'I haven't much faith in marrying for love, as you know. What's more, I believe it's the very rarest thing for people to be in love with each other. Reardon and his wife perhaps were an instance; perhaps—I'm not quite sure about her. As a rule, marriage is the result of a mild preference, encouraged by circumstances, and deliberately heightened into strong sexual feeling. You, of all men, know well enough that the same kind of feeling could be produced for almost any woman who wasn't repulsive.'
Wow. Some cynical wisdom from our hero Jasper. Ahead of his time. Weren't the 1880s still the Romantic Age?
I like the women in this novel better than the men, pretty much across the board.
If flippancy, as was said earlier, is the lowest vice, then in his conversation with Whelpdale Jasper has indeed fallen far. At the same time, however, I suspect that Gissing is setting him up for a mightty fall!
Jasper ahead of his time. Imagine him transported to the 21st century. Instead of New Grub Street, we have X (formerly known as Twitter -- what a mouthful!). A contemporary Jasper's Tweet of "reasoned/reasonable" masculinity: “'love [is] vulgarized” / “erotic jubilation”/ “ridiculous fallibility”/ “[no] sentimental talk about marriage” / “An educated man mustn’t play so into the hands of ironic destiny.”
I like her very much; but to marry her (supposing she would have me) without money would he a gross absurdity, simply spoiling my career, and leading to all sorts of discontents.'
I know this is an awful comment, but didn't women often select a man somewhat based on his money? I know the dowry system was earlier but certainly attitudes about money probably lingered. It is just strange to hear it from a man. I wonder how common it was to marry for love vs. other practical reasons.
Social standing and money definitely played a role in marriages there. Good point. Also, consider the number of arranged marriages in history. The idea that you should be in love with the person may not have been as common as now.
Where did I read "it is just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor man?" Surely that is as true today as it was then, for both men and women.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush - apparently that’s what Jasper is ruminating over. Additionally, despite his unambiguous ‘admissions’ of his gold-digging mindset (I was surprised as Dora, I fear, that he had a pre-calculated number that would make Marian a candidate), I think he is wrestling with feelings of love for Marian. His question now is whether she’s worth a paltry 200 a year. Plus, the stage is set for Maud or Dora to spill the beans to Marian and ruin things for a Jasper/Marian future altogether.
I think Jasper is definitely wrestling with feelings of love for Marian. I hadn't thought of the stage being set for Dora or Maud to "ruin things for a Jasper/Marian future together." For me, Dora reflects a woman’s wise – and questioning - eye. She is the true voice of reason:
‘I don’t quite understand you.’
‘In general, or with reference to some particular?’
‘What right have you to go places just to see Miss Rupert?
‘What right? He laughed. ‘I am a young man with my way to make. I can’t afford to lose an opportunity.”
‘But pray, do you consider yourself perfectly free?’ asked Dora, with some indignation.
‘Marion understands me perfectly. I have never for a moment tried to make her think that –well, to put it plainly, that I was in love with her … [I]t has been my one object to afford her insight into my character … She has no excuse for misinterpreting me.
‘Very well, if you feel satisfied with yourself—' / ‘It seems to me rather strange, that’s all.’
I enjoyed that exchange between Dora and Jasper, and my sensibilities sided with Dora.
It seems to me that Marian could not bear to think of Jasper’s cold assessment of their relationship, nor that he would consider the amount of her inheritance as a determining factor in their future together.
Maud tells Dora, "I consider it is your duty to let Marian know everything he says. Otherwise you help to deceive her." The combination of Maud’s spitefulness and Dora’s sense of duty does not augur well for that information to remain unspoken.
But Marian can bear it and does - near the end of Ch. 21 she looks with a cool eye at Jasper - who has spoken to her openly about his need for money - and then rationalizes. "She had the conviction that he valued her for her own sake." She is fine with Jasper marrying her for money in addition to - she thinks - the feelings he has for her.
I think you see more of this pining for inheritance and prioritizing marriage with a person of means in societies that lack at least a belief in existence of upward mobility. This was especially the case in tsarist Russia where the economy was not growing, classism was institutionalized, and the nobility was consuming more than the servants or serfs or peasants or laborers could produce--many of the nobility themselves sinking into poverty, like Natasha Rostova's family in War and Peace. Pre-industrial UK had these problems but less acutely. Ironically, in those places it's the men who obsess about marrying wealthy women because a poor woman had little realistic prospect of marrying a wealthy man.
Perennial question, but can a person pursue art, while also having a social life? Yes at least, in the dramatic/theatrical arts. Thinking of how to adapt this to the stage; it would be difficult, but satisfying. What might be hard to depict is the drama of Jasper's annoyance - wondering whether his sister, Maud, can successfully find time to pursue her literary art, as she's socializing in London. A few pages later, his sisters seem to be aware of Jasper, and whether his desires will shift now that Alfred Yule has decided how to divvy his inheritance among the next generation. I, too, have been curious about the prospects of the various Gissing characters, which is a mark of a good drama. Would watching this unfold cinematically or theatrically make the various Yules easier (or harder) to keep track of?
I'm going to have to check that BBC production out after I finish the book! Cool! I wonder if it's available anywhere. I love thinking of some of these books in different media. War and Peace would make a best series drama on PBS masterpiece theater.
How disconcerting to see cool Jasper in a state of anxious frenzy. The man who has an answer for everything may be facing a dilemma between his reason and his heart: “ . . .The days of romantic love are gone by. The scientific spirit has put an end to that kind of self-deception.” Is Jasper protesting too much?
“I have felt a very distinct preference. / Not strong enough to make me lose sight of prudence and advantage. No, not strong enough for that.” / I am far more likely to marry some woman for whom I have no preference, but who can serve me materially.”
And yet, Jasper is [gasp!] unable to work: “Twice or thrice he rose from his chair, paced the room with a determined brow, and sat down again with vigorous clutch of the pen; still he failed to excogitate a single sentence that would serve his purpose.” A “determined” and “vigorous” struggle to transcend the “clutch” of love? One wonders, why? I am with Dora here: ‘It seems to me rather strange, that’s all.’
I love the banter between Jasper and Whelpdale, and with Reardon and Biffen in past scenes. He’s opinionated, but enjoys other people. Literature Supporter is right. You’d love to chat with Jasper at a dinner party.
Hopefully, Jasper would be astute enough to talk about some topics of mutual interest, maybe writing, and stay away from a discussion of his mercenary ambitions and love life.
The problem is talk about writing would lead straight to his mercenary ambitions. Or, as at the opening of the novel, he might point out that someone is, at that moment, being hanged. :(
Jasper: “‘Oh, I am cool-headed enough to make society serve my own ends.’
Marian turned her head with a sudden movement which was checked before she had quite looked round to him.”
She’s starting to believe what her father told her. It reminds me of that Goethe quote, “Treat a man as he appears to be and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he were what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be.”
Marian is such an interesting character to me. She has the agency and bravery to stand up to her father. She’s practical and hard-working, thoughtful and intelligent, but open to the idea of love. She’s also still forming. What will she become? Will she end up mired in psychological turmoil like Alfred and Reardon, or will she find a way to break free of the limitations of her situation?
I'm still wondering why Gissing, Tolstoy and Austen moved their will readings off stage. Wouldn't it be more dramatic to move it on stage? If I remember correctly, in Middlemarch, Sir Godwin's will is read on stage and it's very dramatic. Had these other authors never heard a will read aloud? Were they not able to reproduce it? Or was there something gauche about writing such a scene?
A strange efficiency on Gissing's part, and not because he's always efficient.
I suppose he thought the better drama was that Marian would arrive while Jasper was still there. Jasper runs away before hearing anything - because Jasper is also a moral coward - and she is left to tell Dora and Maud about the will.
Maybe in Gissing's view there was no point in trying to make a set piece of the reading of the will since his people are already so tangentially related, and the unimportant person reading the will could have no great impact on the story.
Intrigued by Gissings’ development of embodied emotions:
Jasper’s “anxious mental debate” continues ‘till after midnight.” The “lingering step” is an evocative “tell” that Jasper is “still a prey to indecision.” Interesting phrasing: “a prey to" implicitly removes “reason” [Jasper’s agency] from the equation, leaving an image of one subject to the savage jungle of love, unwitting prey to uncontrollable forces/beasts of the wild? Hmmm.
"My dear girl, haven't I been showing you that no man could be more above-board, more straightforward?"
"You have been talking nonsense, Jasper." This made me want to cheer for Dora. It's the only way to shut Jasper up. (He then complains about the female lack of logic, which just made him sink lower in my esteem.)
Jasper thinks that by placing a disclaimer on their relationship (i.e. I intend to marry for money), he has precluded any expectation, hopes, or inconvenient feelings on Marian's part. But we know otherwise.
"Let us talk about compatibility. Now, I should say that, no doubt, and speaking scientifically , there is one particular woman supremely fitted to each man...If there were any means of discovering this woman in each case, then I have no doubt it would be worth man's utmost effort to do so, and any amount of erotic jubilation would be reasonable when the discovery was made. But the thing is impossible and, what's more, we know what ridiculous fallibility people display when they think they have found the best substitute for this indiscoverable." What? It's like he's justifying his feelings for Marian and nullifying them in the same breath. Setting up an impossible ideal so he can reject someone who does seem compatible. He really is full of nonsense. (But "erotic jubilation," especially as deployed in this sentence, made me laugh out loud.)
liked this too. gissing has a verbal playfulness that other English writers like say Dickens doesn't. but then again it's been years since i read Dickens.
I think Dickens can be playful; he softens his social commentary that way (with caricatures, among other things). Gissing feels starker to me. But I think he must be having fun with Jasper's dialogue. I find Jasper by turns exasperating and repugnant, but he does enliven this. After a few chapters of Reardon and/or Yule, I am glad to see Jasper take the stage. He is confident, not bitter, and good for some striking and/or hilarious turns of phrase.
Gissing’s dialogue is more explicit and down to earth in general than “traditional” Victorian literature. At least as I remember it. It’s been a while.
It gave me pause too. I haven't encountered it in other 19th century novels (dialogue or otherwise). Usually it's all subtext and euphemism, but Jasper even uses the word "sexual." Hmm.
Yes, I laughed aloud too; I found the pairing of "erotic jubilation" and "ridiculous fallibility" chuckle-worthy. You capture perfectly Jasper's own "ridiculous fallibility": "justifying his feelings for Marian and nullifying them in the same breath."
I agree he is pretty adept at that! It's almost too subtle sometimes. I have to go back sometimes and find out when he made the switch from one day to another or one setting to another.
I marked that passage too. If only I could master the art of somnambulistic composition - my writing life might not be so painful!
'I haven't much faith in marrying for love, as you know. What's more, I believe it's the very rarest thing for people to be in love with each other. Reardon and his wife perhaps were an instance; perhaps—I'm not quite sure about her. As a rule, marriage is the result of a mild preference, encouraged by circumstances, and deliberately heightened into strong sexual feeling. You, of all men, know well enough that the same kind of feeling could be produced for almost any woman who wasn't repulsive.'
Wow. Some cynical wisdom from our hero Jasper. Ahead of his time. Weren't the 1880s still the Romantic Age?
I like the women in this novel better than the men, pretty much across the board.
If flippancy, as was said earlier, is the lowest vice, then in his conversation with Whelpdale Jasper has indeed fallen far. At the same time, however, I suspect that Gissing is setting him up for a mightty fall!
I marked the same passage. Pretty low, even for Jasper. Though even before today's reading, I might have called him an anti-hero rather than a hero!
Jasper ahead of his time. Imagine him transported to the 21st century. Instead of New Grub Street, we have X (formerly known as Twitter -- what a mouthful!). A contemporary Jasper's Tweet of "reasoned/reasonable" masculinity: “'love [is] vulgarized” / “erotic jubilation”/ “ridiculous fallibility”/ “[no] sentimental talk about marriage” / “An educated man mustn’t play so into the hands of ironic destiny.”
Except for Amy’s mother who is exceedingly unlikeable.
I like her very much; but to marry her (supposing she would have me) without money would he a gross absurdity, simply spoiling my career, and leading to all sorts of discontents.'
I know this is an awful comment, but didn't women often select a man somewhat based on his money? I know the dowry system was earlier but certainly attitudes about money probably lingered. It is just strange to hear it from a man. I wonder how common it was to marry for love vs. other practical reasons.
In War and Peace you hear this from men constantily, sometimes euphamisticallhy.
Social standing and money definitely played a role in marriages there. Good point. Also, consider the number of arranged marriages in history. The idea that you should be in love with the person may not have been as common as now.
Where did I read "it is just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor man?" Surely that is as true today as it was then, for both men and women.
The quote of every mother LOL!
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush - apparently that’s what Jasper is ruminating over. Additionally, despite his unambiguous ‘admissions’ of his gold-digging mindset (I was surprised as Dora, I fear, that he had a pre-calculated number that would make Marian a candidate), I think he is wrestling with feelings of love for Marian. His question now is whether she’s worth a paltry 200 a year. Plus, the stage is set for Maud or Dora to spill the beans to Marian and ruin things for a Jasper/Marian future altogether.
I think Jasper is definitely wrestling with feelings of love for Marian. I hadn't thought of the stage being set for Dora or Maud to "ruin things for a Jasper/Marian future together." For me, Dora reflects a woman’s wise – and questioning - eye. She is the true voice of reason:
‘I don’t quite understand you.’
‘In general, or with reference to some particular?’
‘What right have you to go places just to see Miss Rupert?
‘What right? He laughed. ‘I am a young man with my way to make. I can’t afford to lose an opportunity.”
‘But pray, do you consider yourself perfectly free?’ asked Dora, with some indignation.
‘Marion understands me perfectly. I have never for a moment tried to make her think that –well, to put it plainly, that I was in love with her … [I]t has been my one object to afford her insight into my character … She has no excuse for misinterpreting me.
‘Very well, if you feel satisfied with yourself—' / ‘It seems to me rather strange, that’s all.’
I enjoyed that exchange between Dora and Jasper, and my sensibilities sided with Dora.
It seems to me that Marian could not bear to think of Jasper’s cold assessment of their relationship, nor that he would consider the amount of her inheritance as a determining factor in their future together.
Maud tells Dora, "I consider it is your duty to let Marian know everything he says. Otherwise you help to deceive her." The combination of Maud’s spitefulness and Dora’s sense of duty does not augur well for that information to remain unspoken.
But Marian can bear it and does - near the end of Ch. 21 she looks with a cool eye at Jasper - who has spoken to her openly about his need for money - and then rationalizes. "She had the conviction that he valued her for her own sake." She is fine with Jasper marrying her for money in addition to - she thinks - the feelings he has for her.
That’s a good reminder, but I still wonder how she might respond to Jasper‘s consideration of the manly Miss Rupert.
It would no doubt cause her some pain. Whether it would be enough to break the spell of attraction .. maybe not!
how much love is the question, is it 5,000 pounds of love or 10,000 pounds of love?
Yes, how much love, is indeed, the question!
I think you see more of this pining for inheritance and prioritizing marriage with a person of means in societies that lack at least a belief in existence of upward mobility. This was especially the case in tsarist Russia where the economy was not growing, classism was institutionalized, and the nobility was consuming more than the servants or serfs or peasants or laborers could produce--many of the nobility themselves sinking into poverty, like Natasha Rostova's family in War and Peace. Pre-industrial UK had these problems but less acutely. Ironically, in those places it's the men who obsess about marrying wealthy women because a poor woman had little realistic prospect of marrying a wealthy man.
Perennial question, but can a person pursue art, while also having a social life? Yes at least, in the dramatic/theatrical arts. Thinking of how to adapt this to the stage; it would be difficult, but satisfying. What might be hard to depict is the drama of Jasper's annoyance - wondering whether his sister, Maud, can successfully find time to pursue her literary art, as she's socializing in London. A few pages later, his sisters seem to be aware of Jasper, and whether his desires will shift now that Alfred Yule has decided how to divvy his inheritance among the next generation. I, too, have been curious about the prospects of the various Gissing characters, which is a mark of a good drama. Would watching this unfold cinematically or theatrically make the various Yules easier (or harder) to keep track of?
Correction: John Yule's inheritance....I think wishful thinking made me substitute him for Alfred Yule.
Also, it turns out Harold Pinter has a BBC dramatization already.
I'm going to have to check that BBC production out after I finish the book! Cool! I wonder if it's available anywhere. I love thinking of some of these books in different media. War and Peace would make a best series drama on PBS masterpiece theater.
Did you see the Russian version of W&P? About 6 hours. Fabulous!
Omg! I’ll have to check it out! I’d love to see how they rendered the characters.
the german tv serial version of thomas mann's the magic mountain is really good!
How disconcerting to see cool Jasper in a state of anxious frenzy. The man who has an answer for everything may be facing a dilemma between his reason and his heart: “ . . .The days of romantic love are gone by. The scientific spirit has put an end to that kind of self-deception.” Is Jasper protesting too much?
Me thinks, Jasper doth protest too much:
“I have felt a very distinct preference. / Not strong enough to make me lose sight of prudence and advantage. No, not strong enough for that.” / I am far more likely to marry some woman for whom I have no preference, but who can serve me materially.”
And yet, Jasper is [gasp!] unable to work: “Twice or thrice he rose from his chair, paced the room with a determined brow, and sat down again with vigorous clutch of the pen; still he failed to excogitate a single sentence that would serve his purpose.” A “determined” and “vigorous” struggle to transcend the “clutch” of love? One wonders, why? I am with Dora here: ‘It seems to me rather strange, that’s all.’
I love the banter between Jasper and Whelpdale, and with Reardon and Biffen in past scenes. He’s opinionated, but enjoys other people. Literature Supporter is right. You’d love to chat with Jasper at a dinner party.
I think he would amuse, annoy, and depress me, possibly in that order--or maybe all at once.
Hopefully, Jasper would be astute enough to talk about some topics of mutual interest, maybe writing, and stay away from a discussion of his mercenary ambitions and love life.
The problem is talk about writing would lead straight to his mercenary ambitions. Or, as at the opening of the novel, he might point out that someone is, at that moment, being hanged. :(
Jasper: “‘Oh, I am cool-headed enough to make society serve my own ends.’
Marian turned her head with a sudden movement which was checked before she had quite looked round to him.”
She’s starting to believe what her father told her. It reminds me of that Goethe quote, “Treat a man as he appears to be and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he were what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be.”
Marian is such an interesting character to me. She has the agency and bravery to stand up to her father. She’s practical and hard-working, thoughtful and intelligent, but open to the idea of love. She’s also still forming. What will she become? Will she end up mired in psychological turmoil like Alfred and Reardon, or will she find a way to break free of the limitations of her situation?
Love the quote. Thanks!
I hope she breaks free!
I'm still wondering why Gissing, Tolstoy and Austen moved their will readings off stage. Wouldn't it be more dramatic to move it on stage? If I remember correctly, in Middlemarch, Sir Godwin's will is read on stage and it's very dramatic. Had these other authors never heard a will read aloud? Were they not able to reproduce it? Or was there something gauche about writing such a scene?
A strange efficiency on Gissing's part, and not because he's always efficient.
I suppose he thought the better drama was that Marian would arrive while Jasper was still there. Jasper runs away before hearing anything - because Jasper is also a moral coward - and she is left to tell Dora and Maud about the will.
Maybe in Gissing's view there was no point in trying to make a set piece of the reading of the will since his people are already so tangentially related, and the unimportant person reading the will could have no great impact on the story.
how about the way gissing changes scenes without as much as a paragraph break? like a movie cut.
It puts the emphasis in the correct drawing rooms, the people who want the money so badly, and are freed or hurt by the will's contents.
Intrigued by Gissings’ development of embodied emotions:
Jasper’s “anxious mental debate” continues ‘till after midnight.” The “lingering step” is an evocative “tell” that Jasper is “still a prey to indecision.” Interesting phrasing: “a prey to" implicitly removes “reason” [Jasper’s agency] from the equation, leaving an image of one subject to the savage jungle of love, unwitting prey to uncontrollable forces/beasts of the wild? Hmmm.
Jasper the man of reason? Not likely. He's just looking out for number one.
"We remain intellectual friends." What is that - a new category of friendship made to serve his own ends, as always?
Jasper is a sorry excuse for a human being, if you ask me.
He doesn't find Miss Rupert attractive - not really - but can find a way to if she's rich and has connections that will benefit - him?
And so on.
Absurdity masquerading as pragmatism.
Maud: "He has no sense of honour in such things."
Both his sisters must truly despise him and it is a shame they are so darned dependent on him. A real shame.
I won't argue with you there!
But you can be a good picker and still use your heart, not just your calculating little head.
For sure! : )
"My dear girl, haven't I been showing you that no man could be more above-board, more straightforward?"
"You have been talking nonsense, Jasper." This made me want to cheer for Dora. It's the only way to shut Jasper up. (He then complains about the female lack of logic, which just made him sink lower in my esteem.)
Jasper thinks that by placing a disclaimer on their relationship (i.e. I intend to marry for money), he has precluded any expectation, hopes, or inconvenient feelings on Marian's part. But we know otherwise.
"Let us talk about compatibility. Now, I should say that, no doubt, and speaking scientifically , there is one particular woman supremely fitted to each man...If there were any means of discovering this woman in each case, then I have no doubt it would be worth man's utmost effort to do so, and any amount of erotic jubilation would be reasonable when the discovery was made. But the thing is impossible and, what's more, we know what ridiculous fallibility people display when they think they have found the best substitute for this indiscoverable." What? It's like he's justifying his feelings for Marian and nullifying them in the same breath. Setting up an impossible ideal so he can reject someone who does seem compatible. He really is full of nonsense. (But "erotic jubilation," especially as deployed in this sentence, made me laugh out loud.)
I also loved the phrase “erotic jubilation.” It stopped me cold. Did the word “erotic” have a different meaning back then?
liked this too. gissing has a verbal playfulness that other English writers like say Dickens doesn't. but then again it's been years since i read Dickens.
I think Dickens can be playful; he softens his social commentary that way (with caricatures, among other things). Gissing feels starker to me. But I think he must be having fun with Jasper's dialogue. I find Jasper by turns exasperating and repugnant, but he does enliven this. After a few chapters of Reardon and/or Yule, I am glad to see Jasper take the stage. He is confident, not bitter, and good for some striking and/or hilarious turns of phrase.
Gissing’s dialogue is more explicit and down to earth in general than “traditional” Victorian literature. At least as I remember it. It’s been a while.
It gave me pause too. I haven't encountered it in other 19th century novels (dialogue or otherwise). Usually it's all subtext and euphemism, but Jasper even uses the word "sexual." Hmm.
Yes, I laughed aloud too; I found the pairing of "erotic jubilation" and "ridiculous fallibility" chuckle-worthy. You capture perfectly Jasper's own "ridiculous fallibility": "justifying his feelings for Marian and nullifying them in the same breath."
I agree he is pretty adept at that! It's almost too subtle sometimes. I have to go back sometimes and find out when he made the switch from one day to another or one setting to another.