Down and Out in Paris and London – George Orwell

I imagined the book would be a journalistic depiction of rough living as witnessed by Orwell. What I hadn’t known or expected was that he had lived in these pitiful, abject conditions himself. If he did so voluntarily, he did so fully committed, at one point being unable to stump up the few pennies for a doss house and resorting to tramping. The late 1920s and early 30s were tough depression years in the cities and there many thousands living in unrelieved poverty. It might not be his finest writing, but who cares? The infernal kitchens in the bowels of the Paris hotel and characters he meets will make an impression on any reader. Orwell’s solidarity with common humanity shines through. Particularly memorable is Bozo, a destitute “screever”, or pavement artist, whose spirit and self-esteem remained intact: “if you set yourself to it, you can live the same life, rich or poor. You can still keep on with your books and your ideas. You just got to say to yourself, I’m a free man in here’” —he tapped his forehead— “and you’re all right.”
 
There’s a remarkable bravery in this stance, because Bozo’s chances, once down on his luck, of recovering even a simple economic well-being were virtually nil. Similarly, the beggar has no hope of betterment, his or her plight is usually never their fault, and yet beggars, Orwell points out, are universally despised. Orwell reckoned it was because society considers making money a prime virtue. I suspect it is because we fear that we might descend to such an iniquitous condition ourselves. Our privilege and comfort are not guaranteed and we have no entitlement to them.
 
Orwell: “Beggars do not work, it is true, 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 a as a social type, a beggar compares quite 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.”