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A review by biaseelaender
New Grub Street by George Gissing
3.0
Ok, I'm not finished yet, but I'm pretty sure what's going to happen, and I really don't want it to happen, so... Yep, Wikipedia just confirmed my suspicions. Then again, this is a book about desillusion, so what was I expecting? It's so brutal and hopeless, and of course its critics of capitalism and materialism are clearly coded, but so is the idea that realistically, money comes first. So we should just settle.
I'm reading this for my History of the Novel class, and the whole point is for us to understand the sense of pessimism towards the end of the 19th century which reflected in the practical difficulties of characters. Same old meritocracy myth, except they were just finding out that no one became successful for his or her actual talents, but through unmerciful self-promotion and some luck. In this world, everthing is money. This is a work of realism, after all.
Why should art suffer through this? Why should we accept all twlights and 50 shades and whatever commercialized shit comes our way? This book is infuriating because it depicts reality.
And it's not some naturalistic bullshit in which all there is are bodies and pain and half-people, or factories and sex and cheating and shitting. No, there are feelings; strong feelings. They just aren't stronger than money.
There's no way out, really- you can't even judge them. Except for Jasper, but at least he wasn't a hypocrite, like everyone else. Oh, look, I just judged everybody. I may as well do it here, for judgement is frowned upon in academic literary analysis. Anyway, their positions, though revolting, were understandable.
I just don't agree with my professor that this book has a comical resolution in the sense that "one of the main characters is alright"- comical in the sense that a character has either accepted the distance between his ideals and reality. First of all, because Jasper's ideal is reality, and second of all, because how dare she say this is alright? No one is happy, they are content. Maybe I'm an idealist still- but it is more poetic to die rather than compromise oneself to a lifetime of mediocrity for money.
I'm reading this for my History of the Novel class, and the whole point is for us to understand the sense of pessimism towards the end of the 19th century which reflected in the practical difficulties of characters. Same old meritocracy myth, except they were just finding out that no one became successful for his or her actual talents, but through unmerciful self-promotion and some luck. In this world, everthing is money. This is a work of realism, after all.
Why should art suffer through this? Why should we accept all twlights and 50 shades and whatever commercialized shit comes our way? This book is infuriating because it depicts reality.
And it's not some naturalistic bullshit in which all there is are bodies and pain and half-people, or factories and sex and cheating and shitting. No, there are feelings; strong feelings. They just aren't stronger than money.
There's no way out, really- you can't even judge them. Except for Jasper, but at least he wasn't a hypocrite, like everyone else. Oh, look, I just judged everybody. I may as well do it here, for judgement is frowned upon in academic literary analysis. Anyway, their positions, though revolting, were understandable.
I just don't agree with my professor that this book has a comical resolution in the sense that "one of the main characters is alright"- comical in the sense that a character has either accepted the distance between his ideals and reality. First of all, because Jasper's ideal is reality, and second of all, because how dare she say this is alright? No one is happy, they are content. Maybe I'm an idealist still- but it is more poetic to die rather than compromise oneself to a lifetime of mediocrity for money.