Coughing, coughing, and more coughing, another George Orwell seems to be growing inside me. Tonsillitis is nothing serious but it definitely made me miserable this week. I went to see a GP, only to be told that patience was the best medicine. Insisted I got my prescription, and rushed to Boots to get antibiotics. I joined the queue for medicine; finally it was my turn, then another waiting list for getting my medicine ready. When I am ill, I tend to be more patient. Sitting on the bench waiting for my name to be called, I discovered how busy the pharmacists were. They were literally working non-stop. Five minutes passed, ten minutes passed, when I eventually got my medicine, already half an hour passed, again, without lunch, I rushed to the training venue. Peer through the colourful arch window, I saw the green leaves shinning under the sun. What I cannot feel is the warmth.  

Returned home, I changed my long-planed weekend again. I am happy to get Tate corporation member card, and there is an exhibition on Constable, the finest landscape painter in Britain. But for obvious reason, it will be rational for me to have a good rest. The mobile Internet technology cannot get me access to the company intranet, but still I gained new freedom to explore the virtual world. I visited a space of a former classmate. Surprised was I that her words were as beautiful as ever. Life has been harsh with her, but unchanged is her determination to live happily. Big wishes, small wishes, sometimes even small wishes will make us fully occupied.

Reading her words, I recalled Xu Zhi Mo, a passionate poet and lover. Madly I fell in love with his diary and letters three years ago. Thus I learnt how passionate life can be if not should be. Today I discovered a Xu among my contemporaries. She may never be as famous as he, but she will always be MY Xu. My wish is to have her writings published one day.

Waiting ahead is a long weekend night; the birds are quiet, probably desperate for a cooler atmosphere. Boiled and vanished in the hot air is my working nerve, thirsty for a change of more relaxed mood.

My wish comes true. After the trip to Europe, after visiting the Opera house twice in a week, after all the training and talks, I am still being trapped in a vacuum, then comes the inspiration from a late night movie ‘Keep the Aspidistra Flying’. Then realized me, trip after all, to put it nicely, is to get some new interest of our lives. It is like your own photo album is full of the white and black pictures, so you desire to get even just a second of glance at other people’s colored albums. But the imagine is hard to go beyond, especially without the stories behind the flash. So after tiredness, all that does remain is a crying out for fulfilling.

This happens to Gordon, who did not travel in the story, but desperate, desperate for some meaning of his life working as an advertiser. Indulged himself in poetry, Gordon gained sympathy from a high-class gentleman who regards himself as a socialist. So with his help, Gordon continued his indulgence in poetry, financed through himself working in a bookshop. When the regretting letters continued flying in, Gordon abused aspidistra and shared his ecstasy with the poor plant when his poetry was published in a US journal. How could he miss this opportunity to celebrate being a world-famous poet? So he took his girl friend and the gentleman to dinner and ended up drunk and thus arrested. Remember this was 1930s, so Gordon easily escaped a 14-day imprisonment with five pounds penalty financed by his angel high-class friend. Sadly his misery continued as he fell into truly working class, as his trial was a top story of the news, causing him to lose a decent job and lodging. Gordon truly lived a hopeless life according to the standard of his friends, and he seemed to feel increasingly comfortable with this uncivilized culture until his girl friend got pregnant. A sense of fatherly responsibility pulled him back from the edge of reality and dream. What sunk in the Thames is not just his poetry book, but also his dream and effort to seek meaning of his life in an ever more materialized world. What re-established is a successful advertiser, a middle class.

This is surely not a great novel by George Orwell by looking back the reviews he received at that time. The intention is too obvious to criticize an ever more materialized world. Gordon is a portrait of the mass, who was educated, looking forward to being a middle class. But another consciousness of looking for something deeper troubled him and pushed him into poverty. It is the lack of money and humble bringing up that pushes him to looking for something different, and then again the crude reality of surviving that pulled him back to the materialized world. But different from the mass, Gordon is the one who is professional on promoting materialism and the power that drives his locomotive is ironically and sadly, poetry. So it concludes what I feel: freedom is something you seldom if not never have. When you are young enough, you do not have the wisdom to think of it. When you do have the wisdom, i.e., you are old enough; you will not be freed from the struggle to survive. Sadly this does not suit the appetite of the critics who are probably bored with the topic, which starts as early as Down and out of Paris, the first writing published by George Orwell.