, it reveals an Orwell of extraordinary imagination and foresight, a meticulous, sensitive, humorous, profound, and upright writer.

I salute you, Mr. George Orwell.

4.6 / 5 stars

My other review of Orwell's Work:
Animal Farm
1984
The Road to Wigan Pier
Down and Out in Paris and London
Why I Write
Coming up for Air

شب‌ها گاهی به آسمان خیره می‌شوم و نمایش ستاره‌ها را تماشا می‌کنم، چون مجبور نیستم بابت تماشای آن‌ها پولی پرداخت کنم.

اورول آدم گشنه و بی‌کس و کاری نبود. از پدری انگلیسی و کارمند در هند، و مادری از تبار فرانسه، دیده به جهان گشود. تحصیل نمود و پس از اتمام تحصیلات به شغل پدری یعنی کارمندی پرداخت. کارمند خوبی بود و از درآمد خوبی نیز برخوردار بود اما همیشه دغدغه و نگرانی‌اش شکاف طبقاتی در جامعه بود.
اورول همان‌طور که اکثر ما دو کتاب «مزرعه حیوانات» و «۱۹۸۴» را از او خواندهایم، با اندیشه‌ها و اصول کمونیسم مشکل داشت و راه حل این شکاف طبقاتی را کمونیسم نمی‌دانست، اما با معضلات جامعه‌ی سرمایه‌داری نیز سر سازگاری نداشت.
او که شناختی از وضعیت حقیقی طبقات فرودست جامعه نداشت، تصمیم می‌گیرد همه‌ی چیزهایی که برای بدست آوردن آن‌ها تلاش کرده را یک‌شبه کنار بگذارد و در کنار مردم فرودست زندگی کند. حدود نیمی از کتاب را در فرانسه و نیمی دیگر را در انگلستان سپری کرد تا به گذر این مدت در انتهای کتاب بنگرد و وضعیت فرودستان را مورد قضاوت و واکاوی نماید.
اورول در قضاوتش انگشت اتهام به هیچ‌ سمتی نمی‌گیرد، کسی را متهم نمی‌کند اما از وضعیت موجود گلایه‌مند است. تجربیات و خاطراتی از فقر و تباهی در زندگی‌اش، توصیف‌های خلاقانه‌اش در محیط‌هایی که در پاریس و لندن چه به دنبال کار بود، چه مشغول کار، و چه در حال تلاش بی‌حاصل برای استراحت...
اورول در داستانش به تفاوت برخورد و زندگی مردم برخوردار با مردم فرودست، تفاوت سطح و کیفیت زندگی مردم فرودست چه شاغل و چه بی‌چاره در پاریس و لندن، و تفاوت بنیادین دو پایتخت می‌پردازد اما به طور مستقیم به برتری هیچ‌کدام نسبت به دیگری اعتراف نمی‌کند.
نهایتا در انتها اورول با خود عهد می‌بندد که پس از تجربه‌ی این دوران، یک‌سری افکار را کنار بگذارد و یک‌سری کارها را دیگر انجام ندهد، که برای من به عنوان نتیجه‌گیری اخلاقی پس از این دوران سخت جالب بود.

اکثریت خواننده‌های گودریدز این کتاب را در دسته‌ی «ناداستان» طبقه‌بندی کرده‌اند، اما این کتاب نه یک ناداستانِ مطلق است و نه یک رمان مطلق، به عبارتی هر دوی آنان است! اورول خود در اواخر کتاب می‌گوید، البته که این کتاب برای خواننده یک داستان است، اما برای من دفترچه‌ی خاطرات روزمره در این روزگار بود.

متن کتاب، روان و ساده بود و اگر دوستی خواست به زبان اصلی کتابی بخواند و متن کتاب دارای پیچیدگی‌های ادبی نباشد، می‌تواند آن‌را انتخاب کند.
من برای امتیاز دادن به این کتاب نمی‌توانم به پنج ستاره فکر کنم، اما همانند مزرعه‌ی حیوانات و ۱۹۸۴ برای این کتاب نیز چهارستاره منظور می‌کنم و خواندن آن را به اورول پسندان پیشنهاد می‌کنم.

لینک فایل ای‌پاب کتاب به زبان انگلیسی
https://t.me/reviewsbysoheil/519

یکم دی‌ماه یک‌هزار و چهارصد و یک

تجربة حياتية ثرية مر بها الكاتب الكبير في بدايات حياته ذاق خلالها مرارة الجوع والحاجة مما كان له كبير الأثر في فكره وشخصيته لباقي حياته.

في الجزء الأول رأيت الجانب المظلم والبائس من باريس الماثلة أمامنا دائماً كنموذج مثالي للجمال والرقي. ذلك الجانب المظلم الذي عاصره أورويل بحكم اضطراره إلى التنقل بين مختلف الوظائف الدُنيا في بداية حياته.

ينزع أورويل عن مطاعم باريس والتي عمل بها غاسلاً للصحون قناع الرُقي والفخامة الذي طالما سمعنا عنه. ونكتشف أن خلف هذا المظهر البرّاق للطبق الباهظ الثمن مطبخاً قذراً لا يُراعي أدنى قواعد النظافة.
لا أريد أن أثير غثيان من يقرأ المراجعة، ولكن أورويل لم يُقصر في وصف الكواليس الخلفية لتلك المطابخ ولا عن ظروف العمل المفزعة لمن يعملون بها في وقت اقامته في نهاية العشرينيات.

في الجزء الثاني يعود أورويل إلى وطنه إلى لندن على وعد بالتحاقه بوظيفة ذات مرتب محترم وقد ظن أنه وجد بها مخرجاُ من حياة الجوع والبؤس التي ذاقها في باريس. ويفاجأ بتبخر تلك الفرصة لدى علمه بسفر أصحاب تلك الوظيفة.
يضطر للجوء إلى عيش حياة التشرد ونرى معه أيضا ما يختبئ خلف مظهر المتشرد الرث القذر المثير للشفقة.

يتعرف المؤلف على نماذج عدة للمشردين، وعلى الأسباب المختلفة التي رمت بهم إلى رصيف الشارع. وكيف يتحايلون على ظروف حياتهم القاسية بالسرقة مرة وبالتسول مرات. ويجرب الحياة في ملاجئ الإعالة للمشردين والتي لا تختلف كثيرا عن أرصفة الشوارع القذرة.

في نهاية تلك التجربة يخلص أورويل بأن حل مشكلة مشردي الشوارع ليست في مجرد محاولات الحكومة المفتعلة لإطعامهم غث الطعام-وأتحدث هنا عن بريطانيا في الثلاثينات من القرن الماضي- ولكن في محاولة استغلال طاقتهم في الأعمال التي تكفل لهم طعامهم مثل الزراعة. إذ أن أورويل قد خلص إلى أن معظم من اعتاد حياة التشرد لن يرضى بأن يلتزم في عمل يقيده. ولكنه من الممكن أن يكلف بأعمال ذات طبيعة مؤقتة أو بسيطة تؤمن الحد الأدني من الأدمية لهم.
الترجمة كانت مليئة بالكلمات الصعبة. كما نقل المترجم العديد من المصطلحات الأجنبية كما هى بدون أن يحفل بترجمتها. وكان ذلك هو مأخذي الوحيد على الكتاب.

Orwell demonstrates his social conscience and empathy for the poor, which I think, makes his more famous attacks on totalitarianism more credible.

This is also an interesting novel to read for a glimpse into Paris and London of that time, between 1900 and 1930. Orwell worked in some restaurants and his view from the kitchen is far less romantic than Hemingway’s perspective from the table.

Not really a classic or a masterpiece, but a book that should be read.

سمعت الكتاب ده كـ audiobook وكان من أجمل التجارب اللي مريت بيها.

في كتب بتقرأها عشان تقييماتها عالية..
وفي كتب بتقرأها عشان شخص تثق في ذوقه رشحها لك..
وفي كتب ، إسم كاتب معين علي غلافها بيكون كفاية إنك تقرأها ومن غير حتي ما تفكر..
متشرداً في باريس ولندن من النوع الأخير...

جورج أورويل- غني عن التعريف أكيد- كاتب وصحفي بريطاني ،من أشهر وأهم أعماله رواية ١٩٨٤ و رواية مزرعة الحيوان..
الروايتين دول-في رأيي-لو قريتهم مستحيل إنك تقدر تنساهم..

متشرداً في باريس ولندن تختلف كتير عنهم..مش بس كونها رواية عادية ولكنها أيضاً رواية مفيهاش أفكار كتير مهمة بس طبعاً يجب أن نضع في الحسبان إنها أول رواية طويلة للكاتب..

الرواية عبارة عن مذكرات شخصية لأورويل-مقسمة إلي جزئين-الجزء الاول بيتكلم فيه كيف كان يعيش حياة المتشردين في باريس لدرجة إنه إضطر أن يعمل غاسلاً للصحون في أحد الفنادق ..و الجزء الثاني بيحكي عن ظروف قاسية جداً مر بها في لندن و كيف عاش لأسابيع بدون مأوي ،ينتقل من مكان لأخر يبحث عن طعام وعمل بدون جدوي..

أورويل في الرواية بيلقي الضوء علي شكل أوروبا بعد الحرب العالمية الأولي وعلي حياة المتشردين و ما يواجهوه من صعوبات و في جزء من الكتاب بيفكر ويطرح بعض الحلول لمشكلتهم..

الجزء الأول في الكتاب كان ممتع وحتحس إنه حقيقي،واقعي جداً و حتي ساخر أحياناً ولكن جاء الجزء الثاني ممل ولم يضف الكثير للكتاب..

الصراحة الكتاب عادي وبعيد تماماً عن مستوي كتب أورويل الأخري و لولا إسم أورويل عليه أظن إن مكانش حد أهتم به أساساً..

تقييمي له كان حيكون نجمتين فقط لولا بس إنها تجربة شخصية صعبة مر بها الكاتب وإتكلم عنها بشجاعة ووضوح بجانب إني أستمتعت بقراءة الجزء الأول وكان فيه تفاصيل 'لذيذة' عن ما يحدث في مطابخ المطاعم والفنادق حتخليك تفكر ألف مرة قبل ما تاكل برة البيت..ودي لوحدها كفاية إننا نديله نجمة زيادة:))