Down and Out in Paris and London

This was Eric Arthur Blairs first book. I had read Road to Wigan Pier previously. The books have a very similar style. The difference is in the depth of poverty Orwell describes. (specifically starving to death in Paris and as a tramp in England) He makes no attempt to convince you of the evil that poverty is or the misplaced justification which we use to treat the poor as deficient or sub-human.

It appears to me that Orwells political views were unformed at the time of this first book. Little political commentary exists. His writing is honest in his own view. His opinion that a man who had confessed to a double murder was a throughly decent chap, innocent and yet ironic.

If you would like to appreciate a new the rich lives we live. Read this book.

A great combination of an excellent book read by a great narrator. I'd highly recommend this particular recording - very, very entertaining. The narration is brilliant.

Before listening to ?Down & Out? I had already ready 1984 and Animal Farm of Orwell?s other works (both excellent). This book differs from them in that it is largely autobiographical, inter-dispersed with elements of social commentary for which all of Orwells? books are famous. This biographical nature does add a certain intrigue to the book and gives it a depth and validity that would otherwise be lacking. It is at times shocking, but also quite enlightening and at times heart-warming. However, one can?t help but have the feeling that he was merely a ?tourist? in this situation and that he could at any time have got himself out of it if he so chose. In this vein, I saw the book as verging on being condescending to the very people that it tries so hard to humanise for us. He points out that tramps are normal people in every sense, but are merely down on their luck. He also points out the total ineffectiveness of the state in dealing with these people. His aim throughout is to show that ?tramps? deserve respect and help, but it is difficult to escape the knowledge of who the author is and that he is in that situation largely out of choice and not really ?Down and Out?. I don?t want to imply that it is not a good book ? it is ? it?s just that I found it more of an ?outsiders? perspective. Still, worth a listen (especially if you are a fan of his other works).

It's very rare for me to find an audiobook I wish I hadn't bought, but this is it. And the stupid thing is, I should have known it before I clicked 'buy'. Why? Because buying a book you've read a dozen times will probably always disappoint because it can't live up to the characters and settings conjured up in your imagination.



Added to this is Jeremy Northam's cringe-inducing French and Russian accents. I wish he'd just read the lines instead of trying to bring the characters to life; he ends up killing them. It's not just that his 'foreign accent' talents are about as bad as Raph Fiennes' stomach curdling 'Amon Goeth' in Schindlers' List, it's that he doesn't have the right voice or diction for this work. Sorry, Jeremy!



The result is an audiobook I'm not likely to listen to again. Next time I want to submerge myself in the life of a penniless Paris plongeur in the 20's, I'll pull the well-worn paperback off the shelf and read that again instead.

I found the content and style fascinating although it is hard to determine how much of it applies to modern tramps. The character Bozo was pretty inspiring.

Good, well narrated book. The narrator did some great impersonations of the characters in the book. Very talented man.