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Summary: one of orwells best
Review: Orwell rapidly became one of my favorite writers after I finished Animal Farm and 1984. I thought these books were great and so I set out to find more of his books. This is the book I stumbled upon and found is just as fascinating as the other two. This book outlines the plight of poverty in urban settings; from the long ours as a plongeure in Paris, to the rowdiness of late night pubs in London. Through out the novel he describes the terrible inconvenience and burdon having no money places upon a poor person. He also tells of great adventures he shares with his friends in trying to acquire money and fun. I highly recommend this book to any reader but especially to Orwell fans.
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Summary: Paris Good, London Bad
Review: The beginning Paris section is engaging and one gets caught up in the author's adventures in the seemy underbelly of the city.
The London section comes off as a dry, analytical essay on social conditions and is quite boring.
Rating: 
Summary: Well worth reading...
Review: If your looking for a basic start, middle, end story then down and out is not for you. However, if you are looking for an honest insight in to the conditions of both Paris and London in the early 1900s then you have the right book. One can understand Orwell's plight and dedication in this book because of the fact that he has came from a wealthy middle class family and chooses to live like this. The book starts in Paris where the levels of poverty for the majority of people are shocking, unrecognisable by todays standards. Yet through Orwell's imagery and attention to detail even a teenager of the 21st century can imagine the filth and insanitary conditions of both towns. My favourite part of the book was the part in Paris. this is because the friendships he makes and the job he ends up with despite being horrific make the reader feel warm and that despite this hardship he is happy. The conditions in London and the description of the tramps and their way of life is sad and really makes you realise how lucky you are. A frank account.
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Summary: How would We react to this life?
Review: I don't recall what possessed me to buy George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London after reading no Orwell since 1984. It was probably one of the online recommendations, and if so, a very good one it was. As a young man, educated but out of work, Orwell found himself in Paris with frightfully little money. Thus began his adventures through the Paris slums and the shady underside of life there.
This was not, apparently, an attempt on Orwell's part to go out and discover how the other half lives. It is not discipline but rather simple helplessness that sometimes forced him to go days without food, to pawn virtually everything he owned for a paltry few coins, and to live in desperation. Likewise, when work came, it was by necessity that he worked the hideously long hours at menial work in order to earn a living. So it was with at least in part the eye of the truly poor that he put to print what he experienced there. In true Orwell style, he manages to find the story in everyone he meets, and his powers of observation are exceptional.
When he manages to make it back to London, the book enters its second half. I found the London portion less insightful and entertaining. Learning that his waiting job is postponed a month, Orwell becomes a tramp, and travels through the various lodging houses and what passed for shelters in 1930's London. It was here that the text also becomes a bit dated and colloquial. Whereas in the Paris portion, presumably the dialogues have been translated from French into Standard English, in the London portion Orwell mimics street talk: "Want a kip? That'll be a `og, guv'nor." I've always thought this sort of thing just slows down the reading, does nothing for the story, and contributes to the inferiority of traditional English literature (American too, I'm not being a snob here). I also found the London bit more depressing and the characters less colorful and less sympathetic.
Actually, this is a point on which Orwell's future political leanings start to show. If his portrayals of some of these characters are correct, then I wouldn't want half of them working for me, either. A little professionalism, or just lack of criminal intent, can go a long way. Nonetheless, this book is meant more as a travelogue to the slums than as a deep analysis of societal problems. As entertainment, it is first rate, and as a look at a real aspect of life for many, it is a bit dated, but still first rate.
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Summary: A Must Read!
Review: Something my fellow reviewers do NOT seem to have noticed is that this is a work of FICTION. Look for the word on the binding of your copy of the book. I have no doubt that Eric Blair, who changed his name to George Orwell when he wrote this book in order not to be discovered by his parents and friends, did have some brushes with the sort of life he describes. But how much of this are we to believe actually happened?The problem with Mr. Blair's work is that it is tendentious. There are any number of novels out there that include heart-rending accounts of the life of the poor during this era, try Somerset Maugham's Of Human bondage, for instance. But the polemic chapters at the end on word usage and societal change reveal the raison d'etre for this book. I wish Mr. Blair could have written a straightforward essay instead of this not very gripping account of slumming it around Dickens' two cities. In doing so, he exhibits the trait that he censures other writers for so severely in his later years, pretentious rot.
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