Description
GEORGE ORWELL (1903–1950) was born in India and served with the Imperial Police in Burma before joining the Republican Army in the Spanish Civil War. Orwell was the author of six novels as well as numerous essays and nonfiction works. 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. --Daniel Hintzsche --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. "A remarkable novel...A summa of all the criticisms of a commercial civilization that have ever been made." -- "Lionel Trilling" "A delightful addition to the Orwell literature...A work Orwell enthusiasts will bracket with Down and Out in Paris and London ." -- "San Francisco Chronicle" "Gritty, growling, commonsensical and touching. [Orwell] never wrote a basically kinder or more human novel." -- "Time" "Richard Brown reads in a clear voice and effectively captures the rhythms of the text." -- "Library Journal" --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. "Gritty, growling, commonsensical and touching. [Orwell] never wrote a basically kinder or more human novel." -- "Time" "A remarkable novel...A summa of all the criticisms of a commercial civilization that have ever been made." -- "Lionel Trilling" "A delightful addition to the Orwell literature...A work Orwell enthusiasts will bracket with Down and Out in Paris and London ." -- "San Francisco Chronicle" "Richard Brown reads in a clear voice and effectively captures the rhythms of the text." -- "Library Journal" --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From AudioFile Orwell regarded this early autobiographical work as embarrassingly self-involved, but he didn't give himself enough credit. It nonetheless offers the pleasures of his keen observation and sardonic wit. Kitchen, too, performs a neat trick. He manages to keep Orwell's self-loathing hero, Gordon Comstack, just this side of sympathetic, not a small accomplishment for such an exasperating character. Gordon, a dreadful, deservedly unsuccessful poet, purposely keeps himself in penury while simultaneously blaming his poverty for his lack of recognition and romantic happiness. With his expert timing and delivery, Kitchen enables us to enjoy Gordon on two levels. We can be appalled by his acerbic and wrong-headed perceptions while also finding him an amusing commentator on English culture before WWII. M.O. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. * If 'peerless prose' could apply to one writer alone, I'd accord it to Orwell. The Guardian --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Book Description Orwellian genius. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From the Publisher 6 1-hour cassettes --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Read more
Features & Highlights
- A novel by the author of
- 1984
- about a man determined to reject middle-class values who finds living in noble poverty more difficult than expected.
- Gordon Comstock despises the materialism and shallowness of middle-class life—the worship of money, the striving for dull, stuffy respectability. To live up to his ideals, he quits his lucrative position as an advertising copywriter and devotes himself to poetry and other high-minded pursuits. But low-paid part-time employment and a constant shortage of cash is not exactly conducive to creativity and happiness. The stress even causes him to lash out at his devoted girlfriend, Rosemary, who he suspects of preferring a richer man. This sharply witty novel about the difficulties of idealism and the effects of financial strain is yet another outstanding read from the genius who brought us
- Animal Farm
- ,
- Down and Out in Paris and London
- , and other enduring works.
