George Orwell is probably the most important British writer of the 1930s and 40s. Like everyone, I’ve read 1984 and Animal Farm, the latter quite recently, but never any of his non-fiction works. This is my “interwar” year and of course my reading list has to include some Orwell. I’ve chosen to take the time to read all three of his 1930s social commentaries; Down and Out in Paris and London, The Road to Wigan Pier, and Homage to Catalonia. On eBay I discovered a five volume set published by the Folio Society titled “Reportage” with all three books and two volumes of essays for £140. I’ll probably read the essay volumes too. The books are quite digestible at around 200 pages each, so I expect I’ll manage them all in a month or so. As a convenient plus, this month is my choice for Trafalgar Street Book Club, so I gave Simon and David a choice of any of the three. They chose Homage to Catalonia. I’m looking forward to discussing it.

This is a review of the first of those books, Down and Out in Paris and London. It’s said that it’s a reasonably accurate description of what it was like to live in poverty in Paris and as a tramp in London and the home counties in the 30s, but it’s obviously not the literal truth. Reading in Wikipedia it seems the main fiction is order of events. His adventures as a tramp occurred both before and after his two years in Paris, and rather than the continuous period described in the book, it was more a series of expeditions. He would change into his tramp clothes and then spend a few nights in kips before returning to his parents’ or friends’ houses. In the book he describes having no choice but to live in poverty after running out of money in Paris and a job falling through when he came to London, but the truth is that he deliberately faked poverty for journalistic reasons. His Paris experiences are apparently more accurately described than his tramping back in England. They were originally two separate essays, but were later combined. It was his first full length book to be published.

This edition includes an excellent introduction by Michael Foot, the dishevelled and serially unsuccessful Labour Party leader of the early Thatcher years. An intelligent and donnish man, he was never suited to politics, but as an active participant in left wing politics during the 30s and post-war he knows exactly how Orwell was perceived by the left. Half hero, half an unwelcome critic of the left’s many failings, especially the infatuation of many with the genocidal Stalinist regime.

The book opens with Orwell’s life in Paris in 1928 to 29. He first runs out of money, pawns most of his possessions, and then almost starves. He makes friends with an out of work Russian waiter, Boris, and together they tramp the streets of Paris looking for work. In many respects it reminds me of Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, but one could speculate that Hemingway might have read and modelled his later book on Orwell’s. Like that book it gives a very lively sense of the Paris of the time; the cafe culture, the narrow crowded streets of the poorer quarters. He parades a cast of eccentric characters, often relating their stories, including a very disturbing account given by a drunk young man of how he raped a prostitute. Orwell describes the brothels and prostitutes, but unlike Henry Miller, also in Paris around the same period, doesn’t admit to his own indulgence. Eventually Orwell and Boris find employment in the luxurious Hotel X, which caters primarily to wealthy American tourists. He works as a plongeur, a general skivvy, deep in the bowels of the hotel. Like an anthropologist he gives a fascinating and detailed account of the behind-the-scenes organised chaos needed to cater to the whims of the over 200 guests; the social hierarchy of the staff; and the shocking filth in the kitchens. He and Boris are promised leading roles in a newly opened restaurant, but are strung along by the owner, and then hideously overworked in even greater filth and chaos. When Orwell is offered a job back in England he gladly quits. It’s a wonder he lasted as long as he did. In real life he became seriously ill and spent some time in hospital, but that episode is not related here.

The job back in England doesn’t materialise and within a week he’s spent all his money and is destitute. At least this is the narrative. In reality, it’s this part of the book that plays most loosely with the truth. In fact Orwell continued to live a comfortable existence in Southwold and London while making short expeditions dressed as a tramp into the underworld of London and the surrounding counties. Exactly what is fiction and what is fact is hard to discern, but Orwell certainly had first hand knowledge of the “kips” where tramps were allowed to stay one night per month before having to move on. In the book he makes friends with an Irish tramp, imaginatively named Paddy, and travels almost to Ide Hill in Kent, very near to where I grew up. Orwell spent one summer hop picking in Kent, and it’s a shame that’s not part of the narrative. He and Paddy spend some time with a self educated and intelligent crippled pavement artist. A fascinating view into a life that I didn’t even know existed in the 1930s. He is excellent at describing the eccentric characters he comes across and weaves their tales very fluently into the narrative. The plight of the poor, especially the elderly living on the state pension of 10 shillings per week, is appalling.

It’s a very easy lively read, and despite the grim circumstances Orwell finds himself in, he still makes it sound rather romantic with all the exuberance of youth - he was 25 or 26 at the time. He has a direct and easy-to-read style; Vonnegut and Hemingway would have approved. I finished the whole book in just a few days. Orwell’s aim with the book was to lay bare the appalling conditions of the poor, and in this he achieves his aim. It doesn’t really matter that it’s somewhat fictional, and that he places himself at the center of the narrative as one of the destitute, although it makes it easier for a cynic to dismiss him. The simple fact was that Britain, despite being the richest nation on Earth in the 1930s, was still no place to be poor. Orwell makes well founded criticisms of the limited welfare of the time. He suggests getting the poor to grow their own food, but one wonders how effective that would have been. As a first book and Orwell’s genesis as a social campaigner, it’s fascinating. You’ve got to hand it to him that he put in the leg work - literally - to understand his subject, and as a describer of poverty in the 1930s there can’t be many to match him.