Orwell's themse: Keep the Aspidistra Flying

[kev67]

I started reading Keep the Aspidistra Flying. It has some of Orwell's familiar themes. The main character constantly frets over the lack of money and sex. There is a lot of class consciousness. He seems to hold several character types in particular contempt: shy or effete men; stupid, coarse working class people, the shallow, and callous, upper-middle-class dowagers. This was just chapter one. Shy, effete men and coarse, working class types got it in the neck in On The Road To Wigan Pier, while the callous upper middle class got it in Burmese Days. As a person, Orwell seems not to like many people. There were some other interesting things in chapter one. It was written in 1936, but already he was worrying about the bombers that would fly over London in a few years time. Orwell's protagonist works in a book shop, where he takes the opportunity to comment on several of his contemporary writers and poets, including Lawrence, Elliot and Auden. It seems he wasn't too sure how their reputations would last.

[kev67]

It is quite an interesting book. The main protagonist, Gordon Comstock, is like a de-rated version of George Orwell. I believe Orwell won a scholarship to Eton, which must have been the hardest fee-paying school at the time to get into. Gordon Comstock is not quite that brainy, but still pretty talented. Comstock describes himself as a member of the middle-middle-class, who have upper class pretensions but working class pockets. According to Orwell, the middle-middle-class usually aspired to send their sons to private schools, even though to do so meant scrimping and saving and denying themselves. I am sure Orwell said something like this in one of his other books, probably Burmese Days. I am sure I read somewhere else that Orwell described himself as lower-upper-middle class. Another recurring theme is Comstock's guilt about his selfishness as a child, a bit like Winston Smith's in 1984. The protagonist of Coming Up For Air was a fairly horrible boy too, I seem to remember. I wonder if this was autobiographical. George Orwell makes early 20th life in Britain sound pretty miserable. Comstock's family's attitude to money reminded me of my father's parents. My granddad was tight with money, while my grandma tended to like people according to how wealthy they were. My step-mother's mother was apparently even more money conscientious. She recently told us a story about being told off by her for buying an LP when she was a young girl, which would have been in the 50's.

Other things that struck me:

• One of the other lodgers at the house where Comstock lives is a travelling salesman, a bit like the protagonist of Coming Up for Air.
• In chapter 2, Comstock says that you cannot write when you are lonely. I do not know if this was Orwell's own opinion, but if it was then he must have changed it, as he wrote 1984 while isolated in a cottage on the Scottish island of Jura.
• In chapter 3 in which Comstock talks about school, he says any intelligent student in those days was a Socialist (with a capital S) but that they were too young to see the barb in the bait. This is interesting. Was news of Stalin's purges creeping out in 1935?
• Also in chapter 3, Comstock talks about his mother. She is suffering from something that sounds like tuberculosis again, just what killed Orwell.
• Comstock worked as a copywriter for an advertising firm, but gave the job up because he despised capitalism. That made me wonder what a great copywriter George Orwell would have made. He certainly wrote a lot of memorable phrases that are still used today.
• Everyone seemed to smoke so much. Comstock is nearly broke, but still spends money on cigarettes - actually not that unknown even today.
• Comstock mentions having read The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. This was probably one of the most influential books on British politics during the 20th century. It has been credited with winning the general election for the Labour Party in 1946 after it had been passed hand to hand among the soldiers returning from the war. My step-mother's father said he became a communist for a while after reading The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.
• The old currency is intriguing me. At the start of the book Comstock is down to his last five-and-a-half pence, of which three pence is in the form of one of those octagonal thrupenny bits, which he is too embarrassed to use. Another coin, a florin, was apparently two shillings. Comstock feels humiliated when his father comes to school and the other boys see him receive half a crown instead of a ten bob note that they get. Half a crown is two and a half shillings (30d in old money, 12.5p in new money). Ten bob is ten shillings (120d in old money or 50p in new).

[kev67]

It said in the introduction or Wikipedia that Keep the Aspidistra Flying was one of two books that Orwell was not proud of. He wrote them because he needed the money. I don't know why he wasn't proud of it. It's the most entertaining of any of his books I've read so far. Comstock almost makes me laugh. What's more, I cannot imagine it having a totally miserable ending.

Some more things that struck me:

• It's the mid 30s and Comstock seems pretty sure there will be another war. I wonder how many people thought so.
• When Comstock is complaining to his rich publisher friend, he says there was a third alternative to Capitalism, the others being suicide and Socialism: Catholicism Why Catholicism? Was this a reference to Catholic writers such ad Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh?
• I tend to think of old Labour before Tony Blair as socialism, but whenever Orwell referred to Socialism in any of his books, it seems like something far more left wing.
• Comstock mentions Aldous Huxley's book, Brave New World. To my mind, Brave New World and 1984 are the two, great, most famous dystopias. I was surprised Brave New World was written so much earlier than 1984, but of course, Orwell would have read it.
• Comstock keeps complaining that he only has £2 a week to live on. The book makes clear that £2 a week is not true poverty, just not enough to enjoy life, take out a girl or think about renting a house, starting a family or anything like that. Inflation did not really start get going until the 20th century. During the nineteenth century, it seems that £1 a week was the basic living wage if you had no dependants but needed to pay your for your own food and lodging. James Herriot was offered £4 a week by Siegfried Farnon when he first started working for him in 1928, but that was with food and lodging included (I think). Herriot was pretty happy with that. I will have to hunt down what the painter-decorators were earning in The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists during the early 1900s.

The introduction said Orwell had problems with his publishers with the original draft. He had referred to some famous advertising slogans, such as "Guinness is good for you". He had to replace them with fictitious slogans because of the copyright laws. I would never have considered that, but I suppose that would be true even today. I think the first chapter is somewhat weaker without the real advertising slogans. Orwell also had trouble with some of the rude words he made Comstock utter. They had to be replaced by first letters and dashes. If I had had a pencil with me, I would have been tempted to fill them in.

[kev67]

In The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists the going rate for a painter-decorator is 7d per hour, although desperation is driving some unemployed men to accept 5d per hour. With the long working hours (suppose 48 hours a week) that would come to £1 8s a week (£70 per annum) for the going rate, and £1 a week (£50 per annum) for the lower rate of pay. Robert Owen, the main protagonist, complains bitterly about the low pay and hard working conditions throughout the book. In addition to the low pay when they were in work, there were lengthy periods when they were unemployed, when they became truly desperate. Many of these people also had families to support.

Still, there must have been some inflation between the early 1900s and the mid 1930s, so Gordon Comstock does seem to have something to complain about with an income of £2 a week.

[kev67]

Inflation had more or less caused prices to double between The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and Keep the Aspidistra Flying, according to this Bank of England information sheet.

Inflation.png

So, Comstock's £2 a week equates to around the five shilling an hour that Newman is reluctant to agree to when offered work refurbishing a house for a firm of painters and decorators.

[Poetaster]

kev, did you know Huxley was Orwell's French teacher?

Tell me your final thoughts on this book. I rather enjoyed it.