Best known for creating brutal dystopias and criticising dictatorship, fewer people are aware of Orwell’s more ‘mundane’ works. Set in the grimy backdrop of prewar London, Keep the Aspidistra Flying centres on the daily tribulations of a begrudged aspiring writer, Gordon Comstock. Not even Orwell himself was a huge fan of this work, noting that the novel “was written simply as an exercise and I oughtn't to have published it, but I was desperate for money”. Despite the author’s self-depreciation, I couldn’t help but feel that the story and sentiments are all too relevant to the crises of late capitalism and masculinity we recognise not just in Orwell’s time, but in today’s world as well.¹

We are introduced to Gordon on a typical day in the bookshop he works in, and his virile loathing of his environment and fellow Londoners becomes quickly apparent. He is repulsed by the advertisements outside the shop window, unamused by the pandering selection of books that swamp his space, and is disturbed by his customers - all of whom possess some unique and stereotypical quirks that make him writhe inside. Perhaps his only solace are his scant moments of inspiration for the poetry he writes; in the eclectic views and characteristics of 1930s London. Yet he somewhat remarkably never manages to write anything.  Beyond a few couplets here and there, he lives with a mutating pile of unfinished work on his table, and an atrophying ambition to write an epic poem titled ‘London Pleasures’. Throughout the novel, we meet an array of diverse characters, including his friend Ravelston, a beneficiary of familial wealth who owns a socialist magazine, his modern yet erratic girlfriend Rosemary, and his spinsterish sister Julia - who covertly lends money to Gordon at his whim. Gordon ultimately exists in a constant state of nihilist turmoil and contradiction; he shuns the so called “money God”; the social order of the well employed British middle classes - which he believes to have ensnared the lives and souls of his male counterparts - whilst arguing that his lack of creative achievement, impotent sex life, and general malaise all come from his relative poverty. Notably, we are told that he turned down a lucrative job in advertising to pursue a nondescript life of genuine creativity and honesty, yet we as the reader never understand what this idea of a life truly means to him - he only knows what he wants to reject.

“What he realised, and more clearly as time went on, was that money worship has been elevated to a religion. Perhaps it is the only real religion- the only really felt religion- that is left to us. Money is what God used to be.” Page 46

Whilst this is inarguably a novel about lost dreams and the battle to retain genuine identity in a post Fordist industrial world, it is also a novel about masculinity and its constraints. Comstock’s greatest dilemma throughout this novel is that he is a poor struggling artist who wants to be married to his craft and live a life free from the social order he hates- yet has a painful subconscious desire to be a part of the wealthy world he is forcibly shut out of. Despite his lack of funds, he cannot help but live by “codes” that both affirm his sense of masculinity and push him further into a state of misery. He hates that he cannot afford to go anywhere, yet will point blank refuse to allow his friend, or even worse, his girlfriend to foot the bill for him. In doing so, he only increases his continuous despairing inertia, fulfilling his self written prophecy of inevitable loneliness and torment. Today, we might even label Gordon as quite the incel; he blames the fact that his girlfriend won’t sleep with him on his lack of funds, even in moments where this is clearly bafflingly irrelevant.

“The feeling that people- even Rosemary- must despise him for his poverty was too strong to be overcome. Only by rigid, jealous independence could he keep his self- respect.” Page 131

Today, economic security and men’s sense of self-worth and masculinity are tightly bound. In times of economic crisis, the far right often argues that we need to ‘restore’ the gender roles of the past- and thus scale back women’s rights.² Additionally, the promise of financial success and female attention draws thousands of impressionable young men into manosphere content online. When the world feels out of control, returning to the constraining boundaries of tradition can make people feel safer and provide ‘true’ answers about how we should be living. Yet these solutions are damaging to all of us, and often pure grift, doing painfully little to genuinely change the lives of men and often placing them further into cycles of destruction.³ The height of tragedy in Gordon’s story is, perhaps, the moment in which a sudden windfall of money leads him to go on a drunken rampage. His new lease of life leads to a level of extreme sexual arrogance and ultimately his sickening demise. His extreme fixation on money thus constrains and controls his masculinity and self-identity – without it he is nothing, with it he is godless and totally out of control. But is all hope lost?

Keep the Aspidistra Flying is undoubtedly a pretty miserable book and Orwell, typically, offers little notion of an alternative to the suffocation of a patriarchal capitalist world. Some might find Comstock’s repeated despairing tangents overtly depressing, and the novel overall quite repetitive. Yet, the character studies are, albeit a tad one dimensional, highly compelling; we truly enter his complex world and get to see the changing social dynamics of the early twentieth century. Furthermore, the novel is scattered with moments that are surprisingly relatable, and wonderfully cynical observational humour. Finally, there are brief but vital moments of joy in the novel - Comstock’s relationships with Rosemary and Ravelston are genuine; fraught with the banter, irritation, and overt fondness that we experience daily with those that we cherish the most. These pure moments provide vital respite from Comstock’s inner world of desolation, and serve as a reminder that our genuine escape from the iron constraints of gender roles and capitalism exists in the people we love and moments we share. Perhaps this is an overtly sanguine and corny take on a work by the notoriously pessimistic Orwell, but then why bother succumbing to despair when it’s made clear to us that - despite the social and economic norms that constrain us - humanity, like moss in cement, will always peep through the cracks.

“Each laughed with the delight of each other’s absurdities. There was a merry war between them. Even as they disputed, arm in arm, they pressed their bodies delightedly together. They were happy. Indeed, they adored one another.” Page 128

Recommended for fans of cynical social commentary and bitchy protagonists such as The Catcher in the Rye and My Year of Rest and Relaxation.