I enjoyed this — the Paris kitchen chapters are hot, exact, grimly funny; the hunger bit where he finally eats properly made me get up and make toast.
Something troubled me underneath, though. There's a romantic glow around poverty and destitution that I don't trust. Orwell could leave; the tramps couldn't. I'm not sure the book really helps the British intellectual tradition on that score — it can read as poverty-as-purification for a sensitive observer who always had a door out.
Interesting nonetheless. I'm still of two minds, and probably will be if I reread it.