Keep the Aspidistra Flying

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Gordon Comstock loathes dull, middle-class respectability and worship of money.

He gives up a ‘good job’ in advertising to work part-time in a bookshop, giving him more time to write. But he slides instead into a self-induced poverty that destroys his creativity and his spirit. Only Rosemary, ever-faithful Rosemary, has the strength to challenge his commitment to his chosen way of life.

Through the character of Gordon Comstock, Orwell reveals his own disaffection with the society he once himself renounced. Enlivened with vivid autobiographical detail, George Orwell’s Keep the Aspidistra Flying is a tragically witty account of the struggle to escape from a materialistic existence. With an introduction by Peter Davison.

Orwell, George

The Road to Room 101

Gordon Bowker on George Orwell, Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Every time I go into one of those old-fashioned second-hand bookshops – the ones with rows of leather-bound copies of Punch and shelves full of long-expired novels and the sweet smell of decaying...