George Orwell
Keep the Aspidistra Flying
A depressing book about one man's fight against money culture and avoiding selling his soul for it by working at what he's good at in advertising instead working in badly paid and unsatisfying jobs in bookshops. All whilst writing his long epic poem for which he switches between optimism, as he's had one poem publishes, and dire pessimism as he's had lots of other knock backs. Ultimately you feel that his position is pointless as he's both determined to sink into poverty whilst blaming all of his woes including that his girlfriend won't sleep with him on a lack of money. Eventually after nearly drowning in the mud, Orwell's metaphor, he sells his soul to mammon and settles down. You do wonder how long it will last. It's difficult to tell if Orwell supports this hatred of money and how to get it, he did work down and out in London and Paris, or if his view is that the position is pointless and self defeating.
The book has some pretty lazy characterisations, maybe that's from a modern viewpoint, such as a vile characterisation of a Scottish teetotal miser and an uneducated money grabber who is a dwarf with a horrible description. Also a whiff of homophobia going on about nancy boys. So slightly racist which comes across in the other Orwell book I'm reading the Decline of the English Murder. Nonetheless a good and thought provoking read.
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