Matthew Royal’s Reviews > Keep the Aspidistra Flying > Status Update

He has a lot of contradictory feelings about money.

He wants nothing to do with it or the global system of it, and wanting to have a lot of it since his identity and self-worth he pegged to the amount of money he has.

He won't accept charity, but is constantly borrowing off family members.

Maybe it's hypocritical, or maybe it's a yearning for a world he can't imagine and anger at a world he can't escape.

Gordon's expression of how the “money god” rules everything extends to relationships between people, esp men and women. If you don’t have money, women don’t want you, and if you don’t have a woman by your 30s, then no woman worth having will even look at you. Ultimately, he believes it’s the women who believe in the “money code” and enforce it against reluctant males.