He is flawed, but that’s the point.Ĭomstock embodies many of the problems Orwell himself encountered the disaffected citizen seeking to live morally in a capitalist society, torn between ideologies and unable to reconcile their own sense of the world sufficiently to develop a practical and satisfying mode of existence. Gordon is demonstrably a character who protects himself from having failure thrust upon him by imposing it upon himself.
Of course, this is but feigned ignorance. Gordon is full of contradictions: While he holds lofty ideals he is quite willing to see his personal talent perish, equally, he appears oblivious to the fact that his creative output was at its peak when he worked at the New Albion. Gordon is an unexceptional poet, whose talent has been dulled first by the prostitution of his art and then by the poverty he imposes on himself to escape this predicament. As he blindly flails against the system, Gordon’s politics become evidently compromised, and when his first sexual encounter with Rosemary leads to an unexpected pregnancy he must choose whether to conform or to compound his suffering. Refusing to accept help from his wealthy friend, Ravelston, and only taking small amounts from his sister, Julia, Gordon drags his uncomplaining girlfriend, Rosemary, down with him. Gordon rails against the ‘money-god’ and the growing consumerism he sees around him, bemoaning his own impoverished state and his treatment at the hands of a society run on money. Gordon Comstock, a mediocre poet, has left his comfortable job at the New Albion advertising agency in favour of dead-end work in a small bookshop. Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936) is one of George Orwell’s earlier novels and one which he reserved little fondness for.
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