“‘The first duty of a novelist is to tell a story’: the perpetual repetition of this phrase is a warning to all men who propose drawing from the life.”
In our time I have heard other phrases repeated by people with strong convictions. Sometimes I wonder if the reason that literature still lives on is not because of people’s strong convictions, but despite them…
“We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.”
The Tempest quote is rather an apt summary of all writers. It feels a rare emotional, perhaps even sentimental, touch from Gissing to quote it twice when two of the most stubborn writers die in the novel.
The end of the chapter turns lyrical. Even Gissing cannot help but soften the edge of the coldest despair when death approaches.
Join us on December 13 for a virtual discussion of New Grub Street with Yiyun Li.
“Sure at length that he was remote from all observation, he pressed into a little copse, and there reclined on the grass, leaning against the stem of a tree.”
To me, this book is so much about depression, the basic needs of life and the power of the mind. So many of the characters need help and have nowhere to turn to find it or are expected by society and circumstances to take care of it themselves. If only there were a Biffen for Biffen in his time of need like there was for Reardon.
In this scene, nature has returned. The heath, the sky, the moon, the trees. The writing broadens and becomes more poetic. It’s the closest Gissing gets to alluding to a spiritual power.
“He had now only one pupil, and was not exerting himself to find others; his old energy had forsaken him.” First reading I thought Biffen had a money problem, but when I reread, I realized this was a crisis of spirit. The realist facing the reality of his life as a struggling writer.