Down and Out in Paris and London – George Orwell.

A couple of weeks ago my sister and I visited Paris and I thought I’d do some literary recreation and picked, Down and Out as my holiday read. I’ve liked Orwell since I read 1984 and so I suspected I’d also like Down and Out.

Tramps in Metropolis

Down and Out follows the docu-drama of Orwell’s life.  I call it docu-drama because rather like the recent fad for scripted reality tv, the book is based on real experiences but not a series of events in factual order and without embellishment. After quitting the Indian Imperial Police Orwell moved to Paris, wanting to become a writer and imagining he would eke out his living from journalism. This didn’t really work out and he was soon so poor he was working the tramping track and long hours as a plongeur or scullery maid. At the promise of a job he moves back to London but life is hard here too. The persistent poverty forms a suitable background for Orwell to tell a number of funny tales and to sermonise on the plight of the poor.

First of many

Down and Out is Orwell’s first published work. Reading it I was reminded of several themes I recognised from other novels written by Orwell. The reactions (scornful) of the tramps towards clergymen was reminiscent of the attitudes towards religious subjects in 1984. Similarly the diatribes at the close of the book on the lives of the poor and how they might be improved reminded me of other Orwellian essays (like How the Poor Die and Why I Write) I read as a teenager. The keen awareness of inequality found in Animal Farm has its nascence in Down and Out. When you think about it, it is quite remarkable, here was a man educated at Eton and the descendent of gentry, quite au fait with Henley who recognised there was a great divide to be crossed, and eventually crossed it for several years.

Intellectual Snobbery

I am a great fan of Orwell’s. During my teenage years his works offered a mirror in which I could see myself reflected. That is not to say that I went to Eton and was related to gentry but rather here was another person with a brain that worked well, faced with the dilemma of inequality  and trying to solve the problem.

I did feel, however, that Orwell could be accused of intellectual wankery. In the copy I was reading there were several times when words were not translated. Boris’ floosie can get food by pretending to be enceinte; Orwell gets jobs in grotty hotels as a plongeur and the majority of men in the lodgings were stevedores. Reading this book has been really good for my acquaintance with Wikipedia and the stevedore word has a really interesting borrowing from Portuguese that rewards investigation. This habit, of throwing foreign nouns in as if your reader will understand, reminded me of reading T.S. Eliot in 6^th form. When you read The Wasteland for the first time it can feel bland and uninteresting; but when you are given the keys to all the cultural references suddenly a whole world is opened up and you declare the man a genius! The same, I would say is true of reading Down and Out, at first it might just seem like prohibitive intellectual wankery but further reading adds to the narrative.

Literary Comments

I imagine the literary amongst you think this is all very fine but are wondering whether it is worth reading the book! I thought it was funny, in places, and it made me do a lot of thinking, about dirt in hotels, the tyrannies of urban landscapes and the commonality of human kind. He draws some very endearing characters and on occasion is capable of brilliant description. But generally, the book is quite raw and lacks the comprehensive brilliance of his later fiction.

A lively read which complemented my travels across Paris and London very well but not his best work 3/5.

Mornings in Jenin

Any of you who know me personally will know what a hectic month it has been! But in the midst of all that activity, I have found the time to read three great books. C.S. Lewis’ autobiography, Surprised by Joy which I made reference to last week, made great travel reading (on the slowest train to London ever!). The second great book was Pete Greig’s, God on Mute which provided a theology on suffering and unanswered prayer that I could get my head around. But the subject of today’s post is the third book I read, S. Abulhawa’s Mornings in Jenin.

Afternoons in Southend

I did not go purposefully looking for this book. It was a rainy afternoon in Southend (Essex, where I live at the moment) and I was looking for research material for my MA dissertation. When I remembered that I was to have some holiday soon (what a mythical resonance that little word, ‘holiday’, has!) I allowed myself to be drawn towards the library’s ‘new additions’ section. The copy of Mornings in Jenin that I borrowed features a little girl in an Oriental doorway on the front cover and it reminded me of the cover of Hosseini’s, Kite Runner. The reference to an ‘International Bestseller’ also encouraged me to take a look inside.

Image credits to: spiderednews.com <---- and mergingreflections.blogspot.com ---->

David or Yousef

‘Mornings in Jenin’ tells the life story of a girl called Amal who is born into a Palestinian refugee camp in 1955; but the story begins before her birth in 1941 and carries right through to her death. The content engages with several intense political themes; investigating the nature of Israeli/ Palestinian relationships, cases of mistaken identity, terrorism and the impact of dislocation. It is only fair to tell you that there is quite a lot of violence and disaster in this novel; such that the Daily Mail called it; ‘Disquieting, discomforting’. I beg you not to let the political undercurrent prevent you from reading the book; it is about so much more than a well-written polemic; this is a story about what it means to be family, the definition of a ‘good mother’, love and loss and a good dose of friendship.

‘No soldiers here’ (page 179)

Not only does this novel have interesting content but it is so well written. From the start, I was wrapped up in the safe Mediterranean world of 1941; ‘a small village east of Haifa lived quietly on figs and olives, open frontiers and sunshine. It was still dark, only the babies sleeping, when the villagers of Ein Hod prepared to perform the morning salat’ (page 1). The description of landscapes reminded me of Steinbeck’s work particularly Grapes of Wrath;  ‘Along the dusty road, the land rose in sylvan silence, charmed with the scents of citrus blooms and wild camphires’ (8)  The attention to detail is also reminiscent of Steinbeck; ‘There was some oil, but mostly almonds, figs, a variety of citrus, and vegetables. Hasan put the grapes on top so they would not be crushed’ (7). Abulhawa creates evocative scenery through her creative use of poetic language; one image that has stuck in the two weeks since I read the book is that of Amal being read to by her father, ‘My life before the war returns to me now in memories bracketed by Baba’s arms and scented with the tobacco of his olive-wood pipe....I never knew a playground nor swam in the ocean, but my childhood was magical, enchanted by poetry and the dawn’ (page 60). The Palestine at the beginning of the book was a wonderful place to escape to as a reader.

Rupture: ‘I think of those years with nostalgia’ (page. 164)

This poetic, charming world and style of narrative, however, does not last. As the novel continues, the reality of the 1960’s encroaches on the lives of the characters and that is the end of peace for the rest of the novel. The sentences get shorter in recognition of the reality of Amal’s later life. The prose gets grittier, like life in the present has not got the nostalgic rosy hue of childhood (see page 164); if you could stomach the second half of A Thousand Splendid Suns (Hosseini) then you should be ok. I will admit I did not enjoy the second half of the book as much; but that is mainly because Abulhawa denies any more access to that glorious, contented landscape. And maybe it would be wrong to describe atrocity in gentle, poetic terms?

Biographic ‘Amal’

I did not realise that Mornings in Jenin drew from some of the life-experience of the author until I got to the end (I know, not so quick on the uptake). Maybe the biographic link is what makes Abulhawa’s work so authentic; the reality of life experience fuels the passion in her writing. I also did not discover the dictionary of unfamiliar terms until I got to the end. Abulhawa could have replaced those words with English synonyms but the use of terms in their original language contributed to the authenticity of the atmosphere created. One of the other things that really impressed me, once I realised the story was biographically influenced, was the storyline of the novel. Its compassionate portrayal of the Jewish community is surprising when Abulhawa's identity as a Palestinian refugee is recognised.

Novels from beyond the familiar

Writing this blog post has got me thinking about novels written beyond the European context. There seems to be a growing number of novels written by authors from the Middle East who move to English speaking countries and then publish on their homeland. Neither Hosseini nor Abulhawa moved to America as novelists but as science students. The later development into writing is interesting, I wonder what motivated it? Is novel writing acting as a therapeutic reaction to migration and dislocation? And what impact does writing novels through an Anglo-culture have? Both Hosseini and Abulhawa have also created charitable foundations for their countries of origin, as if introducing the world to their native cultures through highly successful prose was not enough.

I’ve also been thinking about why I enjoy books written by such authors. It is not only that I love the writing style, the rich descriptions and poetic language. I think it is also that they provide a window onto the unfamiliar, a world to escape to, where I have never been before and that is quite attractive.

It was a great read!

I really did enjoy this novel, I doubt this review does it justice but it was so good I just might buy it when I return my library copy. Mornings in Jenin is a conversation-starter; as recognised by the publishers who include a discussion section at the back of the book. Have you read this book? What did you think? Have you read anything else lately that was particularly good? And have you considered sharing it with a friend?

Have a great week folks!