“Hinks made perhaps a hundred a year out of a kind of writing which only certain publishers can get rid of…”
One refreshing view of this novel is that we get to see many struggling writers; every one of them is introduced with how much money they can make by their pens.
Marian’s dream of a “Literary Machine”: Gissing was prophetic in showing how much the men in the past thought through what the future writers would be living with.
Another refreshing element of the novel is to get to know Marian Yule, Dora and Maud Milvain. Literary history is not all about Jane Austen, George Elliott, and Virginia Woolf.
Join us on December 13 for a virtual discussion of New Grub Street with Yiyun Li.
What a sad ending to the opening paragraph of today's reading: "They had had three children; all were happily buried."
The women as writing machines struck me as well. Insight into a world very different from Austen and Bloomsbury. So much in todays reading about the failure the men have experienced and the pain of living with that sense of failure. And then....they cruelly blame so much on wives!
In comparison, Jasper's pure ambition seems almost refreshing, if cold, at the end. He does have concern for his sisters and his inability to make money fast enough for them.
And yet, Marian is hurt...and I wonder at the end of the chapter what she does in "those moments" between closing the door and returning to her mother.....