Keep the Aspidistra Flying
George Orwell
Keep the Aspidistra Flying
Gordon Comstock, a poet working in a London bookshop, declares war on money and on the respectable life symbolised by the aspidistra in every front window, and finds out how completely poverty takes over a life (1936).
About the book
Published in 1936, Keep the Aspidistra Flying follows Gordon Comstock, a poet who gives up a promising job in advertising to wage a private war against the money god. He works in a small London bookshop, lives in a cheap room where the landlady's aspidistra stands for everything respectable he despises, and finds that poverty hurts his poetry, his pride and his love for Rosemary. George Orwell drew on his own time working in a Hampstead bookshop, and the novel is both a satire of Gordon's stubbornness and a serious account of how money shapes every part of life. Its title comes from the pot plant that sat in countless lower-middle-class windows as a symbol of keeping up appearances.
Characters
Gordon Comstock — Protagonist
A poor, proud poet who has declared war on money and respectability.
Rosemary Waterlow — Gordon’s girlfriend
A cheerful, patient commercial artist who loves Gordon despite his principles.
Philip Ravelston — Gordon’s friend
A wealthy, guilty socialist who edits the magazine Antichrist and helps Gordon quietly.
Julia Comstock — Gordon’s sister
His older sister, who has sacrificed her own prospects to lend him money.
Mr McKechnie — Bookseller
The elderly Scottish owner of the bookshop where Gordon works.
Mrs Wisbeach — Landlady
Gordon’s prying landlady, keeper of the house rules and the aspidistra.
Flaxman — Fellow lodger
A travelling salesman lodging in the same house, on holiday from his wife.
About the author
George Orwell (1903–1950) was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, an English novelist and essayist who turned plain, exact prose into a political act. Born in India and schooled at Eton, he served five years in the imperial police in Burma, then lived among the poor of Paris and London, and was shot through the throat fighting Franco's forces in Spain — and each of those became a book. He wanted prose to be "like a window pane", and distrusted any language built to hide what it meant. Animal Farm made him famous; Nineteen Eighty-Four, finished on a Scottish island while tuberculosis was killing him, gave the world Big Brother and doublethink. His work also includes Burmese Days, The Road to Wigan Pier and Homage to Catalonia.