Reardon may have made more bad decisions in a single chapter than I've seen in fiction. Single-minded pursuit of your art doesn't mean that you can ignore practical requirements of survival, nor does it mean that you can also opt for bourgeois lifestyle while ignoring economic needs--unless you have an inheritance.
Certainly not for Gissing who was married twice and had a "common law" wife for the third! They say "write what you know" and I think Gissing is well versed in that thing "that never lasts on its own". LOL!
He is particularly unsuited to supporting a household. He can live very simply on very little and prefers to have his time to himself over a larger income. That works for the bachelor life, but not so well with a family. At least not without some other source of income, as you note. He seems to have attempted to discuss finances with Amy beforehand, but both were swept up in their romance and didn't exactly succeed in communicating. Gissing is providing a lot of insight too; I'm not sure how self aware these two are, or at least were during their courtship.
Thank you, Yiyun, for the glimpse of your father's reading room/library in China and how the idea of the place impressed you as a child. In this chapter, I liked seeing the trouble Reardon went through to get admittance and how the library, Milvain's "valley of the shadow of the books," becomes Reardon's place to emerge. (I'm actually in a reading room in a classical library at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece as I write this, as a matter of fact, and don't take the opportunity for granted).
Reardon's backstory reads like the sad novel he’d write. A lot of character, little planned plot. I was surprised by the sudden rush of the Reardon's love life. Ten weeks from meeting to marriage? But more than anything, I love the line; " .....[he] betook himself to the metropolis. To become a literary man, of course."
Decades later, so many New Yorkers drawn up in that single line.
Also....two other interesting bits of information, I'm wondering if people noticed. First, why was Reardon writing about Albius Tibullus (c. 54–19 B.C.), according to the not in my text a Roman poet, whose elegies celebrate the pleasures of a retired country existence? So different from what he seems to admire. Secondly, there is a description of "popular novels" being about "local color" and/or a specific class of society. Is there a dig at Dickens or the kind of popular novelist Dickens was?
I respect Dickins and his productivity and know he worked himself almost to death, but something about the description about local color and class made me wonder if it was a dig. And I agree with Maureen McG. that the comment may simply be observation. So much literature, high and low, could be summed up as social class and “local color.” Human animals like reading about other human animals....
The local color comment was interesting to me too. I don’t know if it’s a dig or just an observation. I think it’s still true. We see many lauded books illuminating a place and its people. I think the particularity is appealing to readers; it makes the story less abstract and more relatable, as all of our lives are made up of details, but also intriguing as the details and customs may be quite different from our own. But I might check out his article on Dickens... thanks for posting, Mary.
Greece is stunning, a mix of contemporary and ancient characters and sites that are so old and famous they don’t quite seem real at first. But then they are!
"he read French," and I'm reading Flaubert's love letters to Louise C. in Francis Steegmuller's translation, (and Kafka's letters to Milena is also on the docket). (I'm also reading against the cynicism in this virtual room)...so indulge me. Call me an old-fashioned romantic, fool, or even that dreaded writing workshop word, sentimental. There's something effusive about some forms of love, which is endearing. This morning, I was also listening to two men talk about Forster's Maurice, and came across the idea that there's "no scrim between those who live in penury and the world" - they live close to the bone, closer to the heart of life. It's an old saw, but a true one...poverty does give rise to poetry...and love...(and the love of poetry)...the danger in romanticizing poverty.
Sadly, extreme pain as you mention in poverty brings emotions to the surface and looks for expression as does raw emotion in general like anger i.e. Ginsberg, Plath, etc. I even think Gissing is angry. Forster said, "Only Connect" and these people expressing their emotions to the world help us connect our hearts to our heads. It is just so heartbreaking that so often the author's suffering continues.
Just playing the devil's advocate: Reardon did respond to Amy when she said "You will be a great man." by saying "I implore you not to count on that! In many ways I am wretchedly weak. I have no such confidence in myself." (insert red flag here) Earlier in the chapter it says "He, who hungered for sympathy, who thought of a woman's love as the prize of mortals supremely blessed..." "Hungered for sympathy" (insert another red flag here :) is an odd term to use which doesn't sound like a good basis for a happy relationship. And also, to be fair to Reardon, I think life is hard on the spouses of even successful writers or any other dedicated artist. Even Shakespeare, Joyce, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Cheever and so on. There is price to pay for great art. "Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage." :)
The narrator describes John Yule as an easy-going, selfish, semi-intellectual young man--such a strange, judgmental characterization. Who is this narrator?
There are moments, actually, when the POV kind of pans out suddenly. Reardon in this chapter is called “our author.” It’s interesting. Almost begins to sound/read like “meta-fiction.”
I felt this too, but could not quite place my finger on why Reardon as "our author" unveils a significant "knowing" to which we should attend. For me, the description of Reardon’s literary capabilities left me thinking that Reardon might ultimately be the author (standing in for Gissing) of New Grub Street, a sardonic interlocutor offering a satiric gaze on society. If he embraced his “intellectual fervour,” channeled the “passionate humility” manifested in “the peculiar merit of his work,” and continued the "strong characterization [that] was within his scope" and "marked his best pages," he might capture "a small section of refined readers." This felt like Gissing's inner rumination presented - as a challenge to readers - to find/experience the merit of writing unrestrained by plot. Grub Street has certainly captivated me due to this "peculiar merit." I fully agree with Yiyun's astute re-utterance, "No real life is lived by plot; only a murderer needs a plot." I presume neither Reardon, nor Gissing is a murder.
Love this line: "As for the poor author himself, well, he merely fell in love with Miss Yule at first sight, and there was an end of the matter." Such attention to word choice. The *poor* author, *merely* fell in love - suggest how much Reardon believed it all out of his control. The interjection of *well* to suggest there's a story coming, which ends abruptly with a simple clause *there was an end to the matter* - suggest that Reardon believed it was a fait d'accompli from the very start. But there was *an* end, not *the* end, which allows the narrator to continue, to show the reader that the fait d'accompli ending Reardon may have imagined was more complicated than it all at first appeared.
Question: "the hospital was of the 'special' order, a house of no great size" Does anyone have any idea what a "special" hospital is? The quotation marks feel significant but I can't understand why.
So Edwin incubates his talents in London ("his mother's desire to live in London had in him the force of an inherited motive...") on the cheap and find himself in his most productive state earning a pound a day - just enough to keep his head above water, since "Anything like the cares of responsibility would sooner or later harass him into unproductiveness."
"Solitude fostered a sensitiveness which to begin with was extreme; the lack of stated occupation encouraged his natural tendency to dream and procrastinate and hope for the improbable." Sometimes Reardon reminds me a bit of the narrator of Moby-Dick...
I find it interesting that Jasper says he and Amy are too much alike to fall for each other. They do share a sensibility, as well as ambition. But that makes me think they would be a successful couple, even a "power couple." She could cultivate contacts and help him win friends and admirers, and unlike Reardon, he would always have a plan, even when times are tough. However, people are often attracted to those who are different, ideally who complement them, though I think in many cases, the couple ends up being incompatible. (Opposites attract--and then attack.) Jasper doesn't want anyone to support, especially not someone as high maintenance as he views Amy as being, so it's a moot issue. But when he remarked on that, I could see them together, perhaps not unhappily, as long as there was money--which Jasper may prove no more adept at making than Reardon.
Here we get a more nuanced portrayal of how the market/money more subtly impact everything. Reardon is just as impacted by the need fame and money as Jasper. After his interview the successful author, Reardon “had had his first glimpse of what was meant by literary success. That luxurious study, with its shelves of handsomely-bound books, its beautiful pictures, its warm, fragrant air..” And his confidence grows with his attire “Reardon had formerly feared encounters of this kind, too conscious of the defects of his attire; but at present there was no reason why he should shirk social intercourse. He was passably dressed, and the half-year of travel had benefited his appearance in no slight degree.” Reardon and Jasper are not so far appears. It just that Jasper has no pretense about what the world of commerce requires.
I found Reardon's articulation of poverty's shadow haunting: "The chilling of brain and heart, this unnerving of the hands, the slow gathering about one of fear and shame and impotent wrath, the dread feeling of helplessness, of the world’s base indifference.” While he may not fully understand "what the world of commerce requires" the shadow poverty seems to envelop him in ways that seem to taunt him. I too was struck by his palpable response (desire for) "the luxurious study, with its shelves of handsomely-bound book," but even more so by the vision of possibility the "well-known novelist" presented to Reardonn: "his dwelling and his person smelt of money; he was so happy himself that he could afford to be kind to others." To me, Reardon appeared drawn to visceral reality of one's potential "to be kind to others."
Reardon may have made more bad decisions in a single chapter than I've seen in fiction. Single-minded pursuit of your art doesn't mean that you can ignore practical requirements of survival, nor does it mean that you can also opt for bourgeois lifestyle while ignoring economic needs--unless you have an inheritance.
But he was swept away by love! LOL....
That kind of thing never lasts on its own, does it.
Certainly not for Gissing who was married twice and had a "common law" wife for the third! They say "write what you know" and I think Gissing is well versed in that thing "that never lasts on its own". LOL!
He is particularly unsuited to supporting a household. He can live very simply on very little and prefers to have his time to himself over a larger income. That works for the bachelor life, but not so well with a family. At least not without some other source of income, as you note. He seems to have attempted to discuss finances with Amy beforehand, but both were swept up in their romance and didn't exactly succeed in communicating. Gissing is providing a lot of insight too; I'm not sure how self aware these two are, or at least were during their courtship.
Thank you, Yiyun, for the glimpse of your father's reading room/library in China and how the idea of the place impressed you as a child. In this chapter, I liked seeing the trouble Reardon went through to get admittance and how the library, Milvain's "valley of the shadow of the books," becomes Reardon's place to emerge. (I'm actually in a reading room in a classical library at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece as I write this, as a matter of fact, and don't take the opportunity for granted).
Reardon's backstory reads like the sad novel he’d write. A lot of character, little planned plot. I was surprised by the sudden rush of the Reardon's love life. Ten weeks from meeting to marriage? But more than anything, I love the line; " .....[he] betook himself to the metropolis. To become a literary man, of course."
Decades later, so many New Yorkers drawn up in that single line.
Also....two other interesting bits of information, I'm wondering if people noticed. First, why was Reardon writing about Albius Tibullus (c. 54–19 B.C.), according to the not in my text a Roman poet, whose elegies celebrate the pleasures of a retired country existence? So different from what he seems to admire. Secondly, there is a description of "popular novels" being about "local color" and/or a specific class of society. Is there a dig at Dickens or the kind of popular novelist Dickens was?
You could be right. Gissing wrote: Dickens: A Critical Study in 1898 https://www.amazon.com/Charles-Dickens-Critical-George-Gissing/dp/1530975018
Looks like the text is avail online if you want to scan through it: http://victorian-studies.net/GG-CD-1.html#:~:text=That%20his%20lack%20of%20education,books%20there%20is%20no%20denying.
Thanks for the link! Will read!
From the Amazon description it sounds like Dickens worked very hard, we know how productive he was, and our poor Mr. R seemed to find that impossible.
I respect Dickins and his productivity and know he worked himself almost to death, but something about the description about local color and class made me wonder if it was a dig. And I agree with Maureen McG. that the comment may simply be observation. So much literature, high and low, could be summed up as social class and “local color.” Human animals like reading about other human animals....
That kind of productivity is easy to hate!
The local color comment was interesting to me too. I don’t know if it’s a dig or just an observation. I think it’s still true. We see many lauded books illuminating a place and its people. I think the particularity is appealing to readers; it makes the story less abstract and more relatable, as all of our lives are made up of details, but also intriguing as the details and customs may be quite different from our own. But I might check out his article on Dickens... thanks for posting, Mary.
Enjoy Greece! Love how Reardon thought that his beloved should learn Latin and Greece to enhance their communication.
Greece is stunning, a mix of contemporary and ancient characters and sites that are so old and famous they don’t quite seem real at first. But then they are!
I’m going o Greece in April after 50 years. Can’t wait!
"he read French," and I'm reading Flaubert's love letters to Louise C. in Francis Steegmuller's translation, (and Kafka's letters to Milena is also on the docket). (I'm also reading against the cynicism in this virtual room)...so indulge me. Call me an old-fashioned romantic, fool, or even that dreaded writing workshop word, sentimental. There's something effusive about some forms of love, which is endearing. This morning, I was also listening to two men talk about Forster's Maurice, and came across the idea that there's "no scrim between those who live in penury and the world" - they live close to the bone, closer to the heart of life. It's an old saw, but a true one...poverty does give rise to poetry...and love...(and the love of poetry)...the danger in romanticizing poverty.
Sadly, extreme pain as you mention in poverty brings emotions to the surface and looks for expression as does raw emotion in general like anger i.e. Ginsberg, Plath, etc. I even think Gissing is angry. Forster said, "Only Connect" and these people expressing their emotions to the world help us connect our hearts to our heads. It is just so heartbreaking that so often the author's suffering continues.
True....
Just playing the devil's advocate: Reardon did respond to Amy when she said "You will be a great man." by saying "I implore you not to count on that! In many ways I am wretchedly weak. I have no such confidence in myself." (insert red flag here) Earlier in the chapter it says "He, who hungered for sympathy, who thought of a woman's love as the prize of mortals supremely blessed..." "Hungered for sympathy" (insert another red flag here :) is an odd term to use which doesn't sound like a good basis for a happy relationship. And also, to be fair to Reardon, I think life is hard on the spouses of even successful writers or any other dedicated artist. Even Shakespeare, Joyce, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Cheever and so on. There is price to pay for great art. "Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage." :)
The narrator describes John Yule as an easy-going, selfish, semi-intellectual young man--such a strange, judgmental characterization. Who is this narrator?
There are moments, actually, when the POV kind of pans out suddenly. Reardon in this chapter is called “our author.” It’s interesting. Almost begins to sound/read like “meta-fiction.”
I agree (now that I’ve looked up meta-fiction). Will be interesting to watch the narrator throughout.
I was confused to this line about John Yule for another reason. Isn’t he a generation older than Reardon? Why is he called a young man?
I think that the younger brother Edmund had two children--Amy and John (the selfish one).
I felt this too, but could not quite place my finger on why Reardon as "our author" unveils a significant "knowing" to which we should attend. For me, the description of Reardon’s literary capabilities left me thinking that Reardon might ultimately be the author (standing in for Gissing) of New Grub Street, a sardonic interlocutor offering a satiric gaze on society. If he embraced his “intellectual fervour,” channeled the “passionate humility” manifested in “the peculiar merit of his work,” and continued the "strong characterization [that] was within his scope" and "marked his best pages," he might capture "a small section of refined readers." This felt like Gissing's inner rumination presented - as a challenge to readers - to find/experience the merit of writing unrestrained by plot. Grub Street has certainly captivated me due to this "peculiar merit." I fully agree with Yiyun's astute re-utterance, "No real life is lived by plot; only a murderer needs a plot." I presume neither Reardon, nor Gissing is a murder.
Agree - that description of John Yule doesn’t jibe with the philistine in dressing coat that confronted Jasper with his anti-intellectual screed
All I could think was that Amy had a brother also named John... but wasn't she described elsewhere as an only child?
Ch 2 states Edmund had two children--I assume John and Amy.
Love this line: "As for the poor author himself, well, he merely fell in love with Miss Yule at first sight, and there was an end of the matter." Such attention to word choice. The *poor* author, *merely* fell in love - suggest how much Reardon believed it all out of his control. The interjection of *well* to suggest there's a story coming, which ends abruptly with a simple clause *there was an end to the matter* - suggest that Reardon believed it was a fait d'accompli from the very start. But there was *an* end, not *the* end, which allows the narrator to continue, to show the reader that the fait d'accompli ending Reardon may have imagined was more complicated than it all at first appeared.
Question: "the hospital was of the 'special' order, a house of no great size" Does anyone have any idea what a "special" hospital is? The quotation marks feel significant but I can't understand why.
So Edwin incubates his talents in London ("his mother's desire to live in London had in him the force of an inherited motive...") on the cheap and find himself in his most productive state earning a pound a day - just enough to keep his head above water, since "Anything like the cares of responsibility would sooner or later harass him into unproductiveness."
"Solitude fostered a sensitiveness which to begin with was extreme; the lack of stated occupation encouraged his natural tendency to dream and procrastinate and hope for the improbable." Sometimes Reardon reminds me a bit of the narrator of Moby-Dick...
Again confirms my idea of marriages in novels that people get married for little or no reason. For the plot, Reardon.
I find it interesting that Jasper says he and Amy are too much alike to fall for each other. They do share a sensibility, as well as ambition. But that makes me think they would be a successful couple, even a "power couple." She could cultivate contacts and help him win friends and admirers, and unlike Reardon, he would always have a plan, even when times are tough. However, people are often attracted to those who are different, ideally who complement them, though I think in many cases, the couple ends up being incompatible. (Opposites attract--and then attack.) Jasper doesn't want anyone to support, especially not someone as high maintenance as he views Amy as being, so it's a moot issue. But when he remarked on that, I could see them together, perhaps not unhappily, as long as there was money--which Jasper may prove no more adept at making than Reardon.
Here we get a more nuanced portrayal of how the market/money more subtly impact everything. Reardon is just as impacted by the need fame and money as Jasper. After his interview the successful author, Reardon “had had his first glimpse of what was meant by literary success. That luxurious study, with its shelves of handsomely-bound books, its beautiful pictures, its warm, fragrant air..” And his confidence grows with his attire “Reardon had formerly feared encounters of this kind, too conscious of the defects of his attire; but at present there was no reason why he should shirk social intercourse. He was passably dressed, and the half-year of travel had benefited his appearance in no slight degree.” Reardon and Jasper are not so far appears. It just that Jasper has no pretense about what the world of commerce requires.
I found Reardon's articulation of poverty's shadow haunting: "The chilling of brain and heart, this unnerving of the hands, the slow gathering about one of fear and shame and impotent wrath, the dread feeling of helplessness, of the world’s base indifference.” While he may not fully understand "what the world of commerce requires" the shadow poverty seems to envelop him in ways that seem to taunt him. I too was struck by his palpable response (desire for) "the luxurious study, with its shelves of handsomely-bound book," but even more so by the vision of possibility the "well-known novelist" presented to Reardonn: "his dwelling and his person smelt of money; he was so happy himself that he could afford to be kind to others." To me, Reardon appeared drawn to visceral reality of one's potential "to be kind to others."