I don’t recall where I bought this. It has a price inside so possibly a second-hand book shop in Adelaide, or one in Melbourne…either is possible. This was written in the 1920s and I feel that little has changed since then. It highlights how those people living on, or below, the poverty line managed their lives. One time in Paris he’s walked 12 or 13 kilometres yet he hasn’t eaten for 60 hours. Unlike a lady I met a few weeks ago he hadn’t eaten out of choice, he didn’t even have one franc to buy food. He did have a roof over his head because he’d paid for a month’s rent ahead of time, but that left little for food.
We are given blow-by-blow descriptions of how hungry he is. How he joins a friend who also has no money. How they try to pawn their clothes, but the pawnshop doesn’t want them. How they manage to finally get a job. How Orwell manages to become a plongeur (dishwasher). And many of the details of how they survive and how the job works. It seems that in the late 1920s in Paris being a plongeur was far more than just washing dishes.
Then he decides he’s had enough and asks a friend in England to get him a job. A job for him appears and he makes his way back to England, thanks to some money loaned to him by this friend. But when he gets there he finds his employment has been delayed by a month. But he still has no money. I don’t know much about Unemployment Benefits in England, but thanks to the generosity of Wikipedia I’ve found out it was introduced in 1911, except it was only given to those who had previously been in employment and paid National Insurance contributions. This means that Orwell, along with thousands of other men was virtually left to his own devices to somehow find food. And I can’t comprehend how a government could leave any of their citizens without money. Sometimes it’s impossible to get a job.
Orwell does detail how he survives in England. He had a little money at first as his friend had loaned him money, I think he went back and asked for money at one stage. And the job really did come through after a month.
We hear about how the men are not allowed to sleep on the streets, or in the parks. About some accommodation places which seem to be made specifically for homeless men. How these accommodation places are rather scarce on anything, some of them even have no beds so you end up sleeping on the floor. How they come across food, tobacco for cigarettes, or friendship.
Reading this book gave me a better understanding of some of his later, and more famous books, such as 1984 and Animal Farm. Once you’ve read this you can get some sense of how he might have formed the ideas for his later works.
What really gets me is that the world hasn’t really moved on too much. There are still itinerant people sleeping on the streets, without a job or any way to get one. I’m aware there are a lot of different issues and I’m only looking at a handful of countries, but this book was written almost a century ago and it would be nice (but possibly unrealistic) to assume that we care more for people since then. That we have a better sense of how hard it is to be on the streets since there have been books such as this written. I’ve seen my share of homeless in three continents and I don’t think we treat them very well.
This was a real eyeopener for me, the only times I’ve wanted for a meal is when I’ve been waiting for a procedure. Next time I will be thinking of those who aren’t eating because they don’t have money.