New Grub Street by George Gissing: Day 30
Chapter 30
“‘Can you promise to keep a little love for me all that time?’ he asked with a constrained smile.”
Well, what an apologetically Milvainy question. He may not be the most honorable character, but he speaks the most interesting lines in this novel.
The fact that both Alfred Yule and Jasper ask Marian if she could write fiction for money is chilling.
“Could you do anything that would sell?”
Now that is a question that has plagued more than Marian.
Jasper and Maud match each other in their dialogue; Dora doesn’t quite, but she offers a good balancing third point of this interesting triangle.
Join us on December 13 for a virtual discussion of New Grub Street with Yiyun Li.
 |
|
Poor Marian! She got a taste of power she didn't expect and the self-respect that can come with money. Then just as suddenly lost it. She is referred to as "the girl" again. If she never had it, she wouldn't sense what was gone. "Not much help to be expected in this world," she says just before Gissing gives her the "fog treatment":
"The thick black fog penetrated every corner of the house. It could be smelt and tasted. Such an atmosphere produces low-spirited languor even in the vigorous and hopeful; to those wasted by suffering it is the very reek of the bottomless pit, poisoning the soul.”
And..as Yiyun says, the discussion of fiction from Milvain and Yule, two schemers at best, gives a bad taste to the art. Writing fiction is presented almost as “women’s work” or an insult. I wonder if Gissing lived among these insults.
“A fog-veiled sky added its weight to crush here her spirit ; at the hour when she usually rose it was still all but as dark as midnight.” The weather/fog in London is like a malevolent character coming to visit.