Down and Out in Paris and London FAQs

Summary:
Down (and, 'Out') in Paris, and, London: or "Poverty is what I am
writing about."

Alternative titles considered:
"The Lady Poverty"
"In Praise of Poverty"
"Confessions of a Dishwasher"

Alternative titles NOT considered:
"Grungier Travels"
"A Tell of Two Cities"
"Harder Times"
"Crib-notes from Underground"
"Tramp and SuperTramp"
"Angel Asphalt"
"The Smelly One"
"Of Rats and Men"
"Difficulties with Gelder"
"Diary of a Mad Scullion"


*Influences:
"The People of the Abyss", "The Road" Jack London
Also:
"Life of Savage" Johnson
"Germinal" Zola
"Maggie" Crane
"The lower Depths" Gorki
"Autobiography of a Super Tramp" Davies

*Meyer


Themes:
impoverishment, penury, leftovers, privation, overextended,
pennilessness, beggary, pauperism, difficulties, reduced
circumstances, hunger, lack, want, dearth, depletion, exhaustion,
vacuity, meagerness, dogged, indigent, impecuniousness, need,
hardship, suffering, misery, dirt, filth, grime, lowness, grunge,
muck, dust, rats, bugs, vermin, trapped, penury, destitution,
greasiness, smelly icky slums, homelessness, exiguity, mendicancy,
daoipalury.


The upside of down:
"Poverty frees them from ordinary standards of behaviour, just as
money frees people from work."
"he allowed us two litres of wine a day each, knowing that if a
plongeur is not given two litres he will steal three. We had the
heeltaps of bottles as well, so that we often drank too much-a good
thing, for one seemed to work faster when partially drunk."
"For nothing could be simpler than the life of a plongeur. He lives in
a rhythm between work and sleep, without time to think, hardly
conscious of the exterior world;"
"Once again it was jolly autumn weather, and the road was quiet, with
few cars passing. The air was like sweet-briar after the spike's
mingled stenches of sweat, soap, and drains."
"It seemed that his whole life was this -- a round of mooching,
drunks, and lay-ups. He laughed as he talked of it, taking it all for
a tremendous joke."
"Some of them were *fantastically* poor"


The downside of out:
He "ate cat's meat, and wore newspaper instead of underclothes, and
used the wainscoting of his room for firewood, and made himself a pair
of trousers out of a sack".
"Tramps are cut off from women".
"a tramp's sufferings are entirely useless. He lives a fantastically
disagreeable life, and lives it to no purpose whatever."
"He had not eaten since the morning, had walked several miles with a
twisted leg, his clothes were drenched, and he had a halfpenny between
himself and starvation."


The upside of up:
"bathrooms, armchairs, mint sauce, new potatoes properly cooked, brown
bread, marmalade, beer made with veritable hops - they are all
splendid, if you can pay for them."


Correct language usage of the down and out:
"Putain! Salope!"
"Of all the---fools!"
"Je m'en f---!"
"---!" or, "---, ---"
and the classic, "--- ---, y'--- --- ---!"

Incorrect usage:
"screeving bastard!"
"gee! kip off"
"go funkum, y'tosheroon!"
"piece of horse's liver"

B.