Keep the Aspidistra Flying

By: George Orwell

Narrated by: Richard E. Grant

Length: 9 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

Gordon Comstock loathes dull, middle-class respectability and worship of money. He gives up a 'good job' in advertising to work part-time in a bookshop, giving him more time to write. But he slides instead into a self-induced poverty that destroys his creativity and his spirit. Only Rosemary, ever-faithful Rosemary, has the strength to challenge his commitment to his chosen way of life. Through the character of Gordon Comstock, Orwell reveals his own disaffection with the society he once himself renounced.

©2011 CSA Word (P)2011 CSA Word

Gordon's Grey World is Colored with Grant

Where does Keep the Aspidistra Flying rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

At times certain wonderful books, by towering authors and read by notable narrators often end up with a rather dull effect. For 'Keep the Aspidistra Flying', narrated by the immensely talented Richard E. Grant, this is not the case. The atmosphere of Orwell's terse satire is fully developed in this dramatic reading by Grant, who manages to deliver character after character without loosing any of the pacing allowing the social and political underscore of the book to be fully experienced by the listener.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Keep the Aspidistra Flying?

Of the many painfully satirical moments in the performance to look out for is the exchange between Gordon Comstock and the french waiter at the country pub.- enjoy.

Great performance. Loathsome character

Gordon Comstock may just be the least appealing character in any book I have ever read. Whining, self pitying, grasping (of everything but money) he is almost completely devoid of human sympathy. At one point I nearly abandoned the book because he is such an unsympathetic persona.

But it is an Orwell. You can't give up on an Orwell. It's the law. And Gordon does finally redeem himself for the most human of all reasons. If you love Orwell you need to work your way through all of his work. If you don't love Orwell you need to work your way through all of his work so that you eventually will. This is certainly no "Animal Farm" and "Coming up for Air" is a friendlier read (next please Audible) but it certainly repays the listening time.

Richard E Grant's performance is excellent. Just the right amount of self important sneer in his voice and just the right tone of undeserved and unappreciated privilege in his delivery. All round a very good audiobook.

I wish Richard E. Grant'd record more audiobooks

On the extremely slim chance that he or his agent or someone responsible for casting audiobook narrators is reading this, please cajole Mr. Grant to record more audiobooks.

fantastically sarcastic performance

What a pleasure to listen to Richard Grant capture every nuance and drop of sarcasm in Orwell's great prose masterpiece, The book feels very modern in sensibility; the narrator is exceptionally brilliant and funny. It was really a delight.

Genius

This is a perfect work by Orwell. The best novel I have read by him so far. The performance by Richard E Grant could not be better - he is the perfect casting for Gordon Comstock.

Be aware that this copy has a sound fault in chapter 7. There is about 40 seconds of skipping that make that tony section of the book inaudible.

You can't kill an aspidistra

What did you love best about Keep the Aspidistra Flying?

The scene where Gordon finally sells a poem and ends up blowing the money on booze and tarts. You can feel his hangover when he wakes up in jail. Gives me a headache just thinking about it.

What did you like best about this story?

Gordon's tenacity, although like everyone he ends up with his own aspidistra.

What does Richard E. Grant bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

If you have seen any of his movies you know what an amazing actor he is, in fact he starred in the film adaptation of the book. No one could have done a better job than Mr. Grant. Check out Withnail & I. "We've gone on holiday by mistake..."

If you could take any character from Keep the Aspidistra Flying out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Ravelston because he would pay.

Any additional comments?

Orwell said he wrote the book because he needed money. Quite ironic.

Deeply profound

This book depicts the painful struggle of consenting to sell oneself to promote the aims of a corporation or institution. Much of the book is painful to read because our protagonist makes horrible mistakes repeatedly. Gordon needlessly hurts people who are close to him, both because he lacks money, and much more painfully, because he is constantly obsessed with his lack of money and his feelings of inadequacy that derive from his poverty. However, the book is not long, and left me feeling incredibly satisfied when I reached the end. The books ethical/moral implications are hard to pin down. Gordon finally finds stability and some peace by giving in to his hatred of money, and the reader feels very happy with his decision. Yet all this satisfaction we feel is from Gordon renouncing all he believes in, something that is epitomized by his powerful desire for an Aspidistra plant in his window so all the neighbors would see, even though Gordon spent the last 30 years of his life despising Aspidistras.

The most fantastic performance.

Keep the Aspidistra Flying is one of my favorite George Orwell reads. But, I must say that the performance given in this audiobook is one of the absolute best of the 300+ titles I've personally enjoyed so far with Audible. I cannot recommend this book and performance enough. Excellent!

Richard E Grant's narration is superb.

It's a pleasure to listen to Grant's reading of this rather bleak novel. Excellent. Keep the Aspidistra Flying is of course essential Orwell and deserves to be read. Things essentially have not changed much since 1934 in terms of social problems. You will however want to reach out and shake the story's lead character, Gordon Comstock. The interesting thing is that, at the same time, you recognise that there is, perhaps, a bit of the Gordon Comstocks in all of us. For those times when you want to be reminded what life is and what choices we have.

Orwell and Grant, perfect.

If Richard E Grand could just narrate everyting for Audible that would be dashed smashing and jolly. Loved it. fantastic as always Orwell.