I feel that so much of who we are and the choices wemake are a culmination of our birth, upbringing and life events. Amy has said “I can’t help the way I feel” and I believe that and it is true for all the characters. I understand individual responsibility but am conflicted regarding how much free will we actually have. Everyone is coping with the hands they are dealt and Gissing captures this so well. I think the various reader responses probably reflect our own pasts. This really is a social study on human behavior.
My soft spot for Biffen continues. Biffen's ironic realism, layered with his natural dignity, captured my heart, and made me want to weep simultaneously: “I don’t think I should be unhappy in the workhouse. I should have a certain satisfaction in the thought that I had forced society to support me. And then the absolute freedom from care! Why it’s very much the same as being a man of independent fortune."
My appreciation for Gissing's skill in creating complex characters that compel a reader to grapple with the shaping of a humane society, while living with dignity in an imperfect one increases daily.
I find it interesting that both Amy and Edwin justify their obstinate paths in opposite circumstances.
Amy's feelings of obligation to rejoin Edwin by sharing her windfall are driven by the pressures of her family situation and how she will appear socially. Her refusal to tell Edwin she loves him seems less like authenticity and more like staking out her place of power in the relationship, if there is to be a relationship.
Edwin forsakes his opportunity to live and work in comfort and perhaps restore his relationship with Amy and his son, romanticizing his isolation in poverty by resorting to intellectual gratifications and denouncing love, even as it's the one thing he demands from Amy.
Biffen, from his point of view (and ours?) sees tragic behavior on both sides, and metaphorically shakes his head at the slight changes required from each of them that could create a shared future with much more promise than the lives their transient pride destines them to.
In rejecting Amy's overture, Ewin achieves a kind of aescetic virtue. Now that Amy has financial security, and Victorian England's laws and mores being what they are, clearly she does not want to reunite because she loves him. Indeed, the agony of poverty was enough to alienate her notwithstanding the legal and social pressures. Pure love is not enough to keep them together. But is Edwin being realistic? Would any monogamous relationship last a long time on his terms?
I was thinking this morning that this book was of course written before WWI and thus in some kind of pristine world even if sullied by poverty and pollution (the "fog" mentioned at the end of this chapter is not just fog, and perhaps Reardon has early signs of TB, I can't help wondering).
Amy does the right - in the sense of propriety - thing in offering herself to him again, and he does the right thing, in the sense of morality, in refusing her offer.
Reardon's story of the Grecian rainbow and what it meant to him as opposed to the passing travails of love make him seem as unfit for romance as Amy feels scorn for the nonsense printed in popular novels.
Is it poverty that destroyed their relationship, or rather, how each of them responded to it? Either way the relationship is over and both are on securer financial ground.
But Reardon might have sealed his fate by letting himself go so far off the rails in the name of the love he now thinks means so little in the big scheme of things.
I was touched by his offer to take Biffen on a holiday with him. I only wish he hadn't said in two years! Time seems of the essence here!
In their elaborate dance, Amy and Reardon’s back and forth is now love/don’t love, live together/don’t live together. My Oxford Classics note hints that Amy is setting Edwin up for divorce due to abandonment if he won’t agree to living together. In any case, Amy is no longer in love. It does make sense to me that such a disappointment at a young age would lead to the bitterness she expressed.
I don’t think Reardon will live too long. I agree with Amanda he may have TB. Whether Amy and Jasper will end up together, I can’t guess. If they do, it will be based on disillusionment and cynicism. We’ll see what happens with Marian soon enough.
first, if you haven't checked out the map of london poverty circa 1889 in the book of your edition (mine is oxford's world classics), do it. i like the colorful descriptions like 'Vicious, semi-criminal' and 'Ordinary earnings'.
second, reardon is definitely not mentally ill, he's just a wreck without amy/willie. they are the support that helped him write, methinks. his refusal to cross the bridge that amy has basically constructed on her own is so infuriating. i'm not saying amy doesn't have her faults, but reardon occupies last place in my ranking of characters' likeability in this novel.
Biden refuses to judge - only observe the reality of the literary world.
"‘What does it matter? We are different types of intellectual workers. I think of them savagely now and then, but only when hunger gets a trifle too keen. Their work answers a demand; ours — or mine at all events — doesn’t." Compare Readon's lamenting his fate.
On one hand, I was beyond frustrated with Reardon's reply to Amy's letter. Love isn't going to develop again if they keep trading these passive-aggressive notes. Mrs. Yule is wise, I think, when she says, "Between two such sensitive people differences might last a lifetime, unless one could be persuaded to take the first step." But they need to be in each other's presence. I think they're ill-matched, but part of me, like Biffin, has hope, if they could both take that first, humbling step. Unfortunately, Reardon doesn't hear this at all.
On the other hand, Reardon has achieved a sort of beleaguered peace on his own, and maybe no longer wants the turmoil of a relationship. "I have been as nearly as possible a happy man all to-day," he tells Biffin at one point; the sun is shining and his mood is good. For Reardon, that's extraordinary. He is capable of taking pleasure in a sunset and dreaming over Shakespeare. As Biffin says, they are "passive beings...meant to enjoy life very quietly." And Reardon is ready to be done with "sexual emotion." Hard to say if such peace is a morbid state or a healthy acceptance of what he cannot change, enabling him to take pleasure in what he can. He is not the sort to strive to win Amy back, in any case, or humble himself to accept what she's offering--which is what she's capable of offering at present but may not be all she has to offer forever.
Then there's Sykes: "in an evil day I began to write three-volume novels , aiming at reputation. It wouldn't do. I persevered for five years, and made about five failures." An oft-repeated story, and many people labor for much longer without result (i.e. recognition or remuneration). I heard a podcast interview recently with a professor of philosophy who said he spent a third of his life trying to write novels. "That went nowhere," he summarized. (If philosophy proves the more practical profession, wow.)
I’m not a fiction writer, but a lover of learning, languages, and literature, so I have to say this is one of my favorite chapters. The elevated style of Idealist Reardpn’s , like that of Euripides, expression of his memories, the ironic style Realist Biffen, whose dislike of reminiscing because he doesn’t want to think of a great error he made in the past, and maybe because it’s sentimental, contrast with Drunkard Sykes writing his autobiography
Biffen seems to have such a remarkable tolerance for Reardon's views. I would describe Biffen as 'steadfast', a constant presence whose clear mind and differing life view do not deter him from remaining at Reardon's side. We should all have such a friend!
Oops! To continue: are important literary terms to discuss in this novel about Grub Street writing. Reardon’s and Biffen’s shared love for and pleasure in Euripides are illustrated in their half hour of discussion of a “difficulty” in one of the “Fragments of Euripides,” (which Biffen carries in his pocket) fragments being a sizable collection of Euripides extant work, besides the 19 of his 75-90 plays composed during the Hellenic period. And again, their ten minute attention to a metrical effect in one of his lines. Reardon’s expressions of “by Apollo,” “as Pallas Athens,” beauty and wisdom, and “By all the gods of Olympus” are much more hopeful than his “by Pluto!” From a more depressed state in an earlier chapter.
His memories of Greece are the longest paragraphs I can remember from him: “The best moments of life are those when we contemplate beauty in the purely artistic spirit--objectively...,” “Reardon’s face was illumined with the glow of an exquisite memory.” Biffen says, “You remember it very clearly.” “ Poverty can’t rob me of those memories. I have lived in an ideal world that was not deceitful, a world which seems to me, when I recall it, beyond the human sphere, bathed in diviner light.”
“What does it matter? We are different types of intellectual workers.” “Here we sit, two literary men.” These lines uttered “in a thick fog,” “in a foggy street,” and “Ugh! The first mouthful of fog!” I am delighted by these recognitions. Indeed, they’re not in the Grub Street “formulas.”
These clear memories contrast strongly with R’s meager imagination and life experiences. He’s clearly not in a supportive element.
Is Sykes’ autobiography Chekov’s loaded gun? I hope so.
I also think Gissing knew his Euripides. I would go on but...
I’m in Hawaii now so am many hours behind most of you but will speak my piece anyway. First, I’m not sure anymore that antidepressants would solve Reardon’s problems. He’s constitutionally weak, unrealistic, self-pitying, and interested only in himself. All he wants from Amy is for her to love him and he offers her nothing. And he has no feeling whatsoever for his own son! His poverty is debilitating, no doubt, but he’s likely going to be the same person if and when he goes to Croydon.
As for Amy, I don’t think she’s driven by status, per se, but rather just wants to have a decent life not tied to a terrible person like Reardon. Yet despite this, she offers to return to him. She’s lucky he turns her down.
I feel that so much of who we are and the choices wemake are a culmination of our birth, upbringing and life events. Amy has said “I can’t help the way I feel” and I believe that and it is true for all the characters. I understand individual responsibility but am conflicted regarding how much free will we actually have. Everyone is coping with the hands they are dealt and Gissing captures this so well. I think the various reader responses probably reflect our own pasts. This really is a social study on human behavior.
My soft spot for Biffen continues. Biffen's ironic realism, layered with his natural dignity, captured my heart, and made me want to weep simultaneously: “I don’t think I should be unhappy in the workhouse. I should have a certain satisfaction in the thought that I had forced society to support me. And then the absolute freedom from care! Why it’s very much the same as being a man of independent fortune."
My appreciation for Gissing's skill in creating complex characters that compel a reader to grapple with the shaping of a humane society, while living with dignity in an imperfect one increases daily.
I find it interesting that both Amy and Edwin justify their obstinate paths in opposite circumstances.
Amy's feelings of obligation to rejoin Edwin by sharing her windfall are driven by the pressures of her family situation and how she will appear socially. Her refusal to tell Edwin she loves him seems less like authenticity and more like staking out her place of power in the relationship, if there is to be a relationship.
Edwin forsakes his opportunity to live and work in comfort and perhaps restore his relationship with Amy and his son, romanticizing his isolation in poverty by resorting to intellectual gratifications and denouncing love, even as it's the one thing he demands from Amy.
Biffen, from his point of view (and ours?) sees tragic behavior on both sides, and metaphorically shakes his head at the slight changes required from each of them that could create a shared future with much more promise than the lives their transient pride destines them to.
In rejecting Amy's overture, Ewin achieves a kind of aescetic virtue. Now that Amy has financial security, and Victorian England's laws and mores being what they are, clearly she does not want to reunite because she loves him. Indeed, the agony of poverty was enough to alienate her notwithstanding the legal and social pressures. Pure love is not enough to keep them together. But is Edwin being realistic? Would any monogamous relationship last a long time on his terms?
I was thinking this morning that this book was of course written before WWI and thus in some kind of pristine world even if sullied by poverty and pollution (the "fog" mentioned at the end of this chapter is not just fog, and perhaps Reardon has early signs of TB, I can't help wondering).
Amy does the right - in the sense of propriety - thing in offering herself to him again, and he does the right thing, in the sense of morality, in refusing her offer.
Reardon's story of the Grecian rainbow and what it meant to him as opposed to the passing travails of love make him seem as unfit for romance as Amy feels scorn for the nonsense printed in popular novels.
Is it poverty that destroyed their relationship, or rather, how each of them responded to it? Either way the relationship is over and both are on securer financial ground.
But Reardon might have sealed his fate by letting himself go so far off the rails in the name of the love he now thinks means so little in the big scheme of things.
I was touched by his offer to take Biffen on a holiday with him. I only wish he hadn't said in two years! Time seems of the essence here!
In their elaborate dance, Amy and Reardon’s back and forth is now love/don’t love, live together/don’t live together. My Oxford Classics note hints that Amy is setting Edwin up for divorce due to abandonment if he won’t agree to living together. In any case, Amy is no longer in love. It does make sense to me that such a disappointment at a young age would lead to the bitterness she expressed.
I don’t think Reardon will live too long. I agree with Amanda he may have TB. Whether Amy and Jasper will end up together, I can’t guess. If they do, it will be based on disillusionment and cynicism. We’ll see what happens with Marian soon enough.
first, if you haven't checked out the map of london poverty circa 1889 in the book of your edition (mine is oxford's world classics), do it. i like the colorful descriptions like 'Vicious, semi-criminal' and 'Ordinary earnings'.
second, reardon is definitely not mentally ill, he's just a wreck without amy/willie. they are the support that helped him write, methinks. his refusal to cross the bridge that amy has basically constructed on her own is so infuriating. i'm not saying amy doesn't have her faults, but reardon occupies last place in my ranking of characters' likeability in this novel.
Biden refuses to judge - only observe the reality of the literary world.
"‘What does it matter? We are different types of intellectual workers. I think of them savagely now and then, but only when hunger gets a trifle too keen. Their work answers a demand; ours — or mine at all events — doesn’t." Compare Readon's lamenting his fate.
On one hand, I was beyond frustrated with Reardon's reply to Amy's letter. Love isn't going to develop again if they keep trading these passive-aggressive notes. Mrs. Yule is wise, I think, when she says, "Between two such sensitive people differences might last a lifetime, unless one could be persuaded to take the first step." But they need to be in each other's presence. I think they're ill-matched, but part of me, like Biffin, has hope, if they could both take that first, humbling step. Unfortunately, Reardon doesn't hear this at all.
On the other hand, Reardon has achieved a sort of beleaguered peace on his own, and maybe no longer wants the turmoil of a relationship. "I have been as nearly as possible a happy man all to-day," he tells Biffin at one point; the sun is shining and his mood is good. For Reardon, that's extraordinary. He is capable of taking pleasure in a sunset and dreaming over Shakespeare. As Biffin says, they are "passive beings...meant to enjoy life very quietly." And Reardon is ready to be done with "sexual emotion." Hard to say if such peace is a morbid state or a healthy acceptance of what he cannot change, enabling him to take pleasure in what he can. He is not the sort to strive to win Amy back, in any case, or humble himself to accept what she's offering--which is what she's capable of offering at present but may not be all she has to offer forever.
Then there's Sykes: "in an evil day I began to write three-volume novels , aiming at reputation. It wouldn't do. I persevered for five years, and made about five failures." An oft-repeated story, and many people labor for much longer without result (i.e. recognition or remuneration). I heard a podcast interview recently with a professor of philosophy who said he spent a third of his life trying to write novels. "That went nowhere," he summarized. (If philosophy proves the more practical profession, wow.)
I’m not a fiction writer, but a lover of learning, languages, and literature, so I have to say this is one of my favorite chapters. The elevated style of Idealist Reardpn’s , like that of Euripides, expression of his memories, the ironic style Realist Biffen, whose dislike of reminiscing because he doesn’t want to think of a great error he made in the past, and maybe because it’s sentimental, contrast with Drunkard Sykes writing his autobiography
Sorry, not done yet. Pushed the wrong button before I got to unpack that sentence. Anyway, the memory, reminiscence, and autobiograhiy
Biffen seems to have such a remarkable tolerance for Reardon's views. I would describe Biffen as 'steadfast', a constant presence whose clear mind and differing life view do not deter him from remaining at Reardon's side. We should all have such a friend!
Oops! To continue: are important literary terms to discuss in this novel about Grub Street writing. Reardon’s and Biffen’s shared love for and pleasure in Euripides are illustrated in their half hour of discussion of a “difficulty” in one of the “Fragments of Euripides,” (which Biffen carries in his pocket) fragments being a sizable collection of Euripides extant work, besides the 19 of his 75-90 plays composed during the Hellenic period. And again, their ten minute attention to a metrical effect in one of his lines. Reardon’s expressions of “by Apollo,” “as Pallas Athens,” beauty and wisdom, and “By all the gods of Olympus” are much more hopeful than his “by Pluto!” From a more depressed state in an earlier chapter.
His memories of Greece are the longest paragraphs I can remember from him: “The best moments of life are those when we contemplate beauty in the purely artistic spirit--objectively...,” “Reardon’s face was illumined with the glow of an exquisite memory.” Biffen says, “You remember it very clearly.” “ Poverty can’t rob me of those memories. I have lived in an ideal world that was not deceitful, a world which seems to me, when I recall it, beyond the human sphere, bathed in diviner light.”
“What does it matter? We are different types of intellectual workers.” “Here we sit, two literary men.” These lines uttered “in a thick fog,” “in a foggy street,” and “Ugh! The first mouthful of fog!” I am delighted by these recognitions. Indeed, they’re not in the Grub Street “formulas.”
These clear memories contrast strongly with R’s meager imagination and life experiences. He’s clearly not in a supportive element.
Is Sykes’ autobiography Chekov’s loaded gun? I hope so.
I also think Gissing knew his Euripides. I would go on but...
I’m in Hawaii now so am many hours behind most of you but will speak my piece anyway. First, I’m not sure anymore that antidepressants would solve Reardon’s problems. He’s constitutionally weak, unrealistic, self-pitying, and interested only in himself. All he wants from Amy is for her to love him and he offers her nothing. And he has no feeling whatsoever for his own son! His poverty is debilitating, no doubt, but he’s likely going to be the same person if and when he goes to Croydon.
As for Amy, I don’t think she’s driven by status, per se, but rather just wants to have a decent life not tied to a terrible person like Reardon. Yet despite this, she offers to return to him. She’s lucky he turns her down.
I wish I could give Biffen some food! A nice hot meal plus a full larder. Sigh.