New Grub Street by George Gissing: Day 32
Chapter 32
Willie died from diphtheria. My maternal grandparents lost a baby boy to diphtheria, who was said to have been such a cute child that he won a baby contest in Shanghai in the 1930s, sponsored by an American (or British) baby formula. One day I mentioned tuberculosis (TB) in the classroom and my students thought I was talking about ancient history, but my father had TB in the 1950s. We can feel that medical science has come a long way when we read literature from yesteryear, or when we have family stories passed down.
Biffen dressed up in a new outfit is the only hopeful note in this chapter. No wonder George Orwell called the novel disheartening.
The chapter title is “Reardon Becomes Practical”—there is a bit of irony in that: a dead man, inevitably, cannot go on being impractical. It reminds me of that grimly famous saying in Graham Greene’s The Quiet American: “The only quiet American is a dead American.”
Join us on December 13 for a virtual discussion of New Grub Street with Yiyun Li.
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Edwin died released from his sources of pain and redeemed by Amy's expressions of love, which may be all he ever wanted. "It doesn't matter what happens; she is mine again."
I was surprised and somewhat validated by Gissing's assessment of Amy's inner workings, "hers was the kind of penitence which is forced by sheer stress of circumstances on a nature which resents any form of humiliation; she could not abandon herself to unreserved grief for what she had done or admitted, and the sense of this defect made a great part of her affliction." Amy was treated to Edwin's semi conscious recollections of struggling with the novel and her role in that, and "... his delirious utterances constrained her to... confuse her mourning with self-reproaching and with fears."
I thought he was going to make it - until he used a line that seemed more in place in a modern form of acquiescence - '"I shall never go with you to Greece," he said distinctly.'
“I am come to nurse you, dear husband. I have only you now”. Is anyone else reminded of Natasha and Prince Andre in W&P? All misunderstands put to rest, leaving them both at peace. Crises and illness do bring people together, stripping away egos, pride, mistakes. Gissing’s parting scene was believable to me thanks to the build up and descriptions of their relationship.