Keep the Aspidistra Flying

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...