Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

Lesser known than other George Orwell classics like 1984 and Animal Farm, Down and Out in Paris and London was his first published book (1933). 

George Orwell is destitute and living in Paris. He sleeps at a bug-infested inn and pawns his clothes for a meager amount. Starving and alone, he reunites with his friend Boris and, luckily, they get jobs as plongeurs at a filthy Paris restaurant. 

Just when things start looking up for Orwell, he quits his job (because of the twenty hour days without breaks) and moves back to England. There, Orwell is among the poorest of the poor and spends his nights at "spikes", crowded lodging houses where poor men pay a very small amount of money for a rock-hard bed, tea, and bread. In and out of the spikes, Orwell befriends interesting characters and continues to live in poverty.

Orwell likes to rant. This may be the only time I genuinely felt that a writer's rants were important, not annoying. A memorable one was his dedication of a chapter to the evolution of curse words and his feelings about them. This is important because it keeps the history of those words alive; it was also interesting to read about who used the words and how their popularity died out. The frustrating part was that, in the modern American edition I read (Harcourt), three quarters of the curses Orwell used were censored. 

The best part of the story was Orwell's short dictionary of poor men's lingo. This included words like "clodhopper" (street dancer) and "shackles" (soup). By defining the lingo for us, Orwell greatly enhances our feel for the period.

The descriptions of poverty and filth are gut-wrenching. Orwell vividly describes the awful conditions the poor men lived under, the lack of hygiene and sanitation in the spikes and the Paris kitchen, and the feelings of ennui and hunger that he and the other men endured. Orwell never shies away from sharing the details of poverty.

This book has only one major negative: its blatant anti-Semitism. Every description of a Jew is defamatory and offensive. While Orwell's attitudes towards Jews may have changed later, it is still unpleasant to hear him wanting to "flatten the rich Jewish pawn shopkeeper's nose." For me, this lowers the quality of the man, not the work. 

Orwell's overall message is clear: the poor are human beings who should not be seen or treated as swine. This message is still relevant today because, as a society, we often treat the poor and homeless as beneath us. Five out of five stars for Down and Out. 

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

Published in 1949, Nineteen Eighty-Four is George Orwell's last novel and one of the most famous contributions to dystopian and political fiction. 

Winston Smith lives in the dark, grim superstate of Oceania. Members of The Party control Oceania and Big Brother acts as their poster-boy and leader, although his existence is uncertain. The Party's political philosophy consists of paradoxical slogans like "War is Peace". The masses are under constant surveillance by The Party which rewrites the past so that its principles are not contradicted.  The Party's goal is to suck the pleasure out of people's lives and abolish rebellious thoughts. Winston Smith is an individual thinker and he is eventually "remedied" by O'Brien, a leader of The Party. By the end of the book, Smith loves The Party and Big Brother. 

Nineteen Eighty-Four gives us an appreciation of the importance of knowing and remembering our history. Because all accurate records in Oceania have been expunged, the only knowledge that an event actually happened or that a person actually existed is contained in someone's memory. Reading Nineteen Eighty-Four makes me grateful that I live in a society where family and friends don't betray us to the government and where it's OK to trust others.

I rate this book four out of five stars - because it's a true pleasure to read. I deducted one star because at times the novel was a bit slow. 

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Animal Farm (1945) takes place on both literal and allegorical levels. On its literal level, it is a story about talking farm animals. The allegorical level combines the literal meaning with chilling echoes of and correspondences to the Russian Revolution. 

Animal Farm is the epitome of a dystopian world. Set on an English farm, the book's characters are all four-legged. The farm animals are introduced to the dream of a dying pig of a future in which human contact and man-made objects are abolished, all animals are equal, and their human masters are overthrown. After their rebellion, however, reality differs -- the pigs take over and rule over the other animals. Napoleon, the head pig, returns to old human ways and becomes an overweight dictator.  By the end of the book, all the other animals are starving and life is worse than when the animals were kept in check by humans. 

There is no main character or hero to be found in this novel, but that makes the story even more interesting. Each character's journey is a puzzle piece in the story. Could-be heroes are numerous, but all eventually fail in their quests to overthrow the pigs. 

Animal Farm poses a warning both to political leaders and to the average citizen. For political leaders, the message is to treat the people fairly and not starve or execute them (I'm looking at you, Stalin), because otherwise they will rebel and potentially overthrow the authority. For the average citizen, it's a lesson on not letting political rulers take advantage of them and their labor or their devotion to their country. 

I rate this book five out of five stars for its strong lessons and dire warnings against the abuse of power.