Victorians! discussion
Archived Group Reads 2015
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New Grub Street Part 1 - Chapters I-VII
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Marian seems alright. But that just means she's probably doomed. :P
It is too dialogue heavy for me, I like conversation to be interspersed with good narrative. Although I downloaded a Kindle copy and started reading I have decided to continue by listening to a dramatised reading on Youtube. That way I miss all those pesky quotation marks:)I was amused to find the family eating bread (toast?) and marmalade at breakfast, still a staple of the British diet.
Madge wrote: "It is too dialogue heavy for me."Maybe this is the origin of the expression "the chattering classes"?!
Well, I'm five chapters in and am enjoying it so far. I can see what Renee means about the characters seeming to be weak losers, but I want to know more about them and their lives. Also Gissing's writing style is not as 'heavy' as some Victorian authors which is an advantage :)
Maybe:)It is perhaps appropriate that we should begin our read at a time when the press and what it publishes is being widely discussed. Nous sommes Charlie!
Gissing magines an industrialisation of writing and a pandering to the limited expectations and tastes of the masses. Through Marian he takes this notion further and imagines a writing machine but not one that could print 3 million copies for worldwide circulation on a single day:
'But surely before long some Edison would make the true automaton; the problem must be comparatively such a simple one. Only to throw in a given number of old books, and have them reduced, blended, modernised into a single one for today’s consumption.'
From our background comments and introduction, coupled with the overlap of recent events, this book is very timely. Jasper is certainly caught up in the thirst to make money from the first chapter. He discusses the "advantages of money" and then he later comments that "literature is a trade" and "writing is a business."
I like the way Gissing balances Jasper's outlook with Reardon's,whose discipline and focus is to create a novel that will have lasting merit rather than momentary value. The question that Gissing is setting up for his readers in these early chapters is which approach Will be most successful,how does one measure success in writing, and to what extent, or to what depths, must one experience their individual goals.
There is more than a bit of irony in the fact that Reardon sees his failures multiplying after the publication of his novel titled The Optimist.I do wonder, however, how true Reardon's comment is that "All that is wrong is my accursed want of money." This question I think will hover over our entire reading of this novel. How true is it that money can, if not create talent, at least allow someone with talent to survive until they find traction within their field.
Renee wrote: "... So far I haven't found any likable characters....Jasper Milvain seems as flinty of spirt as his name. ..."I actually sort of like him. He's a bit irreverent and frivolous, and hardly kind to his mother, but he's got character and interest. He is a bit of a Bunthorne.
Madge wrote: "I was amused to find the family eating bread (toast?) and marmalade at breakfast, still a staple of the British diet. "While I eat English muffins and Oxford marmalade for breakfast.
Helen_in_the_uk wrote: "Well, I'm five chapters in and am enjoying it so far. I can see what Renee means about the characters seeming to be weak losers, but I want to know more about them and their lives. Also Gissing's..."Good points.
While some dislike too much conversation, I prefer it. I know that whether we get narration or conversation it's all the author's doing, but somehow I feel that I get a better insight into a character when I can hear and evaluate them based on their direct words rather than when the narrator tells me what I should think about them.
After all, when I'm in a room with friends, I talk with them, I don't listen to other people tell me their life stories in narration.
Peter wrote: "I do wonder, however, how true Reardon's comment is that "All that is wrong is my accursed want of money." This question I think will hover over our entire reading of this novel. How true is it that money can, if not create talent, at least allow someone with talent to survive until they find traction within their field. "His view may not be the popular one of the talented genius starving in a Paris attic, but it's much more down to earth. It IS much easier to write when you aren't cold and hungry and worrying about where the next quarter's rent is going to come from or how you're going feed wife and child.
I thought the scene of Reardon reflecting on his visit to the unnamed well known novelist was telling: "Reardon went home with his brain in a whirl. He 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—great heavens! what might not a man do who sat at his ease amid such surroundings!"
What a contrast to the picture we are given of Reardon in the window of his top floor flat.
Everyman wrote: "Peter wrote: "I do wonder, however, how true Reardon's comment is that "All that is wrong is my accursed want of money." This question I think will hover over our entire reading of this novel. How ..."It will be interesting to track the success or lack of it for each of the writers/journalists through the homes in which they live, or the hovels they are forced to endure.
It appears the great equalizer will be the library, that most democratic of institutions, where all people are as equal as possible.
Muffins are traditionally eaten here at teatime with lots of butter Everyman, toast is the breakfast choice as reflected on English hotel menus.There is usually a choice of marmalade, coarse with seville oranges and smooth with sweet oranges. Keiller's Dundee marmalade with seville oranges is the original recipe. They popularised it in Georgian times and it was sold until recently in attractive stone jars, now antiques. Cooper's Oxford came later, popularised I think by Queen Victoria. Many people made their own, like the Milvains, when seville oranges were in season.Of course, this is preceded by egg and bacon, maybe (nowadays) with Heinz beans, tomatoes and/or mushrooms. In Victorian times fried kidneys were also popular. A full breakfast would commence with porridge. Not a very healthy combination and nowadays more likely to be indulged in only at the weekend. Although the Milvains 'cracked an egg' at the beginning of the novel I doubt the Yules could afford such an array, porridge followed by toast and marmalade would be the likeliest repast, the bread having been baked at home.
English muffins are different to American muffins which we would call cakes or buns:
http://www.janeausten.co.uk/english-m...
What do Americans usually eat for breakfast?
(Edited.)
It is interesting the way Jasper cynically talks about writing as if absolutely anyone could do it:‘...why don’t you girls write something? I’m convinced you could make money if you tried. There’s a tremendous sale for religious stories; why not patch one together? .....I’d make a speciality of Sunday-school prize-books; you know the kind of thing I mean. They sell like hot cakes. And there’s so deuced little enterprise in the business. If you’d give your mind to it, you might make hundreds a year.’
This reflects the fact that when novels first became fashionable there was a really huge demand for them and publishers could not print them quickly enough. They also imposed very short deadlines upon authors so quality suffered. Nowadays people would think twice before embarking on a literary career and would be expected to show some talent for witing before doing so. Nor is modern youth inclined to starve in garretts:)
Reardon and Biffen represent the reality of author's lives until they 'hit the jackpot' and Gissing is good at describing the abject poverty in which they live, something he experienced himself. That Biffen, when he visited the Reardons, would not take off his coat because he had pawned his jacket is an authentic touch as is 'His excessive meagreness would all but have qualified him to enter an exhibition in the capacity of living skeleton, and the garments which hung upon this framework would perhaps have sold for three-and-sixpence at an old-clothes dealer's.'
Apparently the 'Muffin Man' who plied his wares othe streets of Gissing's London had unsavoury origins:https://treasuryislands.wordpress.com...
Madge wrote: "Apparently the 'Muffin Man' who plied his wares othe streets of Gissing's London had unsavoury origins:https://treasuryislands.wordpress.com..."
Thanks for the post and link. I really enjoy this type of "behind the scene" information to round out my reading.
Thankyou Peter and for your comments on the Background thread. Glad someone enjoys them:)
Madge wrote: "It is interesting the way Jasper cynically talks about writing as if absolutely anyone could do it:..."Well, anybody of average intelligence and literacy could. (He probably wouldn't have said that to a farm hand, but his sisters were educated.) They may not get published, but they can write, and a lot of stuff that isn't very good nonetheless does get published (as we see from the columns and columns of books in the Daedalus catalog).
It's not that he thought they would be great writers, "Oh, if you can be a George Eliot,..." But I think he's right that they probably could have written religious potboilers -- in his day the publishers turned that stuff out by the ream (as today publishers can't keep up with the need to keep feeding the maw of the romance readers).
I don't see, actually, why they don't at least give it a try. (Maybe later in the book they will.) After all, the Bronte sisters got published, so why not the Milvain sisters?
Madge wrote: "Nowadays people would think twice before embarking on a literary career and would be expected to show some talent for witing before doing so. "Uh, have you looked over the Amazon self-publishing lists recently?
(BTW, love the Freudian slip in your post. Showing some talent for witing would indeed help keep a book humorous. In fact, I think it's fair to say that Jane Austen had a great talent for witing.)
Getting published and self publishing are two different things. Authors now have many more hoops to jump through to get published as well as greater competition through increased literacy:http://www.penguin.com/aboutus/contac...
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/16-ma...
Jane Austen did indeed have a great talent for writing and also overcame the disadvantage of being a woman, another hurdle Jasper's sisters would have to overcome. If experienced and dedicated male writers like Reardon and Biffen were having difficulties they would surely face far more. Although they too could have opted for 'vanity publishing' since presumably they had the money to do so and there was a thriving market in it.
(Happy to have amused you.)
In Chapter 1 the Milvain's living room 'was furnished with old-fashioned comfort, only one or two objects suggesting the decorative spirit of 1882...' This refers the Aesthetic and Arts & Craft movements, popularised by William Morris' interior designs and the paintings of his fellow pre Raphaelites Rosetti and Burne Jones. William Morris thought that people should have 'nothing in their houses that they do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.'http://gu.com/p/2zxv4
BTW the reference in Chap 4 to the 'maidservant recently emancipated from the Board School' does not mean boarding school but a school under the control of locally elected School Boards, made possible by the 1870 Education Act. Any area which voted for it could have a school board. These new board schools could charge fees but they were also eligible for government grants and could also be paid for out of local government rates.'A Board School teacher drilled her pupils in cleanliness, handwriting and morals. Lessons were formal and good discipline was insisted upon. Children followed set patterns of behaviour, called drills. Lessons were based on the four 'R's, reading, 'riting, religion and 'rithmetic.' After the 1870 Education Act, many schools were taken over by the Government to become Board Schools. Education became free for all children in 1891.
Further to my post 23: Amy Reardon had received a 'good education' so perhaps she was lucky enough to go to the girls’ public boarding school or the girls’ grammar school founded by Miss Beale and Miss Buss. Miss Buss’ North London Collegiate School began in 1850 in Camden Town, London, to meet the problem of the lack of education for middle-class girls. She believed in the important of home life in the upbringing of girls and it deliberately remained a day school. Miss Beale took over the recently founded Cheltenham Ladies College and turned it into a high quality girls’ boarding school. St Leonards and Roedean were founded after 1870 based on its example. There were more good schools for boys, such as grammar schools, which Edwin may have attended, and public schools like Eton, Harrow and Rugby of Tom Brown's Schooldays- fame for those wealthy enough to pay high fees. The grammar schools originally only taught the classics but after 1840 they were reinvented as academically oriented secondary schools following literary or scientific curricula, while often retaining classical subjects like Latin, although change required the consent of the schoolmaster.
I surmise that Jasper, being wealthy, may have gone to a public school but our other impoverished authors may have won scholarships to get to grammar schools (as I did myself long ago:)).
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Thanks Renee. I hope some readers will find it enlightening, if not they can easily be skipped:)
Madge wrote: "Thanks Renee. I hope some readers will find it enlightening, if not they can easily be skipped:)"Keep your information coming, Madge. Like Renee, it certainly broadens my reading experience too.
Madge wrote: "In Chapter 1 the Milvain's living room 'was furnished with old-fashioned comfort, only one or two objects suggesting the decorative spirit of 1882...' This refers the Aesthetic and Arts & Craft mo..."Thanks for pointing this out Madge. That quote is one of my favourites; I try my best to live by it, but sentiment often gets in the way of use and/or beauty. I haven't had the chance to read very far into NGS yet, but I wonder if the Milvains (Jasper at least) sacrifice sentiment for "higher" things?
PS Madge, I know you live outside London, but if by any remote chance you're in the city centre tomorrow, let me know. I'm here for a very short visit, but would be delighted to meet you and take you for tea and muffins :-))
Wonderful invitation Pip and thankyou. I have difficulty negotiating trains these days so my London visits are limited. If you give me a bit more notice next time I will try to make it. I live about 20 miles north but there is a half hour service to King's Cross. I have met several GR readers in London over the years but unfortunately I am less mobile now:(I think perhaps the Milvains are 'modern' and have forsaken the style of 1882 for the more florid (and horrid) late Victorian style, all antimacassars and Aspidistras, which my posh great aunts affected:)
Madge wrote: "I think perhaps the Milvains are 'modern' and have forsaken the style of 1882 for the more florid (and horrid) late Victorian style..."Well, some of us still like it. It has an elegance which arts and crafts never had. After all, if people are truly to have 'nothing in their houses that they do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful,' much of my library would be banished, along with every picture on the refrigerator drawn or painted by my grandchildren.
Arts and Crafts designs included many bookcases Everyman, often hand crafted. Books were considered beautiful for themselves but there was also a fashion for binding them with brightly coloured leather, tooled with gold leaf, which glittered in the lamplight. I have a friend who lives in a Victorian house furnished in Arts and Craft style who has installed such bookcases in the alcoves of his lounge and dining room and has filled them with beautifully bound books lit by discrete lighting. Children's art was displayed in a nursery or bedroom as they weren't encouraged to mingle with adults.Late Victorian homes, especially after Victoria went into mourning, were dark and funereal with heavy curtains at the windows letting in little light and heavy upholstery fabrics like velvet and brocade. Furniture was made of ebony and mahogany instead of the light oak and beech favoured by Morris. I thought my aunts' houses were quite scary although I remember one who had a bright yellow satin sofa, embroidered with a Chinese dragon, in her fern filled conservatory which I thought was fun even though I was not allowed to sit upon it.
Arts and Craft homes were more used and 'comfy' overall but late Victorians invented the 'parlour' where everything was on display for visitors. Untidiness was akin to laziness and considered immoral so books lying around TBR were not favoured
Another disadvantage of late Victorian furnishings was the impossibility of cleaning them properly, something we don't have to think about with modern fabrics. The linens, cotton and wools of A&C fabrics were washable but the late Victorian velvets and brocades weren't and had to be taken outside to be beaten, which got rid of dust but not grime. I enjoyed helping my grandmother do this when I was a toddler but I doubt she enjoyed it.
This view from Reardon's bachelor flat in north London is still recognisable today:'The green ridge from Hampstead to Highgate, with Primrose Hill and the foliage of Regent's Park in the foreground; the suburban spaces of St John's Wood, Maida Vale, Kilburn; Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, lying low by the side of the hidden river, and a glassy gleam on far-off hills which meant the Crystal Palace; then the clouded majesty of eastern London, crowned by St Paul's dome. These things one’s friends were expected to admire.' ( The Crystal Palace, built for the Great Exhibition of 1851, burned down in 1936.)
I recenty admired a similar eastern view from my granddaughter's fifth floor flat near Tower Bridge although the best views of London can now be seen, day and night, from The London Eye, as Pip probably knows. Other good views of London are from the hilly mounds of Alexandra Palace (original home of the BBC) or from the heights of Hampstead Heath. Should you be in London at New Year these are excellent free vantage points to see the firework display beside the London Eye.
Amy had eight flights of stairs up which to carry her baby and pram. Many old buildings in London still do not have lifts so mothers can still have Amy's problem.
The contrast of Jasper's comfortable cuntry home and garden with Edwin's mean eighth floor apartment is stark but will Jasper prove to be the better writer? Does poverty provide more inspiration and motivation? Is this novel to be a rags to riches tale?
Madge wrote: "This view from Reardon's bachelor flat in north London is still recognisable today:'The green ridge from Hampstead to Highgate, with Primrose Hill and the foliage of Regent's Park in the foregrou..."
Thanks for the topographic tour. The explanation of the contrasting living accommodations is important as well. As I mentioned in message 13 the residences will serve us well as a marker for the success/failure of the various characters throughout the novel.
Madge wrote: "Books were considered beautiful for themselves but there was also a fashion for binding them with brightly coloured leather, tooled with gold leaf, which glittered in the lamplight.."Sadly, I have only a very few of those. The vast majority of my collection can hardly be considered beautiful as objects, and so do not seem to fit the requirement of being beautiful.
I am sure they are beautiful to you Everyman, the eye of the beholder and all that. Scruffy secondhand bookshops have a lot of admirers so perhaps your library would fall into that category.Another thing Victorians did was to purchase faux book spines for their bookshelves, sometimes to make it look as if they had more books than they had, sometimes to hide their erotic literature which was very popular then, as now. If anyone wishes to play the Victorian gentleman these can still be purchased, including one for your Kindle:
http://www.manorbindery.co.uk/replica...
http://www.manorbindery.co.uk/Kindle_...
John Yule had invested in various public sports and a gymnasium. This was an interesting detail for me because I've rarely seen references to any kind of exercising in Victorian novels, except some croquet and horseback riding. So people actually did, ehm, exercise back then? The picture I have of an ideal Victorian man is a learned gentleman who knows his books (not like Casaubon though). But here we have references to "muscular manliness."
Tommi wrote: "But here we have references to "muscular manliness." "You're likely to set Madge off on muscular Christianity, which was prominent during the Victorian era. It's a favorite topic of hers.
And I am drawing a temporary blank (and I'm too lazy to go look it up) on which Dickens novel it is that has the former sergeant (if memory serves) running a gymnasium to teach martial arts.
I'd love to hear Madge on muscular Christianity. I've no idea what it might be, but it sounds intriguing ;-)Everyman - are you thinking of Bleak House? Mr George.
Pip wrote: "I'd love to hear Madge on muscular Christianity. I've no idea what it might be, but it sounds intriguing ;-)Everyman - are you thinking of Bleak House? Mr George."
Got it in one. It came to me about five minutes after I had posted -- that's the way an aging mind works, I guess.
Not a favourite topic, just something I studied at the LSE as part of my PSE:)To summarise (it is a very complex subject!): Muscular Christianity was a reaction to The Oxford Movement (1833-1845 approx) which sought to take Anglicanism back to pre Reformation Catholicism. Opponents of it deplored what they called the 'effeminacy' of catholic rituals and vestments and wished to retain the simpler more 'muscular' ways of the Protestant Church of England. The Cof E split at this time into High (more Catholic) and Low (more Anglican) church, which is still the case today. In opposition to this perceived effeminacy 'muscular' Christians looked back to the earlier church and to the New Testament, Corinthians verses 6:19:
19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's
Those of you who have read Tom Brown's Schooldays (1861) about Rugby School might remember the emphasis the author Thomas Hughes (a former pupil) put upon physical education, which became de rigeur in all English public (private!) schools after publication of that novel. In TBS the essence of muscular Christianity is spelled out thus:
'It is a good thing to have strong and well exercised bodies …. The least of the muscular Christians has hold of the old chivalrous and Christian belief, that a man’s body is given him to be trained and brought into subjection, and then used for the protection of the weak, the advancement of all righteous causes, and the subduing of the earth which God has given to the children of men.'
(Muscular Christianity became even more popular in America whenTheodore Roosevelt recommended that TBS should be read by every American because of its endorsement of MC.)
Another interesting fact is that Thomas Hughes and other founders of MC also became known as Christian Socialists because of their attempts to improve the lot of the working poor by encouraging them to take up exercise and other outdoor pursuits, founding boys' clubs etc.
In addition to MC being taught in schools a 'craze' for physical exercise took place among the general population, public and home gymnasia became fashionable (as with John Yule) and outdoor pursuits of all kinds were practiced in the new public parks instituted by philanthropic Victorians (like John Yule). This same craze later encouraged the spread of cycling which was enthusiastically taken up by Christian women in their 'bloomers' (a la the American Amelia Bloomer) Those of you who go to gymnasia or jog in parks today are keeping up the traditions started by muscular christians!
Later MC became linked to the American Eugenics Movement and the drive to create a healthy nation by encouraging fit people to breed and unfit ones to be sterilised. However, after Hitler took on board some the ideas of the American Eugenics Movement and encouraged boys in the Hitler Youth Movement to have 'strong and well exercised bodies' for the glory of the Third Reich, not God, Muscular Christianity became less popular. The physical education ideals are still practised at our public (private! ) schools but without emphasis on either Christianity or nationhood. This may well be the same in American high schools for the same reasons.
Brief outline of The Oxford Movement:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t...
Something (little known) on the American Eugenics Movement :
http://historynewsnetwork.org/article...
PS: I hope the above is OK, I am a bit off-colour with a bad cold.
Wow, that is very interesting, and definitely answers my initial question. I had never heard of MC. Thanks again Madge!
Tommi wrote: "Wow, that is very interesting, and definitely answers my initial question. I had never heard of MC. Thanks again Madge!"I told you she would tell you!
LOL Everyman, you have a good memory, I haven't written about this for ages.I should have mentioned that Muscular Christians in America identified a 'woman peril' threatening the church when women began to dominate the pews. They called for an end to sentimental hymns and 'sickly sweet' images of Jesus and argued that 'real men' would avoid church until 'feminised' Protestantism (feminised by the Oxford Movement's catholicism) gave way to muscular christianity - a 'strenuous religion for a strenuous life'. A Men and Religion Forward Movement aimed to fill pews with men and churches started organised camping trips for boys.The YMCA spearheaded the provision of public playgrounds for the playing their newly invented game of basketball around this time. We got the YMCA but not the basketball as rugby and football were thought more strenuous and cricket more uplifting:).
This a fascinating period of Victorian history because the religious schism caused by the English Oxford Movement subtly affected many aspects of life on both sides of the Atlantic.
Crikey! Thank you Madge (and, Everyman, I did ask for it....!). Fascinating stuff, as always, and slightly terrifying since MC encapsulates two things I gave up long ago ;-))
This atheist link has a summary of MC, covering the various aspects I have mentioned but including a better explanation of MC and Naziism:http://atheism.about.com/od/religious...
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I have to say, I think I'm enjoying Madge's background info more than I'm enjoying NGS!
I'm away til the 20th but will chip in when I can.