In every generation there must be an abundance of Alfred Yules. At least he is not the worst kind of critic, not afflicted with “flippancy, the most hopeless form of intellectual vice.”
“To assail an author without increasing the number of his readers is the perfection of journalistic skill.”
I laughed out reading this line, only because it’s too true, too chilling.
Marian slaving for Alfred Yule’s scholarly work: this is worse than what many of the Dickens characters have to endure.
Join us on December 13 for a virtual discussion of New Grub Street with Yiyun Li.
"Too true, too chilling," indeed. I too, chuckled to myself at Gissing's oddly prescient (sadly!) sardonic vision of “democracy”: the capitalizing of “venomous banter” as entertainment “to assail an author without increasing the number of his readers [as] the perfection of journalistic skills,” which would (ultimately) appeal to “the democratic generation just maturing.” One hopes that democracy and its aspirational freedoms holds more for us all – including the “democratic generation just maturing.”
My response to Marian's labors was slightly less Dickensian than Yiyun's. I keep thinking about Heather’s previous comments regarding Gissing’s “sneaky” development of strength, talent, and wisdom in Grub Street’s women. Marian has captured my heart – her gentle, recognition of self-worth: “I can’t be a slave mother, and I can’t be treated unjustly,” coupled with her introspective bent (and ultimate self-awareness) when dealing with “wretched tumult”: “Had [Milvain] not himself said to her that he might be guilty of base things, just to make his way? Perhaps, it was the intolerable pain of imagining that he had already made good his words, which robbed her of self-control and made her meet her father’s rudeness with defiance.”
And finally, a young woman coming of age: Marian accepts her father’s resumption of his “wonted manner [as] sufficient evidence of regret on his part,” while embracing her newfound sense of self: “She was not all submission, [her father] might try her beyond endurance; there might come a day when perforce she must stand face to face with him, and make it known she had her own claims upon life.” Go girl!