Rating: 
Summary: An Early Orwell TRIUMPH
Review: The book 'KEEP THE ASPIDISTRA FLYING' (c.1935, 1956) by George Orwell, i.e. Eric Arthur Blair, reads as a monologue which followed the life of one Gordon Comstock; a thirty year old poet working in a self imposed dead-end job, first at a small book store in 1935 London, then another poorer paying book shop after being fired for a night in jail.It is a simply written and rather pointless novel littered with transparent metaphors; weak analogies; self-contradictions; blatant leftist doctrines; a whopping tautology; and a visible conclusion. George Orwell didn't seem to pay much attention to his own advice found in 'Politics and the English Language'. The main character, Gordon Comstock, a struggling poet, lived in self-inflicted exile of poverty and decay to flee from the 'Money-God' and to rub elbows with his fellow working class heroes. Living in hovels, eating swill, falling into debt, dressing in tatters, working minimum wage jobs, allowing himself to become slightly malnutrishined, Gordon Comstock had romanticized the proletariat to the detriment of his health, social life, and career. He didn't seem to understand that these conditions are a dibilitating and not a fortifying aspect of working class life. Conditions despised by the very people he tried to emulate. The simple Aspidistra, a potted plant, is Gordon's symbol of the middle class value system he detested. But the plant appears to be ubiquitous as it is found on every window sill of middle class family homes in England, from which Gordon is trying to flee. Then Gordon had a revelation that the middle class were the working class who had kept themselves respectable - had kept the Aspidistra flying. (This is a theme that occurs in later Orwell writings.) Anyone with a college course in psychology would recognize that the character Gordon Comstock displayed symptoms of chronic depression; latent homosexuality; anxiety neurosis; bi-polar mood disorder; and obsessive guilt. If, as some critics have suggested, this work is autobiographical of George Orwell, then the observation made by one of his biographers that, "The British are the only people who spend a lot of money to send their children to school to become emotionally damaged", was a process that afflicted George Orwell. But who was this book written for? It would seem the author's fellow socialists. The author had to communicate his proletariat values somehow to his international fellow travelers! It always appears that socialists try to out-do each other's counter-bourgeois experiences. And KEEP THE ASPIDISTRA FLYING came across as a chronicle of leftist one-upmanship: the - I'm more working class than you are - attitude, by living shoulder to shoulder with the poor, then leaving when bored. (We call this 'slumming' in my working class neighborhood, and its annoying!). What is so original or novel about a struggling youth living his dream? KEEP THE ASPIDISTRA FLYING is more of a socialist polemic than an original story with a moral. A good book to compare with 'KEEP THE ASPIDISTRA FLYING' is: 'WANDERER' by Sterling Hayden. Schooner captain Sterling Hayden gave a similar account of working class privation as he fled from a middle class background, then tramped around the U.S. following his nautical dream during the great depression, and was deeply influenced by American socialists of the time. Yet Sterling Hayden's poverty was real, not self imposed as Orwell's. I found 'KEEP THE ASPIDISTRA FLYING' somewhat disappointing, but required reading as a fan of George Orwell.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a masterwork
Review: This bit of capitolism bashing is not a bad novel, but if "1984" is worth five stars (and we all know it is) then this amusing, if somewhat forgetable, narrative can not be given half its status.
Anyone who gave this book three or more stars should certainly re-evalute their opinion with the above paragraph in mind. Though, perhaps I have under-rated the book based on lofty expectations provoked by his latter work.
Anyone who may have given this book five stars:
Do you honestly think this first novel is the equal of a titan of literature like "1984"?
It simply doesn't deserve the same status.
Rating:
Summary: Why bycotting the system cant change a thing
Review: This is Orwells best pre-war novel by far,it creates a belivable central caracter Gordon, Who is hypocritical(he refuses charity or loans but sponges off his long suffering sister),pig headed and ignores the fact that he is surronded by loyal friends and family who he constantly makes feel worthless. Yet gordon is in his dogmatic way, right about the "Money-god" and the so-called english middle class respectabilty, that his family vainly and tragicly try to keep.This book is full of deeply black ironic humor wich makes it orwells funniest book. His final 'surrender' to the money god is Orwell's recognition of the fact that you cant change the worlds injustices by trying to boycott the system ,and that any such stand is doomed.From then on Orwell rightly belived society had to be changed by action.
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