Keep the aspidistra flying - George Orwell

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.

Enlivened with vivid autobiographical detail, George Orwell's Keep the Aspidistra Flying
is a tragically witty account of the struggle to escape from a
materialistic existence, with an introduction by Peter Davison in
Penguin Modern Classics.