This may be one of my favorite chapters so far. We get publishing woes old and new, players in the publishing world from the past and from the future, converging in a chapter where there is also much domestic tension and tenderness. Mrs. Yule deserves a novella by herself.
“Even the average man of a certain age is an alarming creature when dinner delays itself; the literary man in such a moment goes beyond all parallel.”
I love how Gissing laughs at a subset of men including himself.
“Free exercise of a malicious flippancy”: there, that’s the description of much of social media, from long before its existence.
Join us on December 13 for a virtual discussion of New Grub Street with Yiyun Li.
Well there's no question that we are seeing the effects of both parents upon our main characters, and the amalgamation as Gissing sees it. It's particularly sad then to see "... Yule's dread lest Marian should be infected with her mother's faults of speech and behavior. He would scarcely permit his wife to talk to the child."
Also, "... Marian's natural reserve had been strengthened by her mother's respectful aloofness." Which was apparently caused by Mrs.Yule having "... never exercised maternal authority..."
I can't help but be amused by Gissing's use of a character's facial expressions to launch expositions of their personality - we meet Mr. Quarmby - "... his eyes, grey/orbed in a yellow setting, glared with good-humored inquisitiveness, and his mouth was that of the confirmed gossip."