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Keep the Aspidistra Flying

3.84 of 5 stars 3.84 · rating details · 4,742 ratings · 298 reviews

London, 1936. Gordon Comstock has declared war on the money god; and Gordon is losing the war. Nearly 30 and "rather moth-eaten already," a poet whose one small book of verse has fallen "flatter than any pancake," Gordon has given up a "good" job and gone to work in a bookshop at half his former salary. Always broke, but too proud to accept charity, he rarely sees his few...more

263 pages

Published 1975 by Penguin (first published 1936)

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Sep 12, 2008 Tosh rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Well first of all, Orwell is a fantastic prose writer. He can really make your feet feel tired by his descriptions of walking long distance in London, and the way he describes food, drinking, and the loose change in your pocket is right on the mark. What made me tired is the main character's total obsession about money. Not having money, the making of money, etc. I hated that and that is one of the main themes of this book. But then again I wanted to shoot the main character in the head and get...more

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Dec 17, 2012 Petra X rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Essentially this is every art students' dilemma, or at least it was back in my day, to sell out and deal with the Man or be true to our art and starve in an attic. Whether to find one's place within the system or try to forge a unique life outside of it. One thing we had in common was pot plants. An aspidistra in Orwell's case, another kind of 'pot' plant in mine.

As the story works itself out Gordon discovers two more things, things we had in common - we were really rather average poets and arti...more

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Jul 25, 2008 Patricia rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Dear George Orwell,

It's not you, it's me. It had to happen, really, this bit of faultering in the crush I've had on you. Sure, I've known you for years, but as you know, I've been completely smitten with you since last summer when I read your first published novel, Down and Out in Paris and London. I grew more smitten while reading An Age Like This, 1920- 1940, your early correspondance, reviews, and essays, and I remained so while reading your 2nd published novel, Burmese Days. But now the new...more Dear George Orwell,

It's not you, it's me. It had to happen, really, this bit of faultering in the crush I've had on you. Sure, I've known you for years, but as you know, I've been completely smitten with you since last summer when I read your first published novel, Down and Out in Paris and London. I grew more smitten while reading An Age Like This, 1920- 1940, your early correspondance, reviews, and essays, and I remained so while reading your 2nd published novel, Burmese Days. But now the new car smell has faded a bit from my crush (sorry George, I know how Socialists detest it when emotions are fetishized and commodified). It's just that this latest book of yours that I've read, your 4th published novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936, GB; 1956, US) has turned me from you a bit. I know that I'm probably making a mistake; others tell me how great you are--critic Lionel Trilling is quoted on the back leaf of my Harcourt edition as saying that Keep ... is "A remarkable novel ... a summa of all the criticisms of a commercial civilization that have ever been made," and the San Francisco Chronicle calls it "Both humorous and poignant." And to an extent, I agree--especially with Trilling's "summa" statement.

The story is simple enough: Gordon Comstock, a decent poet of little success, has declared war on money. He is determined that he will live in a constant state of poverty, battling throughout the book to avoid succumbing to the ownership of what is, to him, the symbol of the drudge of middle class life: the aspidistra, a spindly-leafed member of the lily family, prized for its ability to withstand poor soil, little light, and minimal care. And I have to say that establishing this plant as Comstock's nemesis is a fabulously Orwellian statement about what it means to achieve enough "success" to land oneself in the middling rank. If it were only that to consider, George, I'd still be all about you.

So what's my problem? you ask. Why am I giving you the "it's not you, it's me" speech? My problem is that your main character annoys me tremendously. Yes, Gordon Comstock shares some similarities to John Flory, the protagonist in Burmese Days. Both men step outside their immediate social group to take an objective look at that group. Both make attempts, albeit misguided and rather unsuccessful attemps, to avoid being manipulated by those close to them. But Flory is a much more sympathetic and likable character whose main flaw, one could argue, is blind romantic optimism. Perhaps in some ways, George, you see Comstock as Flory taken to the next step, the place one goes after blind romantic optimism has failed. To me, however, Comstock comes off as a whiney, self-destructive man having a major pout. He is determined that everyone around him be as repulsed by him as he is by the system that prizes the bastion of mediocrity that is the aspidistra.

In all honesty, George, I think the problem, as is so often the case when a romance takes a downward turn, is that Comstock reminds me of a past relationship, he reminds me of a friend in my real world, the one outside of the pages, who wanted to issue a similar indictment against society. I know it's bad form to compare our situation with one past, but it's true, I've seen it before, the way Comstock relishes his smugness as he sits in his pious filth only to realize that he is the only one who understands the joke. The problem is that neither my friend in the past relationship nor Comstock seem to understand that society as a whole doesn't take much notice when one man refuses to conform to its dictates. At most that refusal may get him tossed in jail for some fairly innocuous reason, but there's no real improvement in the social soil. As with my friend, when Comstock realizes this, he becomes disenchanted with his perfect society of one and must decide which is worse, to slog though life in embittered solitude or to join the rest of the group by opening the curtains to the front window so all can see that the aspidistra is thriving.

George, I guess what I'm saying is that I just need a little time and space. I know we've spent some amazing time together, and I'm sure that in time, I'll come to my senses and be back in touch. Until then, I wish you well and hope someone new finds you for the amazing guy you are.

All my best,

Patricia
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Mar 07, 2013 Markus Molina rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

I felt I needed to pick up another George Orwell book when I was thinking about it and realized just how perfect in my mind Animal Farm and 1984 were. It's been a few years since I read either, but I was itching to read 1984 again.... in the end decided I should read something new instead though. What a great choice.

George Orwell has crafted the most realistic struggling artist character of all time, in my mind, in Gordon Comstock, the poet. Gordon has potential, talent, intelligence and good pe...more I felt I needed to pick up another George Orwell book when I was thinking about it and realized just how perfect in my mind Animal Farm and 1984 were. It's been a few years since I read either, but I was itching to read 1984 again.... in the end decided I should read something new instead though. What a great choice.

George Orwell has crafted the most realistic struggling artist character of all time, in my mind, in Gordon Comstock, the poet. Gordon has potential, talent, intelligence and good people around him. But he suffers due to his stubbornness as he wages war against money and all that it stands for. He lives an absurd paradox of life where he doesn't know if he's miserable because of money or if money makes him miserable. He doesn't know if he chose to be upset, but he knows that he is now.

I don't think Gordon is supposed to be taken too literally. I think Orwell wrote him with his tongue in cheek, poking fun at struggling artists who whine and complain instead of crafting their art and working hard. I think "money" could be anything an artist will make an excuse about for him not succeeding or coming out ahead. Gordon constantly complains about how modern art is in the gutter and how people are too stupid nowadays to grasp proper art. He is negative about mostly everything and I feel like if his character in this book were read by someone without so much humour, he could be very unlikable. He's a lot like Holden Caulfield in that way. I love Holden, but I can see why many people don't get it and hate on him. But to be honest, I really loved Gordon. He reminds me so much of myself at times or all the other artists I have known throughout my life. He has very high highs where his art is golden & great, and low lows where he feels all his work is trash. He is bitter for not being where he wants to be, even if he is there by choice. We're shown some of his bitterness and some of his pride in his thoughts and it made me laugh out loud a few times. He's a delight to read, even though he would give me a headache to hang with.

Also, there is a drunken scene in the novel... I don't think I've ever read a scene that was so realistic and pungent with it's point. It reminded me so much of one night where I had to practically babysit one of my drunken friends. Or anytime I've had with an absurdly drunk person for that matter. It also perfectly captured what it's like to talk to and with a pretentious person critiquing the arts. How tedious it can become (both the babysitting and the conversing). It was remarkable and may be one of my favorite scenes of any book I've ever read ever.

My one gripe with the book is it takes a bit of a turn in tone around 3/4 through and gets a bit more serious, sad and heavy, slowing it down. But it wasn't bad, it just slowed down, which is quite a change, considering the extreme joy I was getting at breezing through and soaking in the prose, that is. It was still very gripping and I thoroughly enjoyed taking it all in.

The character is written beyond perfect. And again, Orwell blows my mind with his perfectly constructed story with some of the most beautiful prose I've ever had the privilege to read. I really think he might be the best writer I've ever read, and so far, he's definitely the most consistent. The ending gives you a lot to think about, like 1984 and animal farm. Orwell has a knack for endings, and though this isn't my favorite from the 3 books, it is still pretty great. I feel like this is a book that will only get better in my mind as time goes on and I have time to reflect on it and it's already near perfect in my eyes.

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Mar 18, 2008 Martine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: budding writers and closet socialists

Shelves: british, modern-fiction, psychological-drama, film, early-twentieth-century

I haven't yet read Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London, a supposedly excellent autobiographical account of a middle-class man's descent into abject poverty, but I would imagine that some of the experiences Orwell describes in that book must have served him equally well in writing Keep the Aspidistra Flying, which must rank among the bleakest novels about self-induced poverty ever written in the English language.

Keep the Aspidistra Flying centres on Gordon Comstock, a talented twenty-nine-...more I haven't yet read Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London, a supposedly excellent autobiographical account of a middle-class man's descent into abject poverty, but I would imagine that some of the experiences Orwell describes in that book must have served him equally well in writing Keep the Aspidistra Flying, which must rank among the bleakest novels about self-induced poverty ever written in the English language.

Keep the Aspidistra Flying centres on Gordon Comstock, a talented twenty-nine-year-old writer who has renounced a successful career in advertising -- not just to get some serious writing done, but on general principle. Gordon, you see, hates money. More specifically, he hates the English middle class's slavish devotion to money and all the things it stands for. Refusing to serve the money god any longer, Gordon steps out of the rat race, only steadily to sink into poverty. In his good moments he feels morally superior to the people surrounding him, whose petit-bourgeois gentility he despises; in his bad moments he realises that he himself is despicable and that his new-found 'freedom' will never make him a successful author, as poverty (which Orwell calls 'a spiritual sewer' and 'spiritual halitosis') leads not to creativity but rather to moral deadness, which is unconducive to being either creatively or socially successful. Needless to say, the increasingly squalid and unproductive Gordon soon begins to pity and loathe himself, to the point where his self-hatred threatens to poison his relationships with the few people with whom he is still in touch. The question is: can his loved ones get him to give up his dream of a money-independent existence before it's too late?

Keep the Aspidistra Flying features some black comedy and social satire, but even so the book is fairly depressing. Orwell expertly dissects the poor man's pride and paranoia, his nagging obsessions and insecurities, and his constant struggle between hope, optimism, envy, despair and self-loathing. No doubt many readers will find Gordon a frustrating and pig-headed protagonist (he is!), but being a slightly frustrated aspiring writer myself, I could sort of relate to him -- enough to acknowledge that he's a powerful creation. I also really appreciated the urgency of Orwell's writing. Many of his ideas on capitalism and poverty are repeated with great insistence throughout the novel, meaning Keep the Aspidistra Flying is hardly a very subtle read, but definitely a compelling one. Finally, I greatly enjoyed the colourful picture Orwell paints of 1930s England, where class is everything and where splendour and squalour go hand in hand. I didn't really care for Gordon's sudden change of heart in the final chapters, which seemed a bit pat to me, but even so, Keep the Aspidistra Flying struck me as an excellent book, full of powerful observations about writing and life in general that I wish I had come up with myself.

Talk about being a frustrated writer. :-)(less)

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Sep 20, 2007 Ian Wood rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone

Faith, hope and criticism.

My favourite novel of all time chronicles Gordon Comstock’s war against money and British society. That Gordon chose to live outside the system and stay true to his art tempers the optimism of most follow your dreams type aspirational story with Gordon sinking further and further into poverty much to the shame of his family. It was always my intention to buy an aspidistra and display it in the bay window on getting married in homage to this book. As it happened my wife...more

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Feb 25, 2009 Christy rated it 4 of 5 stars

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 d...more

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Dec 21, 2012 Lex Javier rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: classics

Finishing the book within a day, I have a feeling that I just experienced something profoundly beautiful. Keep the Aspidistra Flying is the story of a very likable anti-hero and a very outstanding heroine. That story between the two characters is almost too sacred to give out in a book review. You have to read it yourself.

Yet there is still something to talk about: the author's message. You can't read and put down Orwell's novels without rearranging a few of your beliefs.

Only Orwell can speechif...more

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Jul 11, 2012 Liz rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: have-2-get

This is why I would dig Orwell up and have him at a dinner party if I could. The man just knows how to write and not just write randomness for the sake of writing or selling a book. He just gets right down to the fundamentals of human existence (mainly suffering). This is one of his few books that actually ends on a high note....if conforming the the norm of society is a high note.

I have to admit that by the middle of the book, I did want to punch Gordon in his testicles for being a douche to ev...more

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Oct 23, 2010 Sherien rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Sherien by: Ayu Palar

Shelves: 20th-century

Gordon Comstock declares war against money. His idealization is not to fall under the power of money. As much as he tries to be independent of money, money does control his life in every aspect. He gave up his promising job to try to pursue a career as a successful poet, tries to stay put to that thing he loves—poetry even though he has to go through a depressing poverty. How long can he endure this certain way of life he chooses to go through? At some certain point, he has to consider taking ba...more

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Feb 11, 2008 Stephanie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: post-1900s, favourites

I found Keep The Aspidistra Flying to be an extremely pessimistic and frustrating novel, yet beautifully written and a useful insight into the lower-middle classes of the 1930s. In comparison to Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust which I had read previously, the contrast between the novels has portrayed two different views on certain social backgrounds, as well as some striking similarities. Both Waugh and Orwell focus on the theme of loss and struggles, and especially on the need for faith and be...more

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Jul 14, 2007 Ethan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Orwell's catalogue is done a great disservice by the public school system that offers Animal Farm and 1984 as fictional evidence of the poverty of Soviet Communism. This ignores two important qualities in their author: he was a committed British Socialist, and he was a prolific novelist.

Keep the Aspidistra Flying is a novel of characters first and a social critique second. Orwell gives his poet-unhero a confessional inner dialogue that makes his 1984 counterpart feel like a campaign poster. The...more

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Jul 10, 2007 Danielle rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: those needing a happiness reduction

Ok, I see the literary value of this book; however, I am frustrated with the 'intent.' When I read Morrison or hooks, although dense, I feel that each word chosen by the author has emotional weight. Words feel like they are chosen without emotion to increase the literary value...but they don't make me feel anything. Although, I do admit that I did feel an emotional attachment to Gordon (due to good writing and not emotional investment).

I also found the black and white nature of the plot frustrat...more

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Mar 03, 2008 Drew rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

I still think Orwell is one of my favorite authors. I picked this book up on the shelf here at the Belmont Library because I was still waiting for Kerouac to come through inter-library loan.

The book was depressing to me because the main character (Gordon Comstock) is such a frustrating individual. And at times I could see myself in his actions. He declares his war on money from a young age and is so driven by this decision that he hurts himself and those closest to him. What he doesn't realize,...more

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Jul 20, 2007 Reesies rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Another of my very favourite books ever- and probably the only book I ever read in middle or high school that I enjoyed. We read it as a counterpoint to Virginia Woolf's essay 'A Room of One's Own' which made for interesting discussions. Like much of Orwell's work, the focus is on poverty and artistic individualism, and there's a strong thread of biting satire relating to the so-called parlor socialism, the advertising field, and middle class values. A lot of the commentary holds up today, and t...more

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Apr 10, 2013 Alan Smith rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The political stance a person takes is often as a result of circumstances. While there are exceptions, generally speaking a poor person who has not enjoyed much luck in life is more likely to rebel against the established order, or turn their back on it. And this entertaining novel by George Orwell develops this idea perfectly.

The story concerns a rather down-at-heel, failed poet called Gordon Comstock. Gordon's one published collection, "Mice", has sold very few copies, he is working on a long...more

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Mar 27, 2013 Dhanya rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

**Spoiler Alert

Dear Orwell,

You’ve carried your mysticism for far too long. But tonight is the night when all good things come to an end. You’ve made me cry out in agony “why why why?!”. Does your cynicism have no boundary? Aren’t you supposed to be a literary person? Aren’t you supposed to give us Hope? Aren’t you supposed to lead us to a leap of faith? Your dystopia is killing me. Why did you crash Gordon Comstock’s life to a mortal being, a material-man? Why did you defeat him in his war again...more

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Feb 26, 2013 Laura Anthony rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Gordon Comstock, young man from a middle-class family in which "nothing ever happens", has "declared war"on money by quitting his "good job" as a copywriter for an advertising company for a low paying job as a clerk at a bookseller so that he can write poetry. His one published book of poetry was well-received but did not sell well, but he is convinced he has can write poetry under the right circumstances and that a "good job" gets in the way of his creative process. Of course the real joke is t...more Gordon Comstock, young man from a middle-class family in which "nothing ever happens", has "declared war"on money by quitting his "good job" as a copywriter for an advertising company for a low paying job as a clerk at a bookseller so that he can write poetry. His one published book of poetry was well-received but did not sell well, but he is convinced he has can write poetry under the right circumstances and that a "good job" gets in the way of his creative process. Of course the real joke is that the more Gordon rails against money the more important it becomes in his life. As the book opens, he is down to his last few cigarettes and can hardly afford the price of a beer. His vanity prevents him from accepting loans from friends or going dutch on dates with his girlfriend Rosemary; however, it does not prevent borrowing from his impoverished, spinster sister who works 10 – 12 hours a day in a tea shop. After a drunken spree he is sacked from his low paying job in a respectable bookshop. Eventually he finds employment with another bookseller where he works in a cheap lending library that caters to the barely literate masses. Rosemary and his sister try to get him to return to the advertising agency but he is too enmeshed in his philosophical war and is purposely allowing his life to deteriorate in to filth and hopelessness. Rosemary eventually comes to his depressing, bug-ridden bedsit to prove her love for him. Predictably , this episode leads to a pregnancy which neither wants to terminate leaving Gordon with the age old dilemma. Does he marry Rosemary and provide for her even if it means turning his back on his ideals or does he leave her in the lurch? In the end he capitulates and the emotion he experiences is relief as he always truly knew he would end up back in the middle-class. With an aspidistra in the window. I suspect Gordon goes on to live a relatively happy life. His battle was absurd in that the only one who lost in his war on money was him. At the end he realizes the even though money controls everything, and is the God of our world, that on the individual level it is the personal relationships that matter most and that the common man might be a slave to commerce but his life is also full of living, having babies, loving, dying and that part is the part that is above money. In the end, as they go out to buy an aspidistra for their new apartment, the almost indestructible symbol of the middle class, Rosemary feels the baby move for the first time. Life, like the aspidistra, goes on.
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Sep 18, 2012 Brett Ellingson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

(Warning: Spoilers ahead) I'm still digesting what I think about this. I sympathize greatly with the novel's uncomfortably familiar protagonist. Gordon Comstock, an heir to a once-respectable but now penniless family, set out on a voluntary crusade against "The Money God" only to retreat from his vow of poverty into comfortable, married middle-class life after he gets his mistress pregnant. His bohemian life is revealed to be selfish, parasitical, and ironically money-obsessed.

Comstock's sanctim...more (Warning: Spoilers ahead) I'm still digesting what I think about this. I sympathize greatly with the novel's uncomfortably familiar protagonist. Gordon Comstock, an heir to a once-respectable but now penniless family, set out on a voluntary crusade against "The Money God" only to retreat from his vow of poverty into comfortable, married middle-class life after he gets his mistress pregnant. His bohemian life is revealed to be selfish, parasitical, and ironically money-obsessed.

Comstock's sanctimonious disgust at the common man's subservience to economic concerns shows itself to be more an indication of his pride, fear of failure, and childhood resentment at not fitting in with his wealthy classmates than something truly wanted. Through Gordon's journey back to respectability, Orwell shows an somewhat begrudging but affectionate and admiring stance towards decent middle-class morality.

"It occurred to him that he was merely repeating the destiny of every human being. Everyone rebels against the money-code, and everyone sooner or later surrenders . . . He wondered whether every anchorite in his dismal cell pines secretly to be back in the world of men. Gordon wasn't a saint. Better, then, to be an unpretending scoundrel along with the others. It was what he had secretly pined for; now that he had acknowledged his desire and surrendered to it, he was at peace.
. . .
He wondered about the people in houses like those [in the neighborhood]. They would be, for example, small clerks, shop-assistants, commercial travelers, insurance touts, tram conductors. Did they know that they were only puppets dancing when money pulled the strings? You bet they didn't. And if they did, what would they care? They were too busy being born, being married, begetting, working, dying. It mightn't be a bad thing, if you could manage it, to feel yourself one of them, one of the ruck of men. Our civilization is founded on greed and fear, but in the lives of common men the greed and fear are mysteriously transmuted into something nobler. The lower-middle-class people in there, behind their lace curtains, with their children and their scraps of furniture and their aspidistras - they lived by the money-code, sure enough, and yet they contrived to keep their decency. They had their standards, their inviolable points of honour. They 'kept themselves respectable'-kept the aspidistra flying. Besides they were alive. They were bound up in the bundle of life. They begot children, which what saints and the soul-savers never by any chance do."

Yes, men are immensely concerned with the outwardly petty and mundane, but why not? Why shouldn't man be happy? There is the tendency to denigrate and turn your nose at people that don't meet our utopian ideals of perfection (whether those be Christian, Marxist, or otherwise). In our haste to imagine a new man it is easy to neglect the fact that the old man is what we are and that the old man is generally very adept at living a happy, decent, meaningful life.(less)

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Jun 19, 2012 Tiziana rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Objectively speaking, I am not sure that this is really a five-star book. But it certainly has affected me like one, hence my 'grade'. I have read it compulsively because despite being for many aspects so far away in time and setting (the book solidly mirrors and describes the social context of the Thirties in England), to me it felt so 'true', that it was almost too real.
The thing is that the book deals with things that have started to trouble me personally now that I am settling in, that I hav...more

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Feb 19, 2012 Bob rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Listening to Orwell's prose style is like taking a hot bath. I found myself resorting to Google, etc. frequently to look up interwar British pop culture references, slang and quotations from the French and Latin and biblical references.I'm afraid I making it off-putting, but that was not the effect for me. Orwell was a close observer of his main character's circumstances, with particular attention to the advertisements and the brand names of the products. The foreign language and Bible reference...more

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Jan 14, 2012 Nathan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Orwell doesn't show off. In "Keep the Aspidistra Flying," his prose is simple and straight forward most of the time, walking along at a comfortable, even mundane pace. His is the writing of everyday life: describing the everyday minutiae of what happens in a used bookshop, capturing the thoughts of his everyman pseudo-intellectual Gordon Comstock. But then, it happens. The pace begins to jog, to run, to sprint. Prose melts into apocolyptic, and the quality of time changes (chronos turns to kairo...more

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Jun 07, 2011 George rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It was an interesting book that was meant to present a figure who in some respects similar to Orwell's. The middle-class rebel who disatisfied with the conventions of his class abandons it and sides with the poor, expecting to live by his writing. This kind of bohemian poor is a specimen of a denier of bourgeois society and values, but he is different from the proletarian who is a victim of that society. The bohemian is of middle-class origins but he prefers one pillar of burgeois civilization,...more

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Aug 27, 2010 E. Thomas rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As a novelist Orwell was a great pamphleteer. It can be no surprise that his most successful novels are such unorthodox fictions, one a prophetic nightmare, the other a political allegory disguised as a children's tale. 1984 and Animal Farm I both found wanting despite his commitment to unambiguous prose and (what is so often overlooked) his macabre humor. Keep the Aspidistra Flying is quotidian in comparison. The agonized life of Gordon Comstock is vividly described, yet it remains hard to acce...more

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Oct 02, 2009 Andrew Walter rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Money, always money!

When I showed my girlfriend the blurb on the back of this book she exclaimed "Oh, Orwell wrote a book about you!" Whilst I wouldn't go so far as to say my existence is quite as grimly frustrated as that of Mr Comstock, I have to admit there were (are) certain parallels- I was working a part-time job, struggling for money with the vague hope I would turn the extra free time into productive "studio time". In reality, my inner city existence with its high rent and living costs f...more

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Apr 15, 2013 MJ Nicholls rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels, penguin-classics, sassysassenachs, tortured-artists

The reader’s response to Gordon Comstock’s behaviour will depend upon whether the reader has ever tried to live a “self-sufficient” life free from bourgeois respectability, or seriously pursued an artistic vocation with stubborn single-mindedness. Orwell’s novel is pretty one-track plot-wise—what happens when a person renounces money and its interminable grip?—but Comstock’s obsessive pursuit is a societal conundrum of universal proportions and makes for a frustrating and bone-deep trip to the d...more

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Jun 10, 2012 Quinn rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The rhythmic moods of self loathing to optimism, the threepence half-penny, fourpence half-penny ad infinitum, the remembrances of "Mice, which The Times Lit. Supp. had declared showed 'exceptional promise'" - the general, unrelenting bleakness of atmosphere. As a whole, or in my case a half, Keep the Aspidistra Flying proved an unbearable read. As the protagonist, Gordon, declares of his own family lineage, the Comstocks, 'nothing ever happens'. And in this novel too, neither does anything.

It...more

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Aug 11, 2011 adam prometheus rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

This book reminded me of myself alot. Gordon Comstock has declared war on money, and as a result is in a perpetual state of poverty. People badgering him to straighten out and get a decent job just makes him more stubbornly resist it, refusing to let anyone even buy him a drink. He sees how vile the monetary-based culture is, how ridiculously bad of an idea it is to have everything based on this fictitious thing; the way he sees it, it's idol worship and it pervades every aspect of modern life!...more

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Jan 12, 2009 Margaret rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: british-literature, authors-op

Gordon Comstock is waging his own private war on money and respectability (as represented by the omnipresent potted aspidistra plants). Having given up a lucrative job in an advertising agency, he works in a bookstore and writes poetry in the evenings in his tiny, cold rented room. His girlfriend, Rosemary, understands him and is patient with him, as is his friend Ravelston, a well-off socialist...that is, until Gordon's life is turned upside down and he starts to descend even further down the m...more

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May 06, 2013 Genericpie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Reading this book was a little bit like Chinese water torture. Rather than delivering its message with a bullet, it makes you suffer through the slow and tortorous dripping that is Gordon Comstock's plight to abjure the aspidistra. Perhaps this was Orwell's intention- to replicate the mundanity and savage dessication that is life on the poverty line by putting the reader through the same dull repetition in the form of a novel. If so, he did a fantastic job of it, but, unfortunately, that doesn't...more Reading this book was a little bit like Chinese water torture. Rather than delivering its message with a bullet, it makes you suffer through the slow and tortorous dripping that is Gordon Comstock's plight to abjure the aspidistra. Perhaps this was Orwell's intention- to replicate the mundanity and savage dessication that is life on the poverty line by putting the reader through the same dull repetition in the form of a novel. If so, he did a fantastic job of it, but, unfortunately, that doesn't make for a fantastic read.

I'm a big fan of George Orwell. I don't have many heroes, but if it had to pick a few he'd be near the top of the list. His clarity of thought and vision is reflected in his prose, and, much like his other novels, 'Keep the Aspidistra Flying' is well written, with certain passages that are a joy to read. However, while all of his other novels rigorously explore certain ideas and themes, they do not do so at the expense of plot. 'Aspidistra' starts off very well, but, following the first couple of chapters, seems content to repeatedly bludgeon the reader over the head with Gordon's abjuration of the 'Money God'. We get it: Gordon is renouncing the capitalist lifestyle that the aspidistra represents, but do we really need to have his unchanging ideals spelled out to us over and over again?

Unlike in the other Orwell novels that I have read (all except A Cleryman's Daughter) I really got the sense that he ran out of ideas here. The entire second act is padded out and riddled with filler. It's like a student who, in an attempt to lengthen an essay, rewords the same content in the vain hope that no-one will notice: Gordon meets Ravelston, Gordon bitches about money, Gordon meets Rosemary, Gordon bitches about money. Repeat that 20 times with the occasional interjection from a side-character and a description of how 'moth-eaten' and 'debauched' Gordon has become, and you've summed up the best part of the novel. Everything is neatly tied up at the end, and the enduring message is made clear, but what could've been an excellent short story is needlessly and painfully dragged out over 270 pages.

In a letter to George Woodcock in 1946 Orwell admitted that this book 'was written simply as an exercise and I oughtn't to have published it, but I was desperate for money [-] At that time I simply hadn't a book in me, but I was half starved and had to turn out something to bring in £100 or so." This is reflected in the novel- it reads like the half-baked work of a starving genius. There are flashes of brilliance, but taken as a whole the book is insipid, repetitive and frustrating.

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About George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair, better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language, and a belief in democratic socialism.

Considered perhaps the twentieth century's best chronicler of English culture, Orwell wrote fi...more

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“The mistake you make, don't you see,is in thinking one can live in a corrupt society without being corrupt oneself. After all, what do you achieve by refusing to make money? You're trying to behave as though one could stand right outside our economic system. But one can't. One's got to change the system, or one changes nothing. One can't put things right in a hole-and-corner way, if you take my meaning.” — 21 people liked it

“He drove his mind into the abyss where poetry is written.” — 15 people liked it

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