Commonplace 49 George and Marianne PART FOUR - Biography: It's Just Not Cricket.
“A self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living': so too with the biography of that self. And just as lives don't stay still, so life-writing can't be fixed and finalised. Our ideas are shifting about what can be said, our knowledge of human character is changing. The biographer has to pioneer, going 'ahead of the rest of us, like the miner's canary, testing the atmosphere, detecting falsity, unreality, and the presence of obsolete conventions'. So, 'There are some stories which have to be retold by each generation'. She is talking about the story of Shelley, but she could be talking about her own life-story.
(Virginia Woolf, p. 11)” ― Hermione Lee, Virginia Woolf
Do we English (well, I'm half Scot, but who's counting?) get our deep-seated love of all things 'fair play' (or 'fair-play', as the French would say, albeit with the addition of the Gallic shrug) from Magna Carta, that thirteenth century document forced upon the monarchy, and which, today, still informs the world on all things Justice (or, as the French would say, 'Justice', albeit with a ...)? Does it go deep into our DNA? Is this why we British insist a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty? Abroad is another country, of course, and they do things differently there, but we Brits tend to assume everyone on the planet is using working toward being fair. We Brits have woven this concept into the fabric of our argot: when we think something is not fair - we say 'it's not cricket'. Do we not also say, when there is an unfair advantage, that 'the dice are loaded'? And when there is no sign of equality, then there is no 'level playing field'.
Whenever we need to get back to some of the original sources of all things Gissing, we turn to the Diaries and to the nine volumes of Letters; to the Heroic Life of..' trio, and to countless other publications edited by Pierre Coustillas, that Colossus who bestrides the world of Gissing like a ... Colossus. How he loves George! How he holds him close. How he stacks the cards unfairly in his favour! Take his depictions of Marianne aka Nell - Coustillas has done more to vilify her than anyone else. Despite having had access to primary source material, he frequently gives us - especially in his reading of George's wives - not facts, but opinion posing as fact. Some of it is tainted with cultural bias, some of it is sexist, much of it is snobbish, but all delivered in the sort of patrician tone that precludes anyone from disagreeing - or even daring to think contra to the party line. He is like a prophet bringing down tablets of stone from the mountain. Is it that having English as a second language ensures something gets lost in translation?
Take, for example, Marianne's death certificate. M. Coustillas overrides the doctor's medical opinion and inserts his own un-medically trained claim that Marianne did not die of 'acute laryngitis', but that she died of 'alcoholism and syphilis' (see The Heroic Life Part One). To be fair to the French biographer (and I like to be fair), he probably didn't think to look up the definition of 'acute laryngitis' - that's the down-side to meddling in someone else's area of expertise. In fact, 'acute laryngitis' is a sudden-onset condition that compromises the airway and can lead to death in a relatively short space of time. If you doubt it, click. This is a transcript of this text:
But Pierre Coustillas didn't have access to google when he wrote his biography, so perhaps - in the interest of fairness - I should make allowances.
Take another of M. Coustillas' hobby-horses - that Marianne was an out-of-control alcoholic and that is why her relationship with George broke down. You know how it goes: George kept forgiving her for being a waster and 'taking her back' but she always left him for a life of drink and debauchery. On what does M. Coustillas base these claims? Let's go to Volume Two of the Letters series covering 1881-1885. These are letters from our boy to Algernon. Take a look at this decisive year in the lives of George and Marianne: 1881.
January 13th: 'Nell is not at all up to the mark. She wishes to be kindly remembered.'
February 11th: 'Nell is aliling again, as usual. By the by, it's her birthday on the 25th of this month. Perhaps you could send her a letter of that day? She would be very pleased, I know.'
February 21st: 'Nell has no copy at all of Lamb's Tales; I have often thought of getting it her.'
February 25th: 'It was very kind of you to send such a fine present to Nell. It arrived last night and she was very delighted with it. She herself will write as soon as ever she is able, but asks me to thank you heartily in the meanwhile. One cause of her delay I will now proceed to explain.'
He goes on to detail plans to move to Wornington Crescent, then goes on to ask Algernon to pass on to their mother a request to lend him ten pounds, explaining his lack of funds on tailors' bills, book-buying, travelling expenses, and 'indispensable doctors' bills (twice calling in for Nell at midnight)'. Then, he adds, 'Nell will write to you as soon as ever we are settled. Two nights last week, she had a strange attack of delirium, lasting each time nearly two hours. I certainly thought she had gone mad. The prospect of this occurring without any money to pay a doctor is scarcely agreeable.'
They move house to Wornington Crescent - which was north of the old address, and supposedly better for the health being on drier ground.
March 13th: 'I am glad to say that the change seems to benefit Nell greatly.'
April 9th: 'I write in no very good spirits, & fear my letter will have no very joyful effect upon you. But then it is only on very rare occasions that I am able to express myself joyfully.
Nell has had such serious relapses lately, that I have been compelled to take a somewhat hazardous step. Last night there was a frightful piece of business. I had just returned home from a visit (about half past ten) when there came a a (sic) violent knock at the door; a man had cone to say that nell was in a fit in a chemist's shop close by. I ran off, & found her in a fearful state, one moment insensible, the next delirious. A doctor had to be sent for at once, &, with the help of two of the shopmen, we carried her home. I was up half the night, until at length she got to sleep.
The doctor called again today; he seems a reputable man, & trustworthy. The affair was discussed, & he told me he would visit regularly - thinking the cure will take a good time - for a fee of 10/6 a week, medicine included. But this is useless, unless there can be someone to do housework; an expense, I presume of three shillings a week. Well, my receipts from pupils are at present 45/- weekly, so I have taken the step of accepting his services. Whether it can be continued, I know not; but what else is to be done?
Business of this kind is completely crushing to me. I work under an almost insupportable load; & fear there is little hope of turning out anything good under the circumstances. In fact, I am fast coming to the conclusion, that no man could hope to do anything of value, weighted as I am. I must direct my energies to mere earning a living, - a hard enough task under the circumstances, goodness knows. I feel utterly broken, discouraged, hopeless, - & and see no way to better things.
Of course my thoughts for Easter are all but out of the question, though the rest would have done me vast good, doubtless. Moreover, I could not spare a single one of those precious free mornings which will be left me by the Harrisons' holidays. perhaps this doctor's visits, & the help of a servant will introduce more order into the house., & perhaps - perhaps - I might advance with my novel. But who knows what frightful things may turn up to balk me!
When I told Harrison some time ago of my position, - domestic circumstances, &c, - he said that indeed it was an unusual burden at my age. Often, I wonder how the burden will continue to be borne.
I have not the courage to write of other things. Perhaps I ought not to trouble you in this useless way, yet it is not a little to have someone's sympathy'.
Poor, hopeless, helpless, whining George! When he wrote this, he was 23 years old! A proper job would have made a man of him - some might say. And, what had become of his legacy from the previous year? He spent half of it on vanity-publishing 'Workers', but that still left a huge (for the time) chunk of change. All gone on building a library, perhaps?
On June 19th, he writes that their grandfather has complained neither George nor Algernon has been kind enough to correspond with him. George says he hasn't had the old gentleman round to the house very often because of lack of time to entertain him, and he can't leave that to Marianne: 'For me to leave him alone with Nell is quite impossible, seeing that she has about as much idea of entertaining a visitor as my writing-chair has, - indeed, the chair would do it better, at least being able to keep from foolish and prejudicial gossip'.
By June 24th 1881, the real George has emerged.
'We have just come to a rather important decision here. Having regard to the incessant illnesses from which Nell suffers, & being utterly tired out by doctors & hospitals, we have determined that Nell should go to Hastings next Saturday, 2nd July & live there for some little time, not improbably right away through the coming winter. It really seems as if doctoring were futile if not sided by a thorough change of air & circumstances, & this step seems to be the only one left to take. People whom she knows will be in Hastings for some weeks just now, so that she will get over the first change without difficulty. Foy myself, such a decision as this has become unavoidable, if I was not to utterly throw up all work & drift into imbecility. The perpetual anxieties & torments of our late life have driven me sometimes to the verge of a serious illness. Now regularly once a fortnight I have a prostrating headache, & am become most morbidly nervous: I often feel as if I should have fainting-fits.'
August 3rd. 'Nell talks about coming back very soon - perhaps end of this week. She seems not to know what to do with herself aone there; &, as she says, she feels vastly better in health, she might just as well come & try to keep my house in order.'
August 8th 'Nell is back here, now, & my leisure & ability for productive work consequently suffer diminution, but I absolutely must complete my novel this year' If I do not, it is as good as giving up all hope of ever finishing another book, for perpetual procrastination is like a disease & bit by bit impairs every faculty. What I would give for a portion of the spirit & energy with which I wrote the first book! I am doomed to do everything under the most harassing difficulties, in nothing is my path ever lightened, but rather forever more & more encumbered. I struggle with absolute anguish for a couple of hours of freedom every day, & can only obtain the semblance of whole-hearted application. To say that I am like a man toiling up a hill with a frightful burden upon his back is absolutely no figure of speech with me; often, very often, I am on the point of stumbling & going no further.'
You can see from these 1881 letters that Marianne is doomed. George has tired of supporting her, both financially and emotionally, and every move she makes now means her situation is more precarious. The 'we' of the decision I suspect was 100% George - because he is talking about a lengthy period in Hastings, not just a holiday. Why would she need to go there for so long - for about nine months? Hastings is a nice place, but... it makes you think, doesn't it?
M. Coustillas insists on translating the information in these entries as evidence of Marianne leading a life of dissolution. What do you think? Would George waste money getting a doctor in for a drunken wife? And, if it were so, wouldn't George - if only for that accursed sympathy he so craved - make mileage out of it? Marianne suffered from scrofula and epilepsy. I think the scrofula - probably contracted in childhood when the developing brain is most vulnerable - caused the epilepsy; what is termed 'meningeal tuberculosis' (the meninges are the protective coverings of the brain) can permanently damage the delicate brain tissues. Seizures in Marianne's day were untreatable except with very powerful sedatives and barbiturates click- which brought a range of problems of their own, depending on how skilled the doctors were in adjusting dosages of these life-threatening compounds. The side effects of these treatments could exacerbate the raft of problems caused by the initial condition: drowsiness leading to unconsciousness, delirium, personality changes, memory loss, organic-dysfunctional brain disorders such as hallucinations and delusions and even epilepsy itself (!!) are all possible side effects of bromides and barbiturates. George might not have known all this - but M. Coustillas should have researched the topic. That is, if he wanted to be fair. I want to be fair - Gillian Tindall (in Born in Exile, her biography of George) is dismissive of Marianne's scrofula: 'Scrofula was then an imprecise term used to cover a variety of things, many of which we should now diagnose rather as dermatitis'. It might have been described thus at the beginning of the nineteenth century, but not in the 1880s. The pre-eminent British specialist in scrofula at the time when Marianne had it, was Frederick Treves - he of the 'Elephant Man' and the London Hospital. He wrote the definitive work: 'Scrofula and Its Gland Diseases' (published by Smith, Elder and Co) in 1882 (the clue in is the title!) where he states clearly it is a glandular disorder affecting multiple organs. He mentions an association between scrofula and TB, but there was no proven link in 1882. We know now scrofula is the glandular form of TB.
Biographies, then - what are they good for? Well, they set us off on the road to enlightenment. They get us started. At some point, you have to take over and research stuff for yourself - if you have the interest. And, if you think being fair is important!
“In many ways. . .the completeness of biography, the achievement of its professionalization, is an ironic fiction, since no life can ever be known completely, nor would we want to know every fact about an individual. Similarly, no life is ever lived according to aesthetic proportions. The "plot" of a biography is superficially based on the birth, life and death of the subject; "character," in the vision of the author. Both are as much creations of the biographer, as they are of a novelist. We content ourselves with "authorized fictions.”
― Ira Bruce Nadel, Biography: Fiction, Fact & Form
“A self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living': so too with the biography of that self. And just as lives don't stay still, so life-writing can't be fixed and finalised. Our ideas are shifting about what can be said, our knowledge of human character is changing. The biographer has to pioneer, going 'ahead of the rest of us, like the miner's canary, testing the atmosphere, detecting falsity, unreality, and the presence of obsolete conventions'. So, 'There are some stories which have to be retold by each generation'. She is talking about the story of Shelley, but she could be talking about her own life-story.
(Virginia Woolf, p. 11)” ― Hermione Lee, Virginia Woolf
 |
| Odalisque With A Turkish Chair by Henri Matisse 1928 |
Whenever we need to get back to some of the original sources of all things Gissing, we turn to the Diaries and to the nine volumes of Letters; to the Heroic Life of..' trio, and to countless other publications edited by Pierre Coustillas, that Colossus who bestrides the world of Gissing like a ... Colossus. How he loves George! How he holds him close. How he stacks the cards unfairly in his favour! Take his depictions of Marianne aka Nell - Coustillas has done more to vilify her than anyone else. Despite having had access to primary source material, he frequently gives us - especially in his reading of George's wives - not facts, but opinion posing as fact. Some of it is tainted with cultural bias, some of it is sexist, much of it is snobbish, but all delivered in the sort of patrician tone that precludes anyone from disagreeing - or even daring to think contra to the party line. He is like a prophet bringing down tablets of stone from the mountain. Is it that having English as a second language ensures something gets lost in translation?
 |
| Robe Jaune et Robe Arlequin (Nezy et Lydia) by Henri Matisse 1941 |
A “FIT and healthy” father of one died suddenly from acute
laryngitis – despite thinking he was on the mend from a simple sore throat, an
inquest has heard.
A coroner yesterday recorded a verdict
of natural causes over the death Paul “Oggy” Horrigan, 42, who died in May at
his home in Llanrumney, Cardiff.
His partner told the inquest of the
anguish of waking to find him struggling to breathe.
The construction worker had been ill for
a few days but, after using some throat spray, said he felt much better and it
“had done the job”.
However, in the early hours of the
morning, things took a tragic turn for the worst for Mr Horrigan.
In a statement read out at Cardiff
Coroner’s Court, his partner of 12 years Claire Stark said: “I was woken up at
about 2.30am by Paul pulling on my leg.
“He was rasping for breath and punching
himself in the chest and then he spat on the floor.
“He was struggling to speak but he told
me to call an ambulance.
“He went into the living room and sat on
the arm of the sofa.
“I was on the phone and I turned away
for a second, but when I turned back he was just sitting there, eyes and mouth
wide open, not breathing.
“I started giving him CPR but I could
tell when I was blowing into his mouth that there was no air going in. I knew
his throat was totally blocked.”
In another statement, paramedic Gary
Evans said: “At 2.21am on May 10 we received a call requesting an ambulance for
a patient who was having trouble breathing.
“When we arrived at the patient’s home
at 2.39am, I could hear the voice of a woman who was obviously distressed.
“I entered the flat and saw a man lying
on the floor and a woman on her knees performing CPR.
“I took over from her and established
very quickly there were no signs of life.
“His lips were blue and he was cyanosed.
“I continued for 20 minutes but at
3.10am I recognised his life to be extinct.”
Pathologist Dr Allen Gibbs, of Llandough
Hospital, said tests showed there was more fluid in the lungs than there should
have been.
He added: “One had almost doubled in
weight because of it.
“My conclusion to the death is acute
pulmonary oedema and laryngitis.
“I don’t think it’s likely the throat
spray would have had any effect on his problems.”
Coroner Mary Hassell recorded a verdict
of natural causes.
She said: “The evidence suggests Paul
died from acute laryngitis, and this, combined with fluid in his lungs, made it
difficult for him to breathe.
“Therefore I record he died from natural
causes as laryngitis is a natural cause.”
Speaking after the inquest, chef Claire
said: “I’m not surprised the spray didn’t cause Oggy’s death – it just masked
the condition.
“You don’t expect something like
laryngitis to kill you – people get it all the time.
“He was so fit and healthy, that’s the
irony of it.”
But Pierre Coustillas didn't have access to google when he wrote his biography, so perhaps - in the interest of fairness - I should make allowances.
 |
| Harmony in Red - Reclining Odalisque by Henri Matisse 1927 |
January 13th: 'Nell is not at all up to the mark. She wishes to be kindly remembered.'
February 11th: 'Nell is aliling again, as usual. By the by, it's her birthday on the 25th of this month. Perhaps you could send her a letter of that day? She would be very pleased, I know.'
February 21st: 'Nell has no copy at all of Lamb's Tales; I have often thought of getting it her.'
February 25th: 'It was very kind of you to send such a fine present to Nell. It arrived last night and she was very delighted with it. She herself will write as soon as ever she is able, but asks me to thank you heartily in the meanwhile. One cause of her delay I will now proceed to explain.'
He goes on to detail plans to move to Wornington Crescent, then goes on to ask Algernon to pass on to their mother a request to lend him ten pounds, explaining his lack of funds on tailors' bills, book-buying, travelling expenses, and 'indispensable doctors' bills (twice calling in for Nell at midnight)'. Then, he adds, 'Nell will write to you as soon as ever we are settled. Two nights last week, she had a strange attack of delirium, lasting each time nearly two hours. I certainly thought she had gone mad. The prospect of this occurring without any money to pay a doctor is scarcely agreeable.'
They move house to Wornington Crescent - which was north of the old address, and supposedly better for the health being on drier ground.
 |
| Odalisque With a Board by Henri Matisse 1928 |
April 9th: 'I write in no very good spirits, & fear my letter will have no very joyful effect upon you. But then it is only on very rare occasions that I am able to express myself joyfully.
Nell has had such serious relapses lately, that I have been compelled to take a somewhat hazardous step. Last night there was a frightful piece of business. I had just returned home from a visit (about half past ten) when there came a a (sic) violent knock at the door; a man had cone to say that nell was in a fit in a chemist's shop close by. I ran off, & found her in a fearful state, one moment insensible, the next delirious. A doctor had to be sent for at once, &, with the help of two of the shopmen, we carried her home. I was up half the night, until at length she got to sleep.
The doctor called again today; he seems a reputable man, & trustworthy. The affair was discussed, & he told me he would visit regularly - thinking the cure will take a good time - for a fee of 10/6 a week, medicine included. But this is useless, unless there can be someone to do housework; an expense, I presume of three shillings a week. Well, my receipts from pupils are at present 45/- weekly, so I have taken the step of accepting his services. Whether it can be continued, I know not; but what else is to be done?
Business of this kind is completely crushing to me. I work under an almost insupportable load; & fear there is little hope of turning out anything good under the circumstances. In fact, I am fast coming to the conclusion, that no man could hope to do anything of value, weighted as I am. I must direct my energies to mere earning a living, - a hard enough task under the circumstances, goodness knows. I feel utterly broken, discouraged, hopeless, - & and see no way to better things.
Of course my thoughts for Easter are all but out of the question, though the rest would have done me vast good, doubtless. Moreover, I could not spare a single one of those precious free mornings which will be left me by the Harrisons' holidays. perhaps this doctor's visits, & the help of a servant will introduce more order into the house., & perhaps - perhaps - I might advance with my novel. But who knows what frightful things may turn up to balk me!
When I told Harrison some time ago of my position, - domestic circumstances, &c, - he said that indeed it was an unusual burden at my age. Often, I wonder how the burden will continue to be borne.
I have not the courage to write of other things. Perhaps I ought not to trouble you in this useless way, yet it is not a little to have someone's sympathy'.
Poor, hopeless, helpless, whining George! When he wrote this, he was 23 years old! A proper job would have made a man of him - some might say. And, what had become of his legacy from the previous year? He spent half of it on vanity-publishing 'Workers', but that still left a huge (for the time) chunk of change. All gone on building a library, perhaps?
On June 19th, he writes that their grandfather has complained neither George nor Algernon has been kind enough to correspond with him. George says he hasn't had the old gentleman round to the house very often because of lack of time to entertain him, and he can't leave that to Marianne: 'For me to leave him alone with Nell is quite impossible, seeing that she has about as much idea of entertaining a visitor as my writing-chair has, - indeed, the chair would do it better, at least being able to keep from foolish and prejudicial gossip'.
By June 24th 1881, the real George has emerged.
'We have just come to a rather important decision here. Having regard to the incessant illnesses from which Nell suffers, & being utterly tired out by doctors & hospitals, we have determined that Nell should go to Hastings next Saturday, 2nd July & live there for some little time, not improbably right away through the coming winter. It really seems as if doctoring were futile if not sided by a thorough change of air & circumstances, & this step seems to be the only one left to take. People whom she knows will be in Hastings for some weeks just now, so that she will get over the first change without difficulty. Foy myself, such a decision as this has become unavoidable, if I was not to utterly throw up all work & drift into imbecility. The perpetual anxieties & torments of our late life have driven me sometimes to the verge of a serious illness. Now regularly once a fortnight I have a prostrating headache, & am become most morbidly nervous: I often feel as if I should have fainting-fits.'
August 3rd. 'Nell talks about coming back very soon - perhaps end of this week. She seems not to know what to do with herself aone there; &, as she says, she feels vastly better in health, she might just as well come & try to keep my house in order.'
August 8th 'Nell is back here, now, & my leisure & ability for productive work consequently suffer diminution, but I absolutely must complete my novel this year' If I do not, it is as good as giving up all hope of ever finishing another book, for perpetual procrastination is like a disease & bit by bit impairs every faculty. What I would give for a portion of the spirit & energy with which I wrote the first book! I am doomed to do everything under the most harassing difficulties, in nothing is my path ever lightened, but rather forever more & more encumbered. I struggle with absolute anguish for a couple of hours of freedom every day, & can only obtain the semblance of whole-hearted application. To say that I am like a man toiling up a hill with a frightful burden upon his back is absolutely no figure of speech with me; often, very often, I am on the point of stumbling & going no further.'
 |
| Odalisque a la Culotte Rouge by Henri Matisse 1924/5 |
M. Coustillas insists on translating the information in these entries as evidence of Marianne leading a life of dissolution. What do you think? Would George waste money getting a doctor in for a drunken wife? And, if it were so, wouldn't George - if only for that accursed sympathy he so craved - make mileage out of it? Marianne suffered from scrofula and epilepsy. I think the scrofula - probably contracted in childhood when the developing brain is most vulnerable - caused the epilepsy; what is termed 'meningeal tuberculosis' (the meninges are the protective coverings of the brain) can permanently damage the delicate brain tissues. Seizures in Marianne's day were untreatable except with very powerful sedatives and barbiturates click- which brought a range of problems of their own, depending on how skilled the doctors were in adjusting dosages of these life-threatening compounds. The side effects of these treatments could exacerbate the raft of problems caused by the initial condition: drowsiness leading to unconsciousness, delirium, personality changes, memory loss, organic-dysfunctional brain disorders such as hallucinations and delusions and even epilepsy itself (!!) are all possible side effects of bromides and barbiturates. George might not have known all this - but M. Coustillas should have researched the topic. That is, if he wanted to be fair. I want to be fair - Gillian Tindall (in Born in Exile, her biography of George) is dismissive of Marianne's scrofula: 'Scrofula was then an imprecise term used to cover a variety of things, many of which we should now diagnose rather as dermatitis'. It might have been described thus at the beginning of the nineteenth century, but not in the 1880s. The pre-eminent British specialist in scrofula at the time when Marianne had it, was Frederick Treves - he of the 'Elephant Man' and the London Hospital. He wrote the definitive work: 'Scrofula and Its Gland Diseases' (published by Smith, Elder and Co) in 1882 (the clue in is the title!) where he states clearly it is a glandular disorder affecting multiple organs. He mentions an association between scrofula and TB, but there was no proven link in 1882. We know now scrofula is the glandular form of TB.
 |
| Odalisque With Magnolias by Henri Matisse 1923/4 |
“In many ways. . .the completeness of biography, the achievement of its professionalization, is an ironic fiction, since no life can ever be known completely, nor would we want to know every fact about an individual. Similarly, no life is ever lived according to aesthetic proportions. The "plot" of a biography is superficially based on the birth, life and death of the subject; "character," in the vision of the author. Both are as much creations of the biographer, as they are of a novelist. We content ourselves with "authorized fictions.”
― Ira Bruce Nadel, Biography: Fiction, Fact & Form
 |
| Two Odalisques by Henri Matisse 1928 |
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