Talk:Down and Out in Paris and London

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[edit] Hotel X

Does anyone know the identity of Hotel X? (Sasquatchuk 20:56, 23 October 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Letter from Dude

Hello,

I read "Down and Out in Paris and London" a few years ago and naturally thought it was a piece of non-fiction. However, after visting my local library, I found the book, only this publisher said it was a work of fiction! After a few searches on the Internet, I see that others also say it's a work of fiction.

To say the least, I'm a bit confused. For some reason, I'm also a bit unsettled. Have the realities of Orwell's book on poverty been an object of debate? If it is non-fiction, why are there publishers out there who say it's fiction?

Thank-you.

Dude............................

My Penguin editions of The Road to Wigan Pier and Homage to Catalonia are labeled autobiography but down and out is labeled fiction literature. The book was originally written with a diary like structure but was rewritten more like a story so as to get published. People who new Orwell have reported that he was not as down and out as he made out and that he received help from friends and relations. In the introduction he wrote for a french edition he says that he has not exagerated, that the order is not strictly chronological and that the characters are representatives of types. ^MeltBanana 16:40, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Both The Road to Wigan Pier and Homage to Catalonia were written with the help of journals Orwell kept during his experiences, journals that he kept specifically with the idea of writing a book. Down and Out... was written from memory, several years after the fact. Orwell did not always remember the real names of everyone he wrote about, and in other cases couldn't use them because of libel laws. He says several times in letters to friends that everything he wrote was true, but he moved events around to make a better narrative; also, his poverty at this time was not uninterrupted, since he occasionally had relief from various friends, but he left those times out because they would have hurt the flow of the story. The book does not really belong to any category. It's not fiction, because everything in it really happened; but it was written from memory, which is unreliable, so it doesn't really meet the standards for history. However, publishers have to put something on the book spine, so editors just pick something at press time and that's what goes on the cover. Fumblebruschi 16:44, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

It's narrative nonfiction. Orwell uses fiction techniques to tell a true story. I'm writing an essay on it right now explaining how he uses fictional rhetorical strategies to relay his story. Bleh!

[edit] Question

Does plongeur mean "dishwasher"? Thanks --198.59.190.201 19:46, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

• German Wikipedia says it means "a kind of dishwasher" and Esperanto says "general kitchen assistant." --198.59.190.201 19:53, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I did he Esperanto article (translated from English), and puzzled over plongeur. Not knowing French, I did a little Google-ing and noticed that Plongeur is also the name of a submarine, which I think hints the dishwasher interpretation. However, I read the book a dozen years ago and if memory serves, Orwell as a plongeur had to do everything that was too menial for anybody else. So, after noticing your question and the answer above, I changed the Esperanto to dishwasher and kitchen flunky. (I hadn't been able to think of the word flunky before:-) I expect I may reread the novel again in a few months. But if someone else has read it recently, perhaps that person would be so kind as to confirm or modify that interpretation. O'RyanW (☺ ₪) 01:45, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

The job is known in English as "Kitchen Porter" (as in "KP duty") . I was one for a couple of weeks in the 1970s, but things had improved a bit since Orwell's time!

20:56, 6 December 2006 (UTC)