false 9648 22 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 friends and cannot get the virginal Rosemary to bed because (or so he believes), "If you have no money ... women won't love you." On the windowsill of Gordon's shabby rooming-house room is a sickly but unkillable aspidistra--a plant he abhors as the banner of the sort of "mingy, lower-middle-class decency" he is fleeing in his downward flight. In <i>Keep the Aspidistra Flying</i>, George Orwell has created a darkly compassionate satire to which anyone who has ever been oppressed by the lack of brass, or by the need to make it, will all too easily relate. He etches the ugly insanity of what Gordon calls "the money-world" in unflinching detail, but the satire has a second edge, too, and Gordon himself is scarcely heroic. In the course of his misadventures, we become grindingly aware that his radical solution to the problem of the money-world is no solution at all--that in his desperate reaction against a monstrous system, he has become something of a monster himself. Orwell keeps both of his edges sharp to the very end--a "happy" ending that poses tough questions about just how happy it really is. That the book itself is not sour, but constantly fresh and frequently funny, is the result of Orwell's steady, unsentimental attention to the telling detail; his dry, quiet humor; his fascination with both the follies and the excellences of his characters; and his courageous refusal to embrace the comforts of any easy answer. <I>--Daniel Hintzsche</I> 3226250 1936 Keep the Aspidistra Flying total:1041|5:286|4:421|3:262|2:62|1:10| 1041 4034 1490 108 4 6 false false Thu Sep 11 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Aug 01 09:10:38 -0700 2008 Fri Sep 12 00:10:28 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 3 false false Tue Jul 22 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Jul 25 21:09:51 -0700 2008 Fri Jul 25 21:12:06 -0700 2008
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 ...more...]]> 4 2 false false Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Feb 16 10:39:26 -0800 2008 Tue Mar 18 16:36:57 -0700 2008 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 Aspi...more...]]> 5 3 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1990 Thu Sep 20 04:43:20 -0700 2007 Thu Sep 20 05:04:33 -0700 2007
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...more...]]> 3 2 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2001 Tue Apr 03 08:59:06 -0700 2007 Tue Apr 03 09:07:51 -0700 2007
You've got a zillion books dealing with famine and being dirt-poor on the farm, but there aren't so many that deal with the sort of respe...more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Feb 24 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 23 14:05:29 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 25 17:49:18 -0800 2009
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 sy...more...]]> 3 1 false false Sun Mar 15 23:03:47 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 20 00:48:17 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri Feb 08 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 29 08:15:05 -0800 2008 Mon Feb 11 08:21:40 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri Jul 13 21:14:13 -0700 2007 Sat Jul 14 14:55:47 -0700 2007
...more...]]> 3 1 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Wed Jun 13 01:34:25 -0700 2007 Tue Jul 10 00:21:15 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Feb 23 14:03:24 -0800 2008 Mon Mar 03 12:23:05 -0800 2008
The book was depressing to me because the main character (Gordon Comstock) is such a frustratin...more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1999 Fri Jul 20 15:26:58 -0700 2007 Fri Jul 20 15:30:27 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Oct 02 23:37:13 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 02 23:58:07 -0700 2009
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) certa...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jan 11 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 10 12:27:45 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 12 13:08:18 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Oct 06 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 02 18:39:46 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 06 14:59:12 -0700 2009
Keep the Aspidistra Flying is of course well-written and I had no trouble getting t...more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Jul 07 04:27:08 -0700 2007 Sat Jul 07 04:43:51 -0700 2007 Not as polished as '1984' or 'Animal Farm' and thankfully so, this one's a great read simply because of its rawness.
Orwell takes a satirical take on the role money plays...more...]]> 3 1 false false Thu Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue Aug 28 18:18:23 -0700 2007 Wed Aug 29 09:33:58 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 1 false false Wed Feb 25 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Wed Jul 02 20:49:44 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 02 20:53:27 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Aug 30 13:17:23 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 30 13:38:35 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Thu Nov 27 12:44:35 -0800 2008 Thu Nov 27 12:50:29 -0800 2008 three times more...]]>