“No meddling with the books that are no books, nothing about essays on bi-metallism and treaties for or against vaccination.”
Concrete evidence we haven’t advanced far from the 1880s. Vaccination will remain an evergreen debate—perhaps we as a collective have very limited capacity for learning from the past.
“My dear, I am not a man fitted for subordinate places. My nature is framed for authority.”
This reminds me of a woman who once walked into a workshop I taught at. The first thing she said to me: “I want you to know that I’m not made to be a listener, only a leader.”
Alfred Yule is so transparently distasteful in his manipulation of his daughter that one cannot help but feel there is justice in his failure as a writer, a husband, a father, and as a human being.
Join us on December 13 for a virtual discussion of New Grub Street with Yiyun Li.
Wow, I find myself so grateful for Marian's clear mind and strength of character under the shameful barrage of her father's greed.
"Do you distrust my ability to conduct this periodical?"
She did. Some of her responses...
"I can't say anything that would sound like a promise."
"... I am afraid to encourage you."
And her thoughts...
'as an editor he would almost certainly fail... in truth she suffered from the conviction that to yield would be as unwise in regard to her father's future as it would be perilous to her own prospect of happiness.'
All of this in contrast to Alfred's soup of self-pity, inflated self-assessment, imposition of guilt, and hypocritical good nature on top of the scheming preparation of his plan with Quarmby and Hicks behind which he must have almost immediately considered the 5,000 pounds as his own with which to speculate.
If Jasper won't have Marian, I will!
A person in lifelong financial straits dispensing business advice is sort of like consultation about how to get your novel published from someone unpublished. In this chapter the execrable Alfred Yule sinks to a new low, trying to guilt-trip his impoverished young adult daughter to invest her meager inheritance from her uncle (who apparently had sized up his brother Alfred's character) in his hare brained scheme for getting rich (and fulfilling his own fanciful literary potential) from yet another literary journal startup. Fortunately, Marian seems smart enough not to fall for his fake expressions of affection to her and her mother. Marian needs to get out of that house!