"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
In Paris, Orwell lived in verminous rooms and washed dishes at the overpriced "Hotel X," in a remarkably filthy, 110-degree kitchen. He met "eccentric people--people who have fallen into solitary, half-mad grooves of life and given up trying to be normal or decent." Though Orwell's tone is that of an outraged reformer, it's surprising how entertaining many of his adventures are: gnawing poverty only enlivens the imagination, and the wild characters he met often swindled each other and themselves. The wackiest tale involves a miser who ate cats, wore newspapers for underwear, invested 6,000 francs in cocaine, and hid it in a face-powder tin when the cops raided. They had to free him, because the apparently controlled substance turned out to be face powder instead of cocaine.
In London, Orwell studied begging with a crippled expert named Bozo, a great storyteller and philosopher. Orwell devotes a chapter to the fine points of London guttersnipe slang. Years later, he would put his lexical bent to work by inventing Newspeak, and draw on his down-and-out experience to evoke the plight of the Proles in 1984. Though marred by hints of unexamined anti-Semitism, Orwell's debut remains, as The Nation put it, "the most lucid portrait of poverty in the English language." --Tim Appelo
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
US$ 2.64
Within U.S.A.
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 1382570-n
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. 'You have talked so often of going to the dogs - and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them.' George Orwell's vivid memoir of his time among the desperately poor and destitute in London and Paris is a moving tour of the underworld of society. Here he painstakingly documents a world of unrelenting drudgery and squalor - sleeping in bug-infested hostels and doss houses, working as a dishwasher in the vile 'H tel X', living alongside tramps, surviving on scraps and cigarette butts - in an unforgettable account of what being down and out is really like. This is Orwell's record of a period in the late 1920s when he lived among the tramps of London and Paris. Orwell's publishers initially took the book as a sign of him abandoning Socialism, but this was denied by the author himself. The book attempts to offer insights, rather than solutions. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780141184388
Book Description Condition: New. pp. xix + 230 + [vi]. Seller Inventory # 7118167
Book Description Soft Cover. Condition: new. Seller Inventory # 9780141184388
Book Description paperback. Condition: New. Language: ENG. Seller Inventory # 9780141184388
Book Description Softcover. Condition: New. New Ed. George Orwell's vivid memoir of his time living among the desperately poor and destitute, Down and Out in Paris and London is a moving tour of the underworld of society. 'You have talked so often of going to the dogs - and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them.' Written when Orwell was a struggling writer in his twenties, it documents his 'first contact with poverty' Here, he painstakingly documents a world of unrelenting drudgery and squalor - sleeping in bug-infested hostels and doss houses of last resort, working as a dishwasher in Paris's vile 'Htel X', surviving on scraps and cigarette butts, living alongside tramps, a star-gazing pavement artist and a starving Russian ex-army captain. Exposing a shocking, previously-hidden world to his readers, Orwell gave a human face to the statistics of poverty for the first time - and in doing so, found his voice as a writer. Seller Inventory # DADAX0141184388
Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. BRAND NEW ** SUPER FAST SHIPPING FROM UK WAREHOUSE ** 30 DAY MONEY BACK GUARANTEE. Seller Inventory # 9780141184388-GDR
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Brand New. 256 pages. 7.72x4.96x0.71 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # __0141184388
Book Description Condition: New. In. Seller Inventory # ria9780141184388_new
Book Description Condition: New. PRINT ON DEMAND Book; New; Fast Shipping from the UK. No. book. Seller Inventory # ria9780141184388_lsuk