Books with title 20th Century Keep The Aspidistra Flying

Gordon Comstock is a poor young man who works in a grubby London bookstore and spends his evenings shivering in a rented room, trying to write. He is determined to stay free of the “money world” of lucrative jobs, family responsibilities, and the kind of security symbolized by the homely aspidistra plant that sits in every middle-class British window.

Gordon Comstock is a poor young man who works by day in a grubby London bookstore and spends his evenings shivering in a rented room, trying to write. Gordon has published a slim volume of verse and is determined to keep free of the "money world" of safe, lucrative jobs, marriage, and family responsibilities. This world, to Gordon, spells the end of art and aspidistra, the homely, indestructible house plant that stands in every middle-class British window.Gordon's sweetheart, Rosemary, understands him: she is patient with his pride and lack of funds. But then, as it happens with all lovers, events overtake them.Orwell's picture of the "money world," as Gordon sees it, is in his best satirical vein.

Waging a losing war with the Money God, Gordon Comstock lives in a small bed-sit and works in a bookstore. A deeply dark yet compassionate satire about the role of money in the mid-20th century western world, Keep the Aspidistra Flying is at turns tragic and comic as Gordon struggles to reconcile his disdain for the entitled world in which he was raised with his own need to build a future for himself and his girlfriend Rosemary.

"Keep the Aspidistra Flying", though it is one of Orwell's least known novels, explores his usual themes--the various forms of oppression of the individual by society. Here the comfortable middle class life is symbolised by the aspidistra, and is governed by the "Money God". Gordon struggles to break free of the Money God, but will he eventually keep the aspidistra flying?

Orwell's darkly comic novel centres around the life of Gordon Comstock, onetime advertising copywriter turned bookshop employee and struggling poet. Gordon's disdain for money and artistic compromise preclude his earning enough of a living to escape constant public embarrassment. On top of this, it gives him terrible trouble holding on to his girlfriend. Unwilling to dilute his stubborn stance on capitalistic pursuits, he constantly obsesses "money, money, money, all is money". Gordon's problems mount while his only published volume, "Mice", gathers dust on a shelf, and his attempts at a new collection stagnate.Written during Orwell's time living in Notting Hill and set in London during "the year of blight, 1934", the novel is a fine example of Orwell's wit, and a masterpiece of fiction. It also hints towards themes about power and relationships that would colour his later works Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm.Reader Richard E. Grant is one Britain's best-loved actors, and best remembered for his role in Withnail & I. In 1997. Grant also appeared as Gordon Comstock in a film version of Orwell's novel.