Keep the Aspidistra Flying

by George Orwell

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.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Literature, British Literature, Novels, 20th Century, Audiobook

297 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1936

About the author

Eric Arthur Blair was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to all totalitarianism (both fascism and stalinism), and support of democratic socialism.

Orwell is best known for his allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), although his works also encompass literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics, literature, language and culture.

Orwell's work remains influential in popular culture and in political culture, and the adjective "Orwellian"—describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices—is part of the English language, like many of his neologisms, such as "Big Brother", "Thought Police", "Room 101", "Newspeak", "memory hole", "doublethink", and "thoughtcrime". In 2008, The Times named Orwell the second-greatest British writer since 1945.

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essentially this is every art student's 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 for me.

As the story works itself out Gordon discovers two more things, things we had in common - we were really rather average poets and artists, and the answer to all the problems caused by following one's (mediocre) calling and being permanently broke, was the Man himself, aka Filthy Lucre. After all, there is a limit to how much cash you can borrow and still feel yourself an independent soul. Also, at least for a man, including Gordon much to his chagrin, it's much harder to get laid if you haven't a bean to your name.

So what did we all do? We sold out. Are we happy with our decision and our lives, did we even stay as artists? Probably most of us look back on our youth, well misspent as artists are wont to do, fondly, but are now solid citizens of society. We have morphed into the Man ourselves and don't call it 'selling out' but making a living.

It's not a bad read, amusing in parts, but Gordon is such a tiresome creature and it was all a bit, in a not-too-distant historical sense, been there, done that, grew up.

Not Orwell's best book, but still pretty good.

Rewritten Jan 29, 2017

[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an earlier work of Orwell, and so shares with others in its category a rueful, biting cynicism and incipient depression. Not at all among the more buoyant of his books - as are by comparison, Animal Farm and 1984.

By buoyant I mean that Orwell was, later on, fast becoming a household name in the leftward-drifting West, so that buoyed up by fame and fortune, he wrote with more confident acuity!

And now he had money to burn, the want thereof having inspired the early and more dismal work Aspidistra.

Gordon Comstock despises the capitalism of the book trade, and he despises capitalism, period. If authors can get rich with their books, why can't Comstock? He squirms in envy - burns in bale and smothers in smoke!

Guess what? Orwell shoots himself in the foot here. He would, of course, learn more subtlety later. Then his books would sell.

Added to that, his Leftist stance would make him a sorta evangelist. Evangelism fills a need. The Daemon Knows... So, in our time, booksellers are now the NEW evangelists.

The book first stared up at me in 1976 from my old school buddy Allan's coffee table down in Kingston, Ontario. Almost like the bottle label to the too-large Alice, it said Read Me! Read Me! And so I did, though much later. But with such a title, how could I forget about it? Again, the daemon - the READING daemon.

Do any of you readers know that familiar devil?🤔

Well, anyway, Orwell, as the novel thinly veils his own story, worked odd jobs to make ends meet (like so many of the jobless in the Thirties). One job was selling books (read my Kindle highlights). So he learned The Big Sell of the Literary Trade - long before it became an attractive crowd-pleaser on GoodReads.

In his best-selling Isabel Dalhousie series of cozy mysteries, the writer McCall Smith has Isabel treat literary outsiders, such as Orwell and Auden, with the same hushed reverence that - in my childhood - was associated with places of worship.

Pariahs are suddenly IN, their books and reviews as valuable to our more sophisticated generation - as paintings by Van Gogh and Picasso, painters of an outré mindset, were to high-class early 20th century Parisian snobs.

Speaks VOLUMES of us, if you ask me!

Art and literature are the new barrier-busters...

And so books, too, have gone the way of all flesh...

And have fallen into the dark demesne of the Almighty Corporate Buck. Roll over in your grave, George Orwell!

[Luís · Rating 4 out of 5]

The novel is like "1984", a thesis novel. The author sets out to portray, in great detail, the monotony and smallness of Gordon's life, showing, page after page, to what extent money governs every moment of his "hero" life, despite his desperate attempt to extricate himself from the system. Suppose a form of boredom sometimes accompanies reading. In that case, insidious anguish seizes the reader when he realizes how poverty eats away at Gordon from within, at the risk of robbing him of his soul.
The reader quickly grasps the irony of the situation. By choosing to fight against money, Gordon paradoxically finds himself in a slump where a lack of funds dictates his choices and defines him as a social, penniless friend to Ravelston and a chaste lover to Rosemary. At first glance, the novel's title, to say the least, is opaque; it takes on its whole meaning: the aspidistra is a perennial plant, an integral part of every London household. It symbolizes a sense of normality and a sense of belonging to society. Gordon's hatred of the aspidistra, which, in his eyes, represents the system he refuses to be part of, perfectly illustrates the author's chilling irony.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a tiresome book with a bitter, complaining main character with artistic ambitions. The snapshot capture of the time and place made it worth reading.


"The most difficult times were the 1800s, when many Victorian homes began to have indoor lighting powered by gas. Gas lights produced toxic fumes that induced headache and nausea, blackened ceilings, discolored curtains, corroded metals and left a layer of soot on every flat surface. Flowers and most houseplants wilted. Only two particularly hardy plants managed to survive the dismal environment of a Victorian home—the Kentia palm and the aspidistra. These two plants, especially the aspidistra, became a mainstay of every Victorian parlour, drawing room, lobby and upscale ballroom."
https://www.amusingplanet.com/2019/04...

[Annelies · Rating 4 out of 5]

What is more important in life: to hold on your principles and by this lead a dreadful life, or to leave your principles, and by that get a richer life? Actually this is the basic question in this book. To know what Gordon choses, You should read the book. It's worth it.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

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

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Apparently Orwell himself didn't think much of this, and kept Keep the Aspidistra Flying from being reprinted in his lifetime. The mixed reviews come as no surprise then. While it isn't a bad novel, the plot does feel a bit puny, and the message he is trying to send out is delivered without any real drive and potency. Even the metaphors don't really stand up. It's something - unlike 1984 or my fave Down and Out in Paris and London - that's not going to hang around in my head for too long. Also, I don't know how on earth the novel can be seen as satire, because for me it isn't. Just too depressing and straight-faced. The contradicting second-rate poet Gordon Comstock - a character I didn't particularly like - makes the decision to quit his advertising agency to take up a dead-end job in a small bookshop. Basically he is sick to death of the blighting consumerism on society. Just about getting by with his uncomplaining girlfriend Rosemary, leads to an unexpected pregnancy and he is suddenly faced with the choice of whether to conform or to compound in regards to his hardship way of life. It's safe to say that Comstock incorporates some of the difficulties Orwell experienced himself. The person trying to live morally in a capitalist society for example. When it comes to the actual subject of finances, then I'd say Gordon is more on the side of wanting to simply shun adult life and responsibilities than he is bothered by the money-god and capitalism. He sees his own self-inflicted poverty easier to take rather than have it thrust upon him by outer forces. Orwell’s own life of poverty does mean Gordon’s is written with authenticity, but, I'd simply take Orwell all day long writing about himself rather than a fictitious version. Like I've said before - apart from 1984 - I much prefer his non-fiction/essays. 2.7 stars.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 depths. In my own case, my mother abandoned college ambitions to support her parents, and my two siblings have ditched artistic ambitions in favour of reasonably stable and well-paid occupations—as the third child, with this history of “selling out to the man,” I felt a strong need to have convictions as an artist manqué, privations being part of the plan on the road to obscurity. Comstock’s artistic drive is not strong enough to triumph over his money worries, suggesting his desire to write poetry is nothing but an excuse for rebelling against a predetermined bourgeois society (more horrible in the 1930s than it will ever be again). As with all Orwell’s fiction: it burrows into your conscience and lays eggs there.

[Barry Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

I buddy read this book with my bestie, Ariel Bissett. We spent more time on Voxer than actually reading this novel most nights but in our defense we spent most of that time gushing about Orwell.

I think this is my favorite Orwell. I knew that from the very first chapter and oh what a chapter that is. I think it may be one of the best opening chapters to a novel that I've ever read, in fact, it's one of the best chapters that I've ever read.

This novel tells us the story of Gordon Comstock, a man that completely rejects capitalism so much that he gives up his job at a large advertising agency to work in a quaint little bookshop. He hates money. He just wants to be a poet. However, his selfless, money-hating, and sometimes irritating attitude does not help his life in any way. Gordon is still an incredibly interesting protagonist though and I felt that this glimpse into life was just perfect, perfect!

I really just want to run around the streets with copies of this book and throw it at people's faces shouting "OH MY GOD READ THIS". I would obviously be arrested for these actions so I'm going to do it here, OH MY GOD READ THIS. If you've only read the famous Orwells, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, then I highly suggest you read his lesser-known but (in my opinion) better works. This novel is a great entry point into the books that really made Orwell great. Once you're hooked though, you'll never look back!

[Jan-Maat]

A novel of London life and the search for integrity in the 1930s. It conjures up the oppressive atmosphere resulting from self inflicted poverty and features the shabbier side of life to the extent that the one brief excursion that the hero and his girlfriend make out of London feels like the explosive escape from a crushing environment.

The story follows a young man who gives up a comfortable job in advertising to work on a not very good poem about how rubbish and tawdry modern life and its amusements are. It is slightly unsatisfying as a novel I think because it can't resolve the problem that it sets up in a satisfactory way, but maybe you might shrug and find that is simply realistic.

[Mohamed Bayomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

كعادة جورج أورويل متبصر ومتجاوز للزمان و المكان ، فبالرغم ان الرواية تتناول المجتمع البريطاني ثلاثينات القرن الماضي ،تحديدا الطبقة الوسطى باعلاها ووسطها وادناها ،الا ان هذا لا يقف عائق امام عالمية الرواية او تجاوزها لحدود الزمن
اما ان تخدم الهة المال او تتدهور ، لا توجد قاعدة أخرى
عبادة المال عقيدة حتمية لانسان حضارتنا ، لا مفر ، فالقيم اثنين فقط ، الاولى اصنع المال والثانية لا تخسر وظيفتك ، قائمة اهدافك واختياراتك محدودة جدا ، فقط اثنتين ، ان تكون اله للمال او عبد للمال ، الفقر في الطبقة الوسطى هو ليس ابدا مشكلة يومية بقدر ما هو مشكلة اخلاقية ، تلك الحقيقة التى كان جوردون بطل الرواية واعي لها ، الا انه قد اختار الحرية ، رافضا كل الاعيب الحضارة لكي تضع القيد حول عنقه ، ان تربطه بالمال ، رفض ان يكون اله او عبد في عالم التجارة ، اختار ان يعيش ناسك و ان يكفر بعبادة المال ، ان يتدهور حد التلاشي ، صمد لمدة عامين ، الا كما المثل المصري ، ياما في الجراب يا حاوي ، فجراب المال لا تنتهي الاعيبه ، ادرك اخيرا انه ان لم يتراجع الان سيتراجع مستقبلا ، اتخذ قراره و باع روحه ، ووضع قيده ، وعاد الى الحظيرة
سوف يشمر عن ساعديه للعمل ، سيبيع روحه وسيتمسك بوظيفته

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up
One of Orwell’s earlier novels and one he didn’t really like, as he declined to have it reprinted in his lifetime. There are elements of Orwell’s life in this, rather than his personality. This is a biting satire written and set in the mid-1930s. The satire covers what might be called the “rat-race” and the god of money. It is a bitter demolition of lower middle class values as Orwell perceived them. The prose is great, but it is difficult to read, mainly because of the main protagonist Gordon Comstock, who is really not at all likeable, and very irritating. Orwell does seem in his early work to have the ability to write unsympathetic male characters.
Comstock leaves a good job as an advertising copywriter because of his principles and his desire to make war on the good of money, failing to realise if you are in poverty money becomes much more important. He takes a low paid job in a bookshop and lives in a bedsitting room and struggles to make ends meet. He does have friends. Ravelston is an upper class socialist who publishes a magazine and sometimes publishes Comstock’s rather awful poetry. Ravelston always offers extra support to Comstock in terms of loans, gifts or food, but Comstock’s pride and principles mean he resentfully refuses. There is also Rosemary, Comstock’s girlfriend, whom he treats very badly, feeling resentment towards her as well and not willing to contemplate her paying her own way when they go out. Comstock, despite professing socialism is unable to leave his middle class values behind when it comes to his relationships with women, although he continues to pressurize Rosemary to sleep with him. When he does sell a poem and has a little money he insists on taking his friends out, gets very drunk, assaults Rosemary and gets arrested. He loses his job and ends up in an even lower paid job. The ending is interesting as for me it has a double edge. Is it redemptive? Or is it an indication that there is no escape from the god of money. Orwell writes Comstock’s angst well:
“Before, he had fought against the money code, and yet he had clung to his wretched remnant of decency. But now it was precisely from decency that he wanted to escape. He wanted to go down, deep down, into some world where decency no longer mattered; to cut the strings of his self-respect, to submerge himself—to sink, as Rosemary had said. It was all bound up in his mind with the thought of being under ground. He liked to think of the lost people, the under-ground people: tramps, beggars, criminals, prostitutes… He liked to think that beneath the world of money there is that great sluttish underworld where failure and success have no meaning; a sort of kingdom of ghosts where all are equal. That was where he wished to be, down in the ghost kingdom, below ambition. It comforted him somehow to think of the smoke-dim slums of South London sprawling on and on, a huge graceless wilderness where you could lose yourself forever”
Orwell in real life wrote mostly reportage and this is the best way to read him, the early novels were experiments. Comstock does nothing with his principles and seems apolitical. As Orwell says:
“There will be no revolution in England while there are aspidistras in the windows.”
Comstock is an angry young man before his time, but vents his anger on those that care for him rather than the capitalist system. Orwell also makes the point that poverty is in no way romantic, a point he makes much more eloquently in his reportage. An aspidistra by the way is a hardy, long-lived house plant, much beloved in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in middle class British homes. Orwell is using it to symbolize a certain middle class set of attitudes. He does the satire very effectively, so effectively and makes Comstock so unlikeable that the novel is difficult to read.

[Margarita Garova · Rating 5 out of 5]

„Имаше чувството, че ако истински презираш парите, можеш да живееш като птичка божия. Забравяше, че птичките не плащат наем. Гладуващ в таванска стая поет – гладуващ, но някак поносимо – така се виждаше той.“

Гордън идва от род на дребнобуржоазни неудачници и самият той върви с бързи крачки към същата съдба. А иначе е умен и способен млад мъж, умел с думите, и има всички шансове да се издигне като съставител на рекламни текстове. Само че Гордън презира света на парите и капитализма, който превръща човека в роботизиран чиновник. Гордън не иска да участва в надпреварата. Гордън иска да живее спокойно, дори ако това означава малко над линията на мизерията. Гордън просто не желае „да го закачат“.
В символ на неговата война със златния телец и еснафския животец се превръща аспидистрата – fleur du mal, непретенциозно саксийно цвете, което приличните, нормални, задомени хора слагат на первазите си, решителен белег, че са додрапали до средния социален слой.

Само че да живееш в доброволна бедност съвсем не означава да живееш спокойно. Особено ако си от материала, от който е направен Гордън – литературно тщеславие, прилична начетеност и много добро познаване на начина, по който живеят заможните хора. Това води до бедност от особен тип – не безпросветната мизерия, в която се раждат, живеят и умират поколения работници от фабриките. В отредената им изначално бедност те успяват да извлекат някаква евтина радост. Гордън обаче не успява да понесе достойно самоналожената сиромашия – липсите го озлобяват до степен на мизантропия, започва да деградира физически, превръща се в дразнещ мрънкач, който отблъсква всеки жест на добронамереност и любов. Неговият враг – богът на парите, се оказва удобно извинение за отказ от всяка безплатна радост в живота. Лесно е да се каже обаче, че Гордън е дразнещ и точка. Феноменът, който представлява, е много правдиво уловен и далеч не е толкова рядък.

Приятелят и покровител Рейвълстоун с неговата социална вина от това, че на този свят има бедни, а той е богат, много напомня на днешната естетика, лицемерно романтизираща бедността. Нещо, към което само човек, който е абсолютно не-беден, би могъл да се стреми.

„Аспидистрата“ е пропита от жлъч книга, изключително остра, социална и хаплива, и това е добре да се знае, ако сте настроени на по-нежна вълна. Да кажем, че ако Мишел Уелбек беше живял през 30-те години на 20 век, когато излиза романа, може би щеше да напише нещо много подобно. На мен такива книги са ми от любимите, защото има феномени, които няма как да покажеш деликатно, без да оголиш зъби. Остротата обаче не пречи на чувствителната трактовка не само на битовите, но и на социалните и психологически измерения на бедността и различните й нюанси.

Попаднах на мнения, че в този роман Оруел се подигравал с дивия капитализъм в най-капиталистическата страна в Европа – Англия. Но според мен е точно обратното – това е книга за неизбежното приемане на реалностите. Самият Оруел го признава – ако искаш да живееш извън правилата на обществото, си или престъпник, или отшелник-светец.

„Всяко интелигентно шестнайсетгодишно момче е социалист. На тая възраст човек не забелязва острието на кукичката, стърчащо изпод апетитната стръв.“
„Първото следствие от мизерията е, че тя убива способността за мислене.“
„А бедният не знае как да харчи дори когато се случи да има пари.“

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you have seen the updates you may already realize that I was not overly-keen on Gordon Comstock. Nevertheless the liking or disliking of the hero or heroine of a novel evidently does not in itself negate the quality of the writing and it is certainly true that this novel is a really powerful description of the blanching effect of poverty on the colour of life, of the crippling struggle that the poor underwent between the wars and the pitiful descriptions of scrimping and saving and the sinking sense of worth they brought were bleak and therefore very effective.

There was also real humour here though and Orwell's descriptions of the Comstock family and the demise of their shortlived wealth was really rich, if you'll pardon the inappropriate irony, in imagery as indeed was a great deal of the narrative. This sounds like a dreadful cliche but it is true that with just a few words and a swift pencil sketch he very ably conjures up in the reader's mind the character before you.
So dire poverty leading to a crushing of expectation and hope, faithful friends, all climaxing in a sort of happy ending...what is there not to like ? Well, Gordon Comstock is unbelievable and I mean that in the sense of not real and his girlfriend's blind fidelity is cloyingly insipid.

The reasons for his declared intention to step out of money and society is never really explained and not really ever lived out. He behaves like the grungy 13 year old who leaves his room in a mess, puts big childishly drawn pictures reading ' Do Not enter ' and ' No grown ups allowed ' on the door but then moans and gripes when his tea isn't ready. Rosemary and his wealthy mate Ravelston nobly stick by him but their fidelity just didn't ring true. His continual rejection of their offers of help and support, his petulant bleatings about how Rosemary's actions towards him were all based on his lack or possession of money, his continual abuse of his poverty-stricken sister's adoration and generosity served only to make him more loathsome and horrendously lacking in self-knowledge.

Orwell has written a powerful description of poverty and its accruing horrors but it is Julia, the sister, who really undergoes this. Comstock, Orwell imagines, always has the safety net of his previous ' Good job' to return to; in the 1930's this seems unlikely. If Ravelston, Julia, his previous employer and most of all Rosemary really loved him they ought to have shaken the pretentious little arse and made him grow up.

Had Comstock been more believable this would have been a four star edging upwards but his character just didn't ring true; he came across as a device which Orwell could use so as to berate society, poverty and the rest. The nigh on saintliness of the three other main protagonists was also out of place in a realistic novel. Their turning of the other cheek or turning a blind eye to Comstock's stupidity and never forcing him to seriously address what he was doing or why, was laziness on the part of Orwell cos had they done so, Orwell himself would have had to find an explanation and I am not sure he had one.

[Renée Paule · Rating 5 out of 5]

"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.

[Pink · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Malacorda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un racconto molto psicologico ma al tempo stesso molto concreto. L'evoluzione psicologica qui narrata ha una vaga somiglianza con quella che si trova ne La cura di Hesse - per lo meno nelle tribolazioni iniziali e nel senso di sollievo del finale - solo che qui c'è molta più immediatezza. C'è anche la dimostrazione pratica di una morale per nulla trascurabile: una scelta fatta perché "bisogna" fare così o perché tutti fanno così è una cosa che non vale niente; una scelta fatta perché la si è sentita e riflettuta e decisa, allora vale tutto. A parte questo, non giudica cosa è giusto o sbagliato, cosa è buono o cattivo: critica, ma senza sputare sentenze.

Sin dall'inizio della lettura sono andata chiedendomi: com'è che quando si parla del romanzo della normalità, della borghesità e anche della mediocrità, tutti esaltano Stoner con trionfali squilli di trombe e invece questo non viene mai - dico mai - nominato?

Se La fattoria degli animali è una racconto non solo invecchiato ma del tutto superato, e se anche 1984 può apparire per certi aspetti invecchiato malino, questo romanzo è stupefacente per la sua attualità e modernità. Di più: quella capacità di preveggenza che di solito si attribuisce a Orwell con riferimento a 1984 - anche se poi andando a vedere nel dettaglio concreto del romanzo non si sa bene a che cosa la si debba riferire - dicevo, quella capacità di preveggenza si manifesta invece qui in modo strabiliante, quasi da novello Nostradamus: nel 1935 Orwell scrive questo romanzo e fa immaginare al suo protagonista (e suo alter ego) gli aerei che sorvolano Londra per bombardarla. Da stare nel 1935 Orwell critica il capitalismo, il consumismo sfrenato e fine a sé stesso e senza via d'uscita, le pubblicità truffaldine e invadenti, l'onnipotenza del dio denaro e il senso di vuoto di milioni di esistenze, critica tutto questo proprio come se lo stesse guardando da stare nel ventunesimo secolo.

"C'è qualche cosa di terribile in Londra la sera; la freddezza, l'essere anonimi, l'isolamento. Sette milioni di persone che, in perenne andirivieni, evitano ogni contatto, appena consapevoli dell'esistenza l'uno dell'altro, come pesci nella vasca di un acquario."

"Chilometri e chilometri di case modeste, solitarie, tutte ad appartamentini e camere in affitto; non focolari, non comunità, ma semplicemente fasci di vite senza senso trascinate da una specie di caos sonnolento in lenta deriva verso la tomba! Vedeva passare uomini come cadaveri deambulanti."

Parlando di un cartellone pubblicitario: "Osserva per un momento la faccia di quel tizio che sembra guardarci con espressione beota. Puoi vedere tutta la nostra civiltà scritta su quella faccia. L'imbecillità, la vacuità, la desolazione della nostra civiltà!"

Nel corso del racconto, di pagina in pagina, di episodio in episodio, la pianta dell'aspidistra viene eletta a simbolo supremo, rappresentante assoluta del borghese e dell'uomo mediocre, e il protagonista la eleva al grado di suo nemico non solo in senso figurato ma anche in senso reale; la vede ad ogni finestra, su ogni davanzale e gli pare letteralmente di vedere un vessillo che sventola. Io di aspidistra non ne ho mai vista una, suppongo che se uno volesse fare una sorta di traduzione ragionata la si potrebbe sostituire con il ficus beniamino: non c'è appartamento, salottino, pianerottolo, ufficio, sala d'attesa, studio dentistico, hall di ingresso in cui il ficus non faccia bella mostra di sé; e se da un lato lo si può associare a un lodevole intento di ingentilire e perfezionare un ambiente, dall'altro non è poi così assurdo associarlo a un vago senso di abbandono e/o polverosità.

Il protagonista è una figura reale, completa e complessa: a tratti insopportabile, a tratti commovente, a volte è irragionevole e altre volte è impossibile non condividerne i punti di vista. E' ovvio di come si tratti di un personaggio fortemente autobiografico, ed è altrettanto ovvio di come sia il frutto di una penna capace di eccellente elaborazione che non si accontenterebbe di spiattellare lì un qualche cliché tanto per compiacersi della creazione letteraria.

La descrizione dei bassifondi e anche di tutta Londra in generale, per quanto l'epoca sia ben differente, è molto dickesiana, e questo è un aspetto che rende ulteriormente piacevole la lettura.

Lettura consigliatissima e che meriterebbe ben maggiore popolarità.

Edit: e aggiungiamola pure, un'immagine di questa aspidistra, dopo tutto un po' di visibilità se l'è meritata.

[Rowena · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[E. G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Note on the Text

--Keep the Aspidistra Flying

[Quo · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Nood-Lesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

La bizzarra sensazione di essere appena diventato adulto

Dopo aver messo il libro in lettura ho chiesto a cinque persone diverse se sapessero che cosa fosse un’aspidistra e nessuna di esse ha saputo rispondermi. Che parola aspra, pare una professione rettilea. Nemmeno io sapevo di che cosa si trattasse e a fine lettura, quando ne ho cercato l’immagine su Google, sono rimasto assai sorpreso



Io questa pianta la conoscevo ma ne ignoravo il nome, ed è vero che quarant’anni fa era assai diffusa anche qui da noi (*1). George Orwell la identifica come simbolo borghese degli anni ’30 del 900. A proposito di quegli anni scrive

Pensano, ancora! Non importa. Ma a che cosa pensano? Ai quattrini, accidenti, ai quattrini pensano! Affitto, conti arretrati, bolletta della luce e del gas, tasse, rette scolastiche, abbonamento ferroviario, scarpe per i bambini. E alla polizza d’assicurazione sulla vita, pensano, e al salario della domestica. E, mio Dio, guai se la moglie dovesse restare incinta un’altra volta!
“Pensano al fitto, ai conti, a gas e luce, Alle rate, alle tasse ed al carbone, Allo stipendio della serva pensano, Alle rette scolastiche, alle scarpe.“

A me ha fatto pensare ad un altro monologo famoso scritto cinquant’anni dopo da un altro scrittore anglofono e probabilmente ispirato da quello Orwelliano

Scegli il mutuo da pagare, la lavatrice, la macchina; scegli di startene seduto su un divano a guardare i giochini alla televisione, a distruggerti il cervello e l’anima, a riempirti la pancia di porcherie che ti avvelenano. Scegli di marcire in un ospizio, cacandoti e pisciandoti sotto, cazzo, per la gioia di quegli stronzi egoisti e fottuti che hai messo al mondo. Scegli la vita.

Orwell chiama Welsh, Welsh chiama Boyle: rispondi Boyle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8tq4...

Dagli anni trenta del ‘900 agli anni venti del nuovo millennio: vivere integrati nella società che ci ospita ha sempre causato contrasti e nevrosi severe. Orwell racconta di Gordon Comstock, uno scrittore trentenne che ha dichiarato guerra al dio quattrino, che decide di vivere in uno stato di indigenza rinunciando al proprio lavoro di pubblicitario per non sottostare alla spirale che impone di lavorare di più per guadagnare di più ed essere allo stesso tempo sfruttati maggiormente. Gordon è amico di Philip Ravelston il direttore della rivista alterativa “Anticristo”; costui è un personaggio paradigmatico e ricorrente in tutte le forme di protesta sociale: il ricco che si vergogna della propria ricchezza e la usa finanziando la lotta a fianco del povero (altro personaggio paradigmatico) che invidia la diseguaglianza che sta combattendo, che odia il privilegiato ma in segreto adora il privilegio. Gordon viene da una famiglia borghese caduta in disgrazia, lui non ha desideri di rivalsa, si impone invece di rinunciare al superfluo e inizia un percorso di abbruttimento che lo porterà a vivere in una stamberga e a lavorare come commesso in una libreria che vende volumetti a prezzo fisso. In questo quadro ha rilevanza il fatto che Gordon si senta uno scrittore alle prese con il capolavoro che lo rivelerà al mondo intero: “Piaceri londinesi“ e che sia fidanzato con una donna che non gliela dà (a sentir lui perché è privo di quattrini). I quattrini (il traduttore usa sempre questo sinonimo) amati e odiati come le aspidistre sui davanzali delle finestre borghesi, sono il simbolo del capitalismo che Comstock e Ravelston (il marxista) combattono in modo diverso. La parte del romanzo che mi ha divertito di più è stata quella in cui Gordon ricevuto un anticipo di cinquanta dollari da parte di una rivista letteraria californiana e convertiteli in valuta, li sperpera in una sola nottata come non sarebbe riuscito a fare neppure Pinocchio. Il finale del romanzo ricorda un po’ quello scritto da Carlo Collodi, ma ha una sua coerenza. Ora guarderò con occhi diversi un’aspidistra se mai mi capiterà di vederla come mi capitava spesso quando ero piccolo e non sospettavo che i simboli della borghesia fossero penetrati fin dentro casa mia.

(*1)
https://passioneinverde.edagricole.it...

[Daren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this one of Orwells, written in 1936, and set in 1930s London. Gordon is a character set up to be pitied and despised, but who also grudgingly earns some respect, for sticking to his philosophy - no matter how theoretical and impractical it is.

There is no doubt the novel is deep into description - and for me that was what made it, the descriptive 1930s London, the grimy and impoverished existence of Gordon Comstock, the mundanities of every-day life in a going nowhere job, a struggling poet in the evening. The aspidistra as a symbol of middle-middle-class, Gordon's reluctance to use his three penny bit (which he calls a Joey) and his view that everyone would know it was his last coin.

Gordon offers enough for the reader to become, at least, partly invested in him. He lives a meagre existence by choice, nevertheless disdains it. He resigns from a good job, as he declared his 'war on money' and seeks only 'a job' (but not a 'good job'), while continually blaming his lack of money for his failure of a social life, and his going-nowhere relationship with Rosemary.

Of the other characters, Ravelston is for me the most interesting. Ravelston is relatively wealthy, but lives down as a part of his belief in socialism, become a benefactor to Gordon, trying as he might to encourage him to further his poetry, and using his position as an editor of a socialist magazine to publish a little of Gordon's work. Gordon is constantly battling against Ravelston, determined not to bludge off him, yet looking up to him at the same time.

While others may consider it too long, I enjoyed the descriptive nature of this story, and could have read more, and particularly enjoyed the bookshop description, and the scenes of public transport, and London in general.
4.5 stars, rounded down, as it isn't quite a 5 star book.

Some quotes:

They were one of those depressing families, so common among the middle-middle class, in which nothing ever happens.

--

Gordon put his hand against the swing door. He even pushed it open a few inches. The warm fog of smoke and beer slipped through the crack. A familiar, reviving smell; nevertheless as he smelled it his nerve failed him. No! Impossible to go in. He turned away. He couldn't go shoving into that saloon bar with only fourpence halfpenny in his pocket. Never let other people buy your drinks for you! The first commandment of the moneyless. He made off down the dark pavement.

--

“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.”

--

The aspidistra became a sort of symbol for Gordon after that. The aspidistra, the flower of England! It ought to be on our coat of arms instead of the lion and the unicorn. There will be no revolution in England while there are aspidistras in the windows.”

[Sepehr · Rating 3 out of 5]

بعد از قریب به یک دهه از خواندن دو اثر مشهور اورول، کماکان بنظرم همان نویسنده‌ی اورریتد و نه چندان عمیقی است که بود. در ادیشن آخر این کتاب هم یک نقاشی زیبا از بیکن آمده که آن هم کاملا بی‌ارتباط با کتاب بنظر می‌رسد. با این وجود، محتوای این کتاب برایم جالب بود ولی طبعا به آنچه می‌خواستم نرسیدم. یکی دو کتابی هم از اورول هست که باز به لحاظ موضوعی برایم جالب است و احتمالا خواهم خواند و احتمالا هم راضی نخواهم بود.
ولی در کل محوریت پول و آرمان‌گرایی ضد سرمایه‌داری و طاقت آوردن بدون پول همیشه برایم جالب است و این کتاب هم اختصاصا موضوعش همین بود؛ نبردی علیه پول. هرچند که در نهایت به همان نتیجه‌ی قابل پیش‌بینی می‌رسد که همه می‌دانند اما با این همه من این کتاب را به سوسیالیست‌های نو سیبیل و یا هرکسی که در این زمینه کله‌اش بوی قرمه سبزی می‌دهد پیشنهاد می‌کنم.
کوتاه اینکه:
روان بود، ترجمه خوب بود، چندتا جمله‌ی خوب داشت، ایده خوب و پرداخت نه چندان خوب و در کل می‌توان گفت که یک معمولیِ آبرومند بود.

[Sarah (Presto agitato) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Girl problems, money problems, houseplant problems. Things are not going Gordon’s way. Money has become Gordon Comstock’s 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 instead deliberately seeks out a position in a bookshop with low pay and no hope of advancement while he struggles at writing his poetry.

At first this decision may appear noble and idealistic, but Gordon rapidly ceases to be a sympathetic character as he mooches money off of his long-suffering and far from wealthy sister and complains nonstop to everyone who will listen about both the evils of money and how difficult it is for him not to have money. As he points out, he isn’t poor enough to experience actual hardship (unlike many in the 1930s), but is poor enough that everything from socializing with friends to courting his girlfriend to writing poetry to having a cup of tea without having to hide it from the landlady is nearly impossible.

His lack of money, which is at least partially self-inflicted, becomes Gordon’s excuse for all that he has failed to achieve in his life. His endless whining is so pervasive that you want to shake him. Gordon is hardly the most charming of protagonists, but his tragic fall and relationship with his saintly girlfriend, Rosemary, are still compelling, largely due to Orwell’s vivid characterizations.

Keep the Aspidistra Flying is not nearly as aggressively political as Orwell’s more famous works. The novel is more concerned with interpersonal relationships, but still addresses the larger issues of capitalism, socialism, and class division in a darkly humorous manner.

[Carlo Mascellani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scegliere il proprio sogno e condurre una vita spesso sofferta o sceglier la rassicurante prospettiva di una vita standardizzata, già tracciata, nella quale la personalità sbiadisce sino a svanire e solo rimane un sentore profondamente impersonale? Un Orwell cantore della libertà personale, delle seducenti lusinghe che la vita borghese esterna, di un conflitto che vede ognuno di noi impegnato a comprendere (e scegliere) chi realmente vuol essere. Un libro per chi sogna di scrivere, per chi sogna di poter sognare, per chi, semplicemente, sogna.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Primrose Quarterly was one of those poisonous literary papers in which the fashionable Nancy Boy and the professional Roman Catholic walk bras dessous, bras dessous. It was also by a long way the most influential literary paper in England. You were a made man once you had a poem in it."

Gordon is a principled poet. We follow him through his coming of age, first employment, first love and gradual downfall. At times, his pride and his war on money become tiresome. Overall though, the descriptive language, quirky well-drawn characters, and the exploration on settling for the financial reward for a 'good job' versus pursuing dreams through the arts, which doesn't pay a living wage are interesting.

I felt very badly for Gordon's long-suffering sister, Julia who works in a dingy bakery and makes sacrifices for Gordon's education and continues to fund him afterwards from her meager savings. She is suppressed, so that he might soar. Sadly, he does not reach great heights, rather he sinks through his own "mad perverseness" before coming to the realization of what he must do to survive.

Gordon observes that his relatives "seemed to want to see every young man in England nailed down in the coffin of a 'good job.'" Gordon wants to "get out of the money world." He has no real plan and cannot answer the question of how he is going to make a living.

"Vaguely he looked forward to some sort of moneyless anchorite existence. He had a feeling that if you genuinely despise money you can keep going somehow like the birds of the air."

However, birds don't need money for rent or food. After seven months of trying to live on his writing alone he learns that "the first effect of poverty is that you lose thought." He has written practically nothing during these desperate months.

Finally, he succumbs to getting a job writing ads for things such as deodorant. He does well for a while, and even earns a raise. However, he wrestles with his conscience as he believes he is "writing lies to tickle the money out of fool's pockets." He decides that he must get out of his current situation and get "some kind of job, not a 'good job' but a job that would keep his body without wholly buying his soul."

Later, after much suffering through life events and tortured thinking, Gordon philosophizes about how others view the 'money-code.' He declares that the way the lower middle class "interpreted it was not merely cynical and hoggish. They had their standards, their inviolable points of honor. They kept themselves respectable, kept the aspidistra [the tree of life] flying."

Gordon comes to the final conclusion that "he is merely repeating the destiny of every human being. Everyone rebels against the money-code and everyone sooner or later surrenders."

[Matīss Mintāls · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Leo · Rating 2 out of 5]

For the most part I really enjoy George Orwell's writing and it's still quite good here. Although the characters and plot did nothing to keep me invested or enjoy it. The book just wasn't my cup of tea but I'm still hopeful that I'll enjoy most of his other works I got left to read

[leynes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This year, I vowed to read four new books by George Orwell. Two works of fiction – Keep the Aspidistra Flying and Burmese Days – as well as two works of nonfiction – Homage to Catalonia and The Road of Wigan Pier. I became enamored with Orwell's work in 2015/16 and read his most popular works. For some weird reason, I stopped reading him afterwards, which is why I wanted to rectify my mistakes in 2025.

One thing about Orwell, he's gonna write a novel of ideas, that man has no idea how to write plot or characters, he's just here to share some very BIG IDEAS. In Keep the Aspidistra Flying, he deals with the ways capitalism corrupts society and individuals, how everything in our society revolves around money, and how it is impossible for individuals to break out of the money game/ capitalist system. He also explores the loneliness epidemic, especially as it pertains to men (even incel culture is exposed to a certain extent). So, Keep the Aspidistra Flying is a depressing read, to say the least.

Give me not righteousness, O Lord, give me money, only money.

Gordon Comstock has "declared war" on what he sees as an "overarching dependence" on money by leaving a promising job as a copywriter for an advertising company called New Albion — at which he shows great dexterity — and taking a low-paying job instead, ostensibly so that he can write poetry. Coming from a respectable family background in which the inherited wealth has been dissipated, Gordon resents having to work for a living. The "war" and the poetry are not going well and, under the stress of his "self-imposed exile" from affluence, Gordon has become absurd, pettyminded and deeply neurotic. He lives without luxuries in a bedsit in London, which he affords by working in a small bookshop owned by a Scot, McKechnie. He is simultaneously content with his meagre existence and disdainful of it. He lives without financial ambition or the need for a "good job": "He lay awake, aware of his own futility, of his thirty years, of the blind alley into which he had led his life." Gordon had "reached the age when the future ceases to be a rosy blur and becomes actual and menacing."

Gordon is "obsessed" by what he sees as the pervasiveness of money (the "Money God", as he calls it) behind social relationships, feeling sure that women would find him more attractive if he was better off. At the beginning of the novel he senses that his girlfriend, Rosemary Waterlow, whom he met at New Albion and who continues to work there, is dissatisfied with him because of his poverty. One of Comstock's last remaining friends, Philip Ravelston, a Marxist who publishes a magazine called Anti-Christ, agrees with Comstock in principle, but is comfortably well-off himself.

Rosemary, having avoided Gordon for some time, suddenly comes to visit him one day at his dismal lodgings. Despite his terrible poverty and shabbiness, they have sex, but it is without any emotion or passion. Later, Rosemary drops in one day unexpectedly at the library, having not been in touch with Gordon for some time, and tells him that she is pregnant. Since she and Gordon reject the idea of an abortion (which would have been both illegal and dangerous at that time), Gordon is presented with the choice between leaving Rosemary to a life of social shame at the hands of her family or marrying her and returning to a life of respectability by taking back the job at the New Albion agency that he once so deplored.

Gordon chooses Rosemary and respectability, and experiences relief at having abandoned his anti-money principles with such comparative ease. After two years of abject failure and poverty, he throws his poetic work London Pleasures down a drain, marries Rosemary, resumes his advertising career and plunges into a campaign to promote a new product to prevent foot odour. In his lonely walks around mean streets, aspidistras seem to appear in every lower-middle class window. As the book closes, Gordon wins an argument with Rosemary to install an aspidistra in their new small but comfortable flat off the Edgware Road. (In the titular phrase Orwell uses the aspidistra, a symbol of the stuffiness of middle-class society, in conjunction with the locution "to keep the flag (or colours) flying." "The aspidistra, flower of England! [...] There will be no revolution in England while there are aspidistras in the windows.")

I took issue with how Orwell wrote his female characters (a problem that's prevalent in all the books of his I read thus far). He simply can't write women, and his misogyny shows. The female characters in this book are inauthentic, not fleshed out, and only seem to serve our main male character. It's frustrating. I would've rather read a book about Rosemary or Julia, instead of their asshole lover or brother. Whilst I related a lot to Gordon's issues surrounding not wanting to be a part of the money machine, I hated eeeeeevery scene which revolved around the relationship he has with the women in his life. He is so possessive ("She was his girl! He could have her whenever he wanted her!") and it's never called out or put into question. It's disgusting. The fact that Gordon attempts to rape Rosemary and her relationship/ view of him doesn't change afterwards (in contrary, she pities him?? wtf??) really takes the cake. I was yelling "GIRL, RUN" in every scene she was in. Rosemary deserved better.

However, the ideas expressed through Keep the Aspidistra flying were interesting enough, so much so that I'd still tentatively recommend this book, especially if you can see past the misogyny (or the fact that Orwell was quite the shitty/misogynist person himself; just like Gordon, he attempted to rape his girlfriend... and that's just one in a long list of fucked up things this man did during his lifetime). Orwell does an excellent job at exploring not just how poverty destroys people, but how poverty in a capitalist society destroys people, dehumanises them, "kills their thought". You get this looming feeling that we're all stuck in this dreadful system when reading this book. There's no way out. You either become lifeless and waste away your life, or you succumb to the system (like Gordon did) and quite literally sell your soul to the Money God. It's depressing as hell. I simply wasn't made for labor, ya'll. "Without regret, almost intentionally, he was letting himself go to pieces. At the bottom of all his feelings there was a sulkiness, a je m'en fous in the face of the world. Life had beaten him; but you can still beat life by turning your face away. Better to sink than rise." I mean BIG UFF!!!

"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." brb imma cry. It's all so fucked. We're fucked.

"He looked back over his life. No use deceiving himself. It had been a dreadful life—lonely, squalid, futile. He had lived thirty years and achieved nothing except misery." I wann kms. GOOD BYE!

This book, despite its bleak subject matter, also has its humorous moments. I especially enjoyed Orwell's colloquial language. The letter Gordon writes to Doring probably takes the cake: "Dear Doring, with reference to your letter: Go and fuck yourself. Yours truly, Gordon Comstock." I AM LIVINGGGG.

I want to leave you with the most beautiful, heartwarming quote from this book. It's what the taximan says to Gordon when Gordon tells him he's a poet: "Poet! It takes all sorts to make a world, don't it now?" I don't know why but this quote makes me so soft. We all have our place in this world, we all deserve to be here. It doesn't matter if you're a "valuable member to society" (what does that even mean?). We're all human. We all deserve to be here. We all have our place here. It takes all sorts to make this world, don't it now?

[Žilvinas Gečiauskas · Rating 5 out of 5]

1936 metais , kęsdamas nuolatinį badą ir gyvendamas visiškam skurde , per savaitę gaudamas viso labo 2 svarus , George Orwell sumąstė parašyt Knygą apie panašų į save menininką , atsisakiusį pinigų , socialinio statuso ir "normalaus gyvenimo". "Lapok , Aspidistra" - tai tikrų tikriausia socialinė kritika , kuri kaip įprasta Orwellui parašyta itin kandžiai ir ironiškai. "Lapok , Aspidistra." , kaip ir "1984" , nagrinėjamomis temomis , man pasirodė žymiai opesnė šiems laikams , negu tada kai buvo parašyta ( Nebūtų George Orwell) ir lygiai taip pat baksnoja žmonių nosį į jų pačių šūdą ir atvirai ir nepagražindamas parodo kokia apgailėtina , kvaila ir veidmainiška yra mūsų visuomenė.

Knygynas kuriame nėra vertų dėmesio Knyg�� , pigios landynės , myžalais ir pigiu alumi dvokiantys barai , badas , skurdas , poezija ir žinoma aspidistra - štai tokia atmosfera vyrauja.
Orwell sugebėjo tobulai perteikti tai ką jaučia nuolatinio bado ir skurdo kamuojamas žmogus ir kaip keičiasi žmogus iš išorės ir vidaus dėl pinigų trukumo ir pertekliaus. Mane labai sužavėjo tai , kad romane labai didelis dėmesys skiriamas pagrindinio veikėjo psichologiniam portretui. Gordon Comstock , man asmeniškai yra geriausias Orwello sukurtas personažas.

Taip pat Knygoje plačiai nagrinėjama ar iš tiesų menininkas turi kęsti badą , skurdą ir t.t , kad galėtų sukurti tikrą meno kūrinį , o gal kaip tik priešingai.

"Lapok , Aspidistra" literatūriškai gal ir silpnesnė nei "1984" ir "Gyvulių ūkis" , bet taip pat viena iš tų Knygų kur tiesiog privalu perskaityt , tad man keista ir liūdna , kad kai kalbama apie Orwell , apsiribojama "1984" ir "Gyvulių ūkis" , kurias mačiau pas didžiąją dalį bookstagramerių , bet dar neteko pamatyt pas ką nors Aspidistros. Tad visiems kurie žavisi Orwello kūrybą - susiraskit ją bibliotekoje , nusipirkite arba jeigu gailite pinigų Knygoms , atsisiųskite ir perskaitykit.


„Pinigų garbinimas yra pakylėtas į religijos lygį. Galbūt tai yra vienintelė tikra mums likusi religija – vienintelė tikrai išjausta religija. Pinigas tapęs tuo, kuo anksčiau buvo Dievas. Gėris ir blogis neteko prasmės, jų vietą užėmė sėkmė ir nesėkmė. Gėris pavirto gėrybe, tapo turto sinonimu. Dekalogas susitraukė iki dviejų įsakymų. Vienas darbdaviams – išrinktiesiems, pinigų karalystės žyniams: „Daryk pinigus“. Kitas darbuotojams, vergams, mažiems žmonėms:„Neprarask darbo“.“