The problem with Orwell is he gets an idea in his head that he wants to write a novel about and then he doesn't shut up about it!
This would've been a half-decent story if only he didn't ramble on about what having money brings you.

The aspidistra is a houseplant common amongst the boring middle classes and the “hero” of this book, Gordon Comstock seems obsessed with them. He’s a pathetic character, inherited money has dissipated, he abandons a soul destroying job in advertising to pursue poetry and works for low pay in a bookshop. His girlfriend Rosemary, his sister Julia and his editor Ravelston try to help him out but he continues whining about poverty. He wants to live without worrying about money, but you need money to do that. He borrows lots of money off his poor sister and she always puts him first, working hard and he never reciprocates. He’s horrible and I was quite sick of him by the end of this book.
The writing is clever and humorous and I got the satire, I just didn’t enjoy reading about Gordon!

This book isn't for me... but i can't imagine who it is for. This is a about a man who supposedly is trying to rebel against capitalism and society. A poet perhaps who has higher things in mind than the usual mundane human existence.
My main issue with it, is that i know it's all bollocks. I've met this type of person, in fact i know them intimately. Their not rebels, they simply lack the will and the skills for life. Every one of them actually wants to be part of society but just doesn't know how to quite connect with people. It may even be a form of clinical depression but i can't say for sure. In anycase there is nothing new for me here.
As for other readers, i don't see how they could possibly understand this protagonist. I doubt even Orwell truly could.
For the average reader this will seem merely depressing with quite a dislikeable hero.
The writing is still good but its not a story which really seems to need to exist. Its too squalid to be entertaining and not political enough to be interesting.

Okuduğum diğer George Orwell romanlarıyla karşılaştıracak olursam sanırım en az bu romanından zevk aldım. Kitabın ilk yarısı fazla durağandı bana göre. Bunun dışında asıl olarak kitabın ana kahramanı Gordon'ı sevemedim. Parayı sevmiyor, paradan nefret ediyor ya da bence ettiğini zannediyor. Eğer çok parası olsa paraya karşı tutumu aynı mı olurdu diye sorgulayıp durdum kitap boyunca. Eline bir miktar para geçince kınadığı, kızdığı davranışların, aktivitelerin gidip aynısını yapması paradan ziyade parasızlığa karşı bir düşmanlığının olduğu hissini uyandırdı bende. Paradan bu kadar nefret edip paraya bu kadar takılması ve kapitalizm karşıtlığını sefalet içinde yaşamakla bir tutması yer yer beni çileden çıkardı diyebilirim. Bu, diğer kitaplarını düşünecek olursak, Orwell'ın tarzı sanırım. Pek çok şeyin bir çözümü yok, hayat paradokslarla dolu... Yani en azından kitabın bana hissettirdiği bu.

"Money for the right kind of education, money for influential friends, money for leisure and peace of mind, money for trips to Italy. Money writes books, money sells them. Give me not righteousness, O Lord, give me money, only money."

If I had a friend like Gordon who complained day and night about being poor (because he chooses to wage a war against money) I would tell him to shut up and get a job. Gordon is a starving artist, a writer of poems and not much else. He grew up in a depressing middle middle-class household with his parents and sister, Julia. The family decides early on that Gordon would be the one to get an education as they can't afford to send both children to school. And so begins a life-time of sacrifices that are made in order to boost and put Gordon where he rightfully belongs; into the throes of Capitalism, a make good career man who would bring back the family fortunes.

Of course Gordon flops and fails and continues to disappoint everybody around him, while continuously reminding himself and others that the reason his life is hell is because he has no money. Mind you, "money" he could have earned by sticking to a solid, mundane, career (like the rest of us.) The image of aspidistras through out the book felt a little forced to me, somewhat unnatural, and annoying - as annoying as Gordon, almost. It is said that Orwell was ashamed to publish this book, I can't say I see why but I might be able to understand. The writing is superb and interesting, as you would expect, but the character got on my very last nerve so I can't give this more than 3 stars.

Jūs noteikti esat redzējuši to čali, kas brauc ar divriteni un grūž sprunguli spieķos. Šis romāns ir par viņu. Gordons Komstoks ir īsts mizantropijas un pasīvās agresijas korifejs. Viņš riteņa spieķos spēj iegrūst arī visas savas piecas ekstremitātes un arī galvu piedevām. Taču attaisnojumus viņš atrast māk, viņš ir profesionāls upuris, turklāt ar dzejnieka misiju, tāpēc viņa pretmietpilsoniskās tirādes ir bauda lasīt, jo runā viņš skarbi, rupji un nežēlīgi, tomēr spēcīgā un, nebaidos teikt, skaistā valodā.
Lai arī dzīvē tik krass notikumu pavērsiens kā romāna beigās ir gana iespējams, tomēr grāmatās parasti uz to notiek laicīga lasītāja gatavināšana un uzvedināšana, tāpēc šis pagrieziens man likās mazliet par strauju un tam noticēju ar nelielu piespiešanos.
Interesants pēcvārds. Izrādās, ka šī izdevuma lasītājiem ir laimējies, jo tas ir tulkots no izdevuma, kas ir pēc atjaunots pēc iespējas tuvāk sākotnējam romāna variantam, pirmo izdevumu krietni pakorektēja (lasi - pacenzēja), turklāt ar prasību - lai nemainītos rakstu zīmju skaits. Teksta salikums jau bijis gatavs un neies tak jāties vēlreiz. Orvels, protams, bija milzu sajūsmā.
Tiem, kam patīk dusmās mest grāmatas pret sienu, šī būs pašā laikā.

I had been avoiding reading this even though one of my libraries had an audio copy. I find Orwell rather grim and depressing and the premise of the novel 'A 30 something poet who is rebelling against having to live in 'the money world'' wasn't exactly making me think that this was the sort of book ones reads for shits and giggles. There are a fair number of novels on the 1001 list which have 'Major Downer' stamped on their front covers and this looked like it was one of them.

However, it was selected as a monthly group read and as I often can't participate in these due to having already read the book selected I decided that I wouldn't put it off. And... it wasn't as bad as I had been expecting.

Sure Gordon Comstock (let's just take a moment to appreciate that name shall we) was a total putz who whinged and complained his way through the entire book, obsessed about money, was obnoxiously rude to everyone he meet, was selfish, stupid, sexist and an all-round waste of oxygen; but other than that he wasn't too bad.

Gordon was fabulously gifted at making a bad situation worse. He's the sort of person who on accidentally walking into a KKK meeting would say 'Hey I thought Martin Luther King was the best American ever born and we're all African under the skin anyway'; in a Jewish Synagogue he'd tell the rabbi 'Man the Nazi's were right; you guys are a queer bunch' and at his best friends funeral loudly announce 'I'm surprised his wife showed up, I thought his mistress and all her kids being here would have put her off!'. Brain to mouth/action filter conspicuously missing.

The most irritating part of the whole book was Gordon's constant referrals to 'The Money God' and how everybody in the whole world despised anyone who wasn't rich. Gordon had a small point but he refused to look past it no matter how many times his good friends (who for whatever reasons loved him in spite of his faults) tried to help him; he would spike all of their attempts and morosely try his utmost to ruin himself even more in pursuit of some principal which he clearly didn't really even believe in. At least not to the extent that he followed it.

Gordon was a moron. How his girlfriend put up with him throughout the book I'll never now - I guess there really is someone out there for everybody. It gives you hope :-)

P.S. The recurring Aspidistra motif, the plant representing middle class conformity, did make me laugh several times. Everywhere Gordon looked, there it was. No matter how run down, how dirty the room, there, clinging to life, it would be. Ugly but well nigh impossible to kill. A prostitute had one in her room, Gordon's landlady placed one on his grimy little windowsill 'to cheer the place up'. Oh Aspidistra! I salute thee!

I have not sympathized with a protagonist quite so much in a good while.

Gordon Comstock is turning thirty, has no money, works in a bookshop, is a failing poet, and refuses to take a "good" job because of his socialist ideals and his war against the money-god, and it's chief symbol: the aspidistra that sits in the window of every British middle-class home. Kind of like a less talk-the-talk Frank Wheeler.

The hideous grimness of Gordon's soul-destroying poverty, the way he sinks into inevitable decay, the doing without, the saving face - is vaguely familiar. His yet-to-be mistress, Rosemary, is far more understanding and generous than Gordon and his pretensions deserve but all comes to a good end.

This may become one of my favorites; I have sat with Gordon in the drafty, dusty bookshop (only ours is neither, ha ha); have been in his frigid bare room, eating pathetically, going without tobacco (substitute coffee - Gordon is who I am afraid I will become. And things will get worse for him. But ultimately, there may be hope for Gordon and Rosemary.

Please read this if you work in a bookshop. Or your pocket is pinched.

Wow, what a tiresome book! The reason I even gave it three stars is because it's an Orwell book and, as such, he doesn't disappoint us with his wit, satire and irony. However, the story itself was lacking.Orwell must have been in a very misanthropic mood when he wrote this.

The main character, Gordon, is so depressing and unlikeable; he ties everything to money (for example, it took him an hour to shave one morning because he didn't have enough money). I just got so sick and tired of hearing about how poor he was and how people treated him due to his lack of money (I believe most of the cases were delusion on his part).The fact that he has such an understanding girlfriend is beyond me.

Gordon declares war on money. I think his declaration is misguided as he lives in London and needs money to survive. Also, he hopes to be a famous poet one day so he would get paid from that. I just didn't get his reasoning for declaring war on the 'money god.'

So, in summary, I didn't waste my time reading this book but it's definitely not one I would choose to read again.

George Orwell created many characters who went against the grain of contemporary society but perhaps none as self-defeating & uncompromising as Gordon Comstock in Keep the Aspidistra Flying, a poorly-paid, minimally-employed man at a back-street London bookstore that also loans books out to patrons.


Gordon Comstock's demeanor is rather bewildering--dismissive of most potential customers who enter the shop, while conveying a sense of personal disintegration, desolation & emptiness, as he proclaims the approaching doom of a society ruled by the "money god".

The Comstocks are said to stand as:

the middle of the middle class landless gentry, a dull, shabby, dead-alive, ineffectual family, a listless, gutless, unsuccessful people who drifted along in an atmosphere of semi-genteel failure.

From such beginnings, perhaps it is easy to reckon why Gordon is less than energetic to make a success of his life.

The novel's namesake plant, the Aspidistra (a.k.a. "Cast Iron Plant"), functions like a silent character, a symbol of just making do, of merely scraping by, with Gordon declaring that the plant should be on the coat-of-arms, instead of the lion & the unicorn. Gordon had read about poor carpenter who pawned everything he owned except his aspidistra.


But as the Comstock family has experienced decline, his sister Julia has sensed promise in Gordon, sacrificing greatly so that he might serve to rescue the family. Meanwhile Gordon walks away from 2 jobs that held promise while bemoaning the "moneyed highbrows, sleek young animals who suck in money & culture with their mother's milk."

He seems a masochist, a character who displays purposefully destructive behavior, even as others, including his sister Julia & a love interest, Rosemary, aspire to help Gordon, whose poetry has also failed to gain much of a response. His book of poetry is called Mice & Gordon refers to the poems as "abortions in a labelled jar".


In the midst of such seemingly terminal discontent & whatever one's political-economic views, what enhances this & other Orwell novels is the prose, with this as an example:

Something deep below made the stone street shiver. The tube-train, sliding through middle earth. He had a vision of London, of the western world; he saw millions of slaves toiling & grovelling about the throne of money. The earth is ploughed, ships sail, miners sweat in dripping underground tunnels, clerks hurry for the 8:15 with the fear of the boss eating at their vitals.

Even in bed with their wives, they tremble & obey. Obey whom? The money priesthood, the pink-faced masters of the world. The upper crust. A welter of sleek young rabbits in a thousand guinea motor cars, of golfing stockbrokers & cosmopolitan financiers, of bankers, newspaper peers, novelists of all four sexes, American pugilists, lady aviators, film stars, bishops, titled poets & Chicago gorillas.

An amazing, intriguing, occasionally baffling litany of Orwellian alienation but by way of well-crafted images.

However, while Gordon Comstock lies cold & unwashed, "his sock full of holes (more holes than sock) on a ragged bed in his slum attic, his aspidistra withered, with 3 decades done & nothing accomplished in life", an unexpected transformation may be about to occur, one I won't reveal to potential readers of Orwell's Keep the Aspidistra Flying.


I can understand why reading about troubled, overworked, underpaid, down & out souls in places like London, Paris & Wigan Pier may be tiresome for some but I found Orwell's novel quite worth reading, in part for its expressive phrasings. As George Orwell once put it: "Language ought to be the joint creation of poets & manual workers".

*Within my review are the images of George Orwell, an aspidistra plant, a small London bookshop in the 1930s & a recent New Yorker magazine cartoon.

Gordon Comstock is an unbearable antihero, a man who chooses to be poor and shabby when he has opportunities to rise in the world, because money is evil. He's an ass to his friends; he won't wear a condom with his girlfriend Rosemary; he only bathes the parts of his body that show in public. He's depressing and idiotic and I could barely stand the book until his friend Ravelston was introduced. Inexplicably, Rosemary and Ravelston stand by Gordon through thin and thin. I felt like Orwell needed to enlarge his vocabulary; "moth-eaten" is used about 800 times.

Gordon Comstock was the remaining hope of the Comstock line, he along with his long-suffering sister whose lot in life was doused in favor of the "boy" who would get a decent education and be thrust out into the 1930's London world to recapture the dying family's lost respectability was alas, a young man embittered against the yoke of moneyed middle class stasis. He used his education just long enough to revile convention, to throw in the towel of a "good" job and rather flounder about as a one[sort-of]-hit wonder poet (the Times Lit. Supp. hailed his published book (50) poems "Mice" of 'showing exceptional promise'). That he was 29, living in a 'hole-and-corner' room let at low rent and looking 'moth-eaten' did not dispel his adamant opposition to the succubus whore-song tow that line boy of capitalistic conformist society. He would be different, would cozy up to impoverished existence, get by the by and make poems come what may. His two confidants in the world it seems were his editor/publisher friend and a would-be girlfriend Rosemary who he pines over but still cannot see his way to becoming 'respectable' enough to really court her. He works a barely subsistence 'blind-alley job' in a second-hand bookstore that he rather likes so that his artistic life may flourish. We all readers know by heart this trope-y setup and what's more the aspidistra plant that was a supposed English mainstay of the period almost ubiquitously showcased in walk-about front windows is set piece central to this story as anchor of subdued stability. Whether poor, dirt-poor or getting on that plant meant life goes on.

Well, anyway, that's a quick-look overview of what Orwell spun up to flesh out some of his own experiences, vehicle to espouse some political and social inklings of/at that time. His character though pathetic did hold fast to a philosophy, a sacrificed for commitment to austerity in the name of artistic freedom UNLIKE Pessoa's merely pathetic narrator(s) in his 'disquiet' book I recently bemoaned for wasting my reader's expense of time/energy/expectation quotient. Comstock is of like ilk to Beats, hippies, occupy'ers and rabble-rousers today who eschew the time-worn convention of getting a job and a respectable life path - most of whom did finally succumb and become what they in youth did protest .. but, so, hey, come around they did, do and will until some distant or not 1984 world (AI?) washes out that aspidistral past forever.

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