George Orwell
Paperback | Pages: 277 pages Rating: 3.89 | 15029 Users | 1069 Reviews
Identify Appertaining To Books Keep the Aspidistra Flying
| Title | : | Keep the Aspidistra Flying |
| Author | : | George Orwell |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 277 pages |
| Published | : | October 26th 2000 by Penguin Books Ltd (first published April 20th 1936) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Classics. European Literature. British Literature. Literature |
Ilustration To Books Keep the Aspidistra Flying
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 Keep the Aspidistra Flying, 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.
Describe Books Supposing Keep the Aspidistra Flying
| Original Title: | Keep the Aspidistra Flying |
| ISBN: | 0141183721 (ISBN13: 9780141183725) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Gordon Comstock, Rosemary Waterlow, Philip Ravelston, Julia Comstock, Hermione Slater, Mrs Wisbeach, Mr Erskine |
| Setting: | London, England,1934(United Kingdom) |
Rating Appertaining To Books Keep the Aspidistra Flying
Ratings: 3.89 From 15029 Users | 1069 ReviewsCriticism Appertaining To Books Keep the Aspidistra Flying
Oh, what an ode to the money-Gods and aspidistras. An amazing, emotional journey of one man's fight against aspidistras and the inevitable pull of the money-Gods. This is a novel that is warm, hard, depressing, funny, absurd and at the end virtuous and redeeming. He simultaneously threads the needles of commerce, class, art and protest and weaves his story with satire and pathos, but doesn't make caricatures of ANY of his characters.I bloody love Orwell. He's not a perfect author and couldn't keep politics or social commentary out of his fiction, but that's part of his appeal. Yes, he banged on constantly about poverty, or war and far too often revealed his lecharous side. I forgive it all. Orwell had something he wanted to say and he found a way to say it. I don't agree with everything, I'm not blown away by his writing, but I am sad that I've now read all of his stories.
"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."I thoroughly enjoyed this little book. If you like Orwell you will love Keep the Aspidistra Flying.
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
A Note on the Text--Keep the Aspidistra Flying
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
Girl problems, money problems, houseplant problems. Things are not going Gordons way. Money has become Gordon Comstocks all-consuming idée fixe (followed closely by aspidistras). Gordon, who comes from one of those depressing families, so common among the middle-middle classes, in which nothing ever happens, refuses to be a slave to the money-god. He gives up a relatively well paying but soulless job at an advertising agency, a job that furthers the evils of the capitalism that he deplores. He
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