Sunday, September 09, 2012
New Grub Street
Just finished Gissing's 'New Grub Street', which I think will be my last trip with this once popular author, at least for the time being. Might be good stuff, good portraits from his life and times - but all very sad and dreary.
This book was a tale of struggling literary people at the end of the 19th century. The people - mainly but not only men, many of them with solid classical education (scarcely relevant to whacking out pot boilers) - who tried to scratch a living in the middle ground between journalism and serious novel writing; people who were not good enough or lucky enough to be able to write annual novels which were both good and successful. For every Trollope there were pots of strugglers & stragglers - and even he, for much of his writing career, had the cushion of his Post Office salary to fall back on when the muse failed him.
As in the 'Netherworld', Gissing spends a lot of ink explaining that poverty does bad things to the morals. Much easier to be decent when one has an allowance or inheritance to live decent, without scrimping and saving every last crust.
All seemed very autobiographical. One felt that he had done his crusts in a cold garret. That he had thought, often enough, about ending it all - as one chap does in this book.
And then there was the sex problem. Gissing seems to recognise that most young people need a sex life, without quite spelling it out. But if one was middle class the only way to get one was to marry. But if one was lower middle class, say a struggling literary gent., one could not afford to marry, unless one was able to marry money. As a bachelor one could live for very little, smart enough on the outside but cold garret on the inside, but this would not do if one married a middle class lady who - even if she married for love - would expect to live with a bit more style and who would not put up with what most working class ladies had to put up with. The alternative was to marry an aspirational working class lady who would look up to one, live in a garret now in hope of something better later - with the catch being that said lady might become a bit tiresome once initial passion had run its course. Vulgar & common even. Gissing, having done this sort of thing himself, was able to wax very eloquent on the whole subject.
And even I remember that at about the time I married, aspirational working men regarded getting married as the death of their hopes. Instead of marching onwards and upwards they would be dragged down into a sea of damp nappies and screaming children. On which subject, in writing from the 19th century, one quite often comes across sentiments about so and so being lucky either because they did not have many if any children or because not many if any of them survived. Didn't get so dewy eyed about babies in those days, not if one could help it.
Along the way I was struck by the shift in the meaning of literature over the years. Originally literature was an attribute of a person. One had literature if one was acquainted with books and learning. It then came to mean the business of producing same. Literature became an occupation: I work at literature. Then it came to mean some of the product, just the books themselves, leaving the products of other sorts of literary endeavour out. And lastly, it came to its present meaning of just those books which are deemed to be worthy. Worthy enough to be published in one or other of the collections of world literature or world classics. Or worthy enough to be made into a costume drama. Or even worthy enough not to be read by anyone under the age of fifty; far too worthy (and therefore dull) for anyone younger.
PS: my own father chickened out. He might have had arty interests but his line was that, certainly for most people, art should be a hobby not a profession. Make the money to buy your books by working as a house painter (or whatever). Don't try to write the books to make the money to buy the bread. There is also the point that many a good hobby has been spoilt by making an occupation of it. Takes all the fun out of it. Unless, of course, one is a genius.
This book was a tale of struggling literary people at the end of the 19th century. The people - mainly but not only men, many of them with solid classical education (scarcely relevant to whacking out pot boilers) - who tried to scratch a living in the middle ground between journalism and serious novel writing; people who were not good enough or lucky enough to be able to write annual novels which were both good and successful. For every Trollope there were pots of strugglers & stragglers - and even he, for much of his writing career, had the cushion of his Post Office salary to fall back on when the muse failed him.
As in the 'Netherworld', Gissing spends a lot of ink explaining that poverty does bad things to the morals. Much easier to be decent when one has an allowance or inheritance to live decent, without scrimping and saving every last crust.
All seemed very autobiographical. One felt that he had done his crusts in a cold garret. That he had thought, often enough, about ending it all - as one chap does in this book.
And then there was the sex problem. Gissing seems to recognise that most young people need a sex life, without quite spelling it out. But if one was middle class the only way to get one was to marry. But if one was lower middle class, say a struggling literary gent., one could not afford to marry, unless one was able to marry money. As a bachelor one could live for very little, smart enough on the outside but cold garret on the inside, but this would not do if one married a middle class lady who - even if she married for love - would expect to live with a bit more style and who would not put up with what most working class ladies had to put up with. The alternative was to marry an aspirational working class lady who would look up to one, live in a garret now in hope of something better later - with the catch being that said lady might become a bit tiresome once initial passion had run its course. Vulgar & common even. Gissing, having done this sort of thing himself, was able to wax very eloquent on the whole subject.
And even I remember that at about the time I married, aspirational working men regarded getting married as the death of their hopes. Instead of marching onwards and upwards they would be dragged down into a sea of damp nappies and screaming children. On which subject, in writing from the 19th century, one quite often comes across sentiments about so and so being lucky either because they did not have many if any children or because not many if any of them survived. Didn't get so dewy eyed about babies in those days, not if one could help it.
Along the way I was struck by the shift in the meaning of literature over the years. Originally literature was an attribute of a person. One had literature if one was acquainted with books and learning. It then came to mean the business of producing same. Literature became an occupation: I work at literature. Then it came to mean some of the product, just the books themselves, leaving the products of other sorts of literary endeavour out. And lastly, it came to its present meaning of just those books which are deemed to be worthy. Worthy enough to be published in one or other of the collections of world literature or world classics. Or worthy enough to be made into a costume drama. Or even worthy enough not to be read by anyone under the age of fifty; far too worthy (and therefore dull) for anyone younger.
PS: my own father chickened out. He might have had arty interests but his line was that, certainly for most people, art should be a hobby not a profession. Make the money to buy your books by working as a house painter (or whatever). Don't try to write the books to make the money to buy the bread. There is also the point that many a good hobby has been spoilt by making an occupation of it. Takes all the fun out of it. Unless, of course, one is a genius.
# posted by Jim @ 12:30 AM 
