Beastly, useless thing! And bloody fool to have taken it! It had happened yesterday, when he was buying cigarettes.

He paused, took out the miserable little threepenny-bit, and looked at it. Fivepence halfpenny - twopence halfpenny and a Joey. The money clinked in his trouser pocket as he got up. Even from above you could see that his shoes needed resoling. His coat was out at elbow in the right sleeve and its middle button was missing his ready-made flannel trousers were stained and shapeless. It would be too bloody to be without tobacco tonight as well as all tomorrow.īored in advance by tomorrow's tobaccoless hours, he got up and moved towards the door - a small frail figure, with delicate bones and fretful movements. Today was Wednesday and he had no money coming to him till Friday. However, there were only four cigarettes left. Gordon made an effort, sat upright, and stowed his packet of cigarettes away in his inside pocket. The ding-dong of another, remoter clock - from the Prince of Wales, the other side of the street - rippled the stagnant air. In the little office at the back of Mr McKechnie's bookshop, Gordon - Gordon Comstock, last member of the Comstock family, aged twenty-nine and rather moth-eaten already - lounged across the table, pushing a four-penny packet of Player's Weights open and shut with his thumb. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford’s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.THE clock struck half past two. Offering a powerful portrayal of the emotional toll of precarity and the desire to break with capitalism,Keep the Aspidistra Flying is a significant work of mid-century British fiction but it also speaks to our own time.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Completed while Orwell travelled north to work on The Road to Wigan Pier, this novel is a key transitional text in his career. The novel contains the most sustained reflections on the role of the author and the artistic imagination anywhere in Orwell’s fiction, as the book’s protagonist struggles (and ultimately fails) to reconcile his romantic-aestheticist sensibilities with thepressures of the literary marketplace and with social expectations.

In his race to the bottom, only Rosemary, his long-suffering girlfriend, challenges Gordon’s self-destructive course. Good and evil have no meaning any longer except failure and success.”Disgusted by society’s materialism, Gordon Comstock leaves his job in advertising to pursue an ill-fated career as a poet.

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