Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Keep the Aspidistra Flying was written in 1934 and 1935.

It is a social critical work telling the story of the young poet, Gordon Comstock, who dreamed of resisting money worship and insisting on literary dreams in London in the 1930s, but was repeatedly rebuffed a wall in reality.

At that time, Orwell lived in Hampstead near London, and the novel was created based on his life experience.

Keep the Aspidistra Flying mercilessly exposes the oppression on life and erosion in soul brought to the literary youth Gordon by money worship.

To some extent, it is a reflection of the first half of Orwell's life and a description of his struggle period of whether to insist on literary ideals and inner values.

Although Gordon chose to give up in the book, in reality, his decision of participating into the Spanish Civil War changed Orwell's fate and led him to the road of criticizing totalitarianism.

However, the experience and impression of the first half of his life still left an indelible impression on his later works.