In one sense an easy read, in that the narrative sweeps the reader along: in another, difficult, because the story, describing conditions of brutal poverty as a 'plongeur' in a Paris hotel kitchen, then as an English tramp in southern England is unappetising in the extreme. The diary-like narrative is interspersed with anecdotes from the lives of other characters, such as his Russian friend Boris, and with more political reflections to make a striking and unforgettable short book. Not to be read before going out to a restaurant for dinner.... ( )

I've re-read this book many times over fifty years, and each time seems to resonate with a different dimension of my own experiences. ( )

The fact that all I wanted to eat when reading this book was a loaf of stale bread and milk speaks volumes about his writing. He writes about poverty in a way that sucks you in - he both glamorizes it and shows the awful truth about it. Loved this book! ( )

Orwell has been called a master of plain style. You need not read further than the first page of this, his first book, to learn this doesn’t mean dull or simple. He describes his street in Paris as a “ravine of tall, leprous houses, lurching toward one another in queer attitudes, as though they had all been frozen in the act of collapse.” Anyone who has ever tried to write recognizes the keen observation and quest for just the right word—and then the next, and the next—that goes into producing just one sentence as good as this.
Yet this skillful prose doesn’t exist just to be good writing. This is prose with a purpose. Determined to become a writer, he was equally determined to find something that seemed worth writing about: the life of the absolutely destitute. Despite having a family ready to take him in (something he never mentions), as well as helpful acquaintances, he allows himself to slide down the social scale to a life of absolute poverty.
This gives a dual optic to the book. Most of the book describes Orwell’s life as a penniless dishwasher in a fashionable Paris hotel and then as a tramp in England. Then, toward the end of each half of the book, Orwell includes reflections: an essay that asks why the life of the plongeur is as it is, a brief chapter on slang and swearing, then a short essay on tramps, followed by one describing sleeping accommodations. These contain practical suggestions for improvement. Above all, Orwell argues for a change in perception from that of the “tramp-monster” to what he experienced: “A tramp is only an Englishman out of work.”
Whether Boris, the Russian emigré Orwell befriends in Paris, his tramp companion Paddy, or Bozo the screever (sidewalk chalk artist), it is the unforgettable portraits as well as the record of lived experience that gives Orwell’s prescriptions their credibility.
One more thing: Orwell is the master of the closing sentence. ( )

I enjoyed the Paris part more. Boris was very entertaining and in comparison being down and out in London just seemed depressing and bleak. At least in Paris there was some life and fun in between the hardship of it all.