The Nether World

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Gissing - an underappreciated writer?

Sometimes I find Gissing a bit clunky, particularly when he steps forward to explain a character's background. I also find it odd when he finds it necessary to explain to his readership the social circumstances that shape his characters' behaviour, as if the were bushmen of the Kalahari, rather than the working class from his own country's capital city. I do not always look forward eagerly to the next chapter, and am glad they all tend to be ten to twelve pages long. Nevertheless, he is extraordinarily good at bringing his characters to life. All his characters (well, most of them) seem like real people. They always keep and speak in character. I like what Gissing tries to do; I just don't always enjoy it a great deal. Gissing is a much better writer than Conrad in my opinion. Conrad's insistence in killing off all his main protagonists at the end of each book is silly. Plenty of characters die or suffer in Gissing's books, but in the everyday tragic way that was common then. Having sneaked a look at the remaining chapter titles, I expect the main hero and heroine are going to survive to the end of the book, but I am seriously concerned there will be no happy ending. The baddies may win and the goodies may suffer. I thought while reading New Grub Street and The Odd Women that they could make good television mini-series. I think the Nether World could be too. The dialogue could be just lifted off the page, while the instances of clunkiness could be dispensed with. It has been said that if Dickens were alive today he would be writing for soap operas. I think that may be truer of Gissing. If Gissing were alive today and writing for a soap opera, it would be one I could bring myself to watch.

Posted By kev67 at Sun 21 Dec 2014, 9:35 PM in The Nether World || 6 Replies

Strong drink

Gissing is really anti-drink in this book. There was one chapter in which much of the neighbourhood spend the August Bank Holiday going down to Crystal Palace to get steaming. It was not very edifying. It all ends in abuse being exchanged and fights breaking out between rival groups. In fact, pretty much like Reading town centre on a Friday night. Gissing wrote of one character, that her one redeeming quality was that she did not drink, while another young woman hardly had a chance because her mother was constantly drunk. A young woman's estrangement from her family starts when she becomes a barmaid. I wondered if Gissing was being a bit puritanical, because in The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Owen says that few of the working men drank to such excess that their family suffered, and those who did were disapproved of by their workmates. However, Gissing started writing this book about a month after his first wife died, who had been a hopeless alcoholic. I suppose that affected his outlook.

Posted By kev67 at Fri 12 Dec 2014, 8:46 PM in The Nether World || 0 Replies

The Nether World - good start

I have started reading this. It has started pretty well. The characters are very believable. From the cover, I got the impression they would all be like Bill Sykes and Nancy, but they're not. They seem like real people; so much so, that I was a little surprised when I read that one of them had a job driving a horse-drawn cab, because, of course, it was written before the internal combustion engine. This book is about poor, working-class characters. I was reminded of Jack London's The People of the Abyss about London's East End in 1902, especially the father who was struggling to find work because of his age. Gissing spent the first half of his career writing about working class people before changing direction slightly. I think The Nether World is often regarded as Gissing's 3rd best book, and the best of his working class novels, although George Orwell preferred Demos.

Posted By kev67 at Thu 4 Dec 2014, 10:41 PM in The Nether World || 0 Replies

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