Commonplace 153 George & Homer. Doh!
The Geeks er, the Greeks were not famed for their humour, bar the odd theatrical production about amphibians. Which makes it all the more ironic that when the name 'Homer' is mentioned these days it is the yellow chubster cartoon character who springs to mind. And I, for one, prefer it that way.
George liked to invoke the spirit of the Ancient Greeks when he wanted to define his own version of social classification. He claimed there is an 'aristocrat' sensibility in some persons based on a liking for books and the Sublime which makes them innately superior. These people use for a moral compass the Ancient Greeks and Romans; they prefer to hark back to the good old days of the Romano-Greek empires as being the template of how to live a life. These aristocrats are almost superhuman, not in the Nietzschean sense of 'Superman', but in the sense of them having arcane superior interests - like Sport, Art and statutory violence - aka the Olympic games, the Venus de Milo and the Coliseum.
In George's world of writing books this aristocratic type usually presents as a male protagonist displaying a narcissistic mix of over-educated, under-employed, whingeing, generally impotent, self-regarding snob. (They do say writers should write about what they know haha!) Mere mortals are 'the others' - the lumpen proletariat which might include millionaires if they display philistine thinking; these are the sort of folk who never read the Greeks and possibly never read anything - he might be talking about YOU! However, as George's father was nothing grander than a shop-keeper (a class of persons George always despised which Freud would tell us is revealing!), he was compelled to invent this aristo uber-class to cover his own humble origins. In a Gissing book, a sure sign of a soul worth saving is a member of the lumpen proletariat with a book in his hand, unless he is a rampant Socialist like Richard Mutimer (from George's 'Demos') who was the devil incarnate because he was that most dangerous of beasts (to George) - an educated working class hero with plans to overthrow the social status quo.
George tended to read something Greek or Roman every day. As a resource of guidance, he referred to these old writers; however, there is a million miles between reading wise words and acting on them. Anyone not over-familiar with what the Greeks and Romans offer in terms of wisdom might look at George's life and conclude that whatever he read went in one ear and out the other. Either that, or the Greeks and Romans were utter cack. Here are some Homer quotes that George might have learnt from:
If only he had been born in the times of Homer J Simpson, he might have done better with his life. Here are some of the other Homer's wiser words:
Discover more great Homer and Homer quotes at
https://www.goodreads.com
The Geeks er, the Greeks were not famed for their humour, bar the odd theatrical production about amphibians. Which makes it all the more ironic that when the name 'Homer' is mentioned these days it is the yellow chubster cartoon character who springs to mind. And I, for one, prefer it that way.
George liked to invoke the spirit of the Ancient Greeks when he wanted to define his own version of social classification. He claimed there is an 'aristocrat' sensibility in some persons based on a liking for books and the Sublime which makes them innately superior. These people use for a moral compass the Ancient Greeks and Romans; they prefer to hark back to the good old days of the Romano-Greek empires as being the template of how to live a life. These aristocrats are almost superhuman, not in the Nietzschean sense of 'Superman', but in the sense of them having arcane superior interests - like Sport, Art and statutory violence - aka the Olympic games, the Venus de Milo and the Coliseum.
In George's world of writing books this aristocratic type usually presents as a male protagonist displaying a narcissistic mix of over-educated, under-employed, whingeing, generally impotent, self-regarding snob. (They do say writers should write about what they know haha!) Mere mortals are 'the others' - the lumpen proletariat which might include millionaires if they display philistine thinking; these are the sort of folk who never read the Greeks and possibly never read anything - he might be talking about YOU! However, as George's father was nothing grander than a shop-keeper (a class of persons George always despised which Freud would tell us is revealing!), he was compelled to invent this aristo uber-class to cover his own humble origins. In a Gissing book, a sure sign of a soul worth saving is a member of the lumpen proletariat with a book in his hand, unless he is a rampant Socialist like Richard Mutimer (from George's 'Demos') who was the devil incarnate because he was that most dangerous of beasts (to George) - an educated working class hero with plans to overthrow the social status quo.
George tended to read something Greek or Roman every day. As a resource of guidance, he referred to these old writers; however, there is a million miles between reading wise words and acting on them. Anyone not over-familiar with what the Greeks and Romans offer in terms of wisdom might look at George's life and conclude that whatever he read went in one ear and out the other. Either that, or the Greeks and Romans were utter cack. Here are some Homer quotes that George might have learnt from:
A sympathetic friend can be quite as dear as a
brother. There is nothing nobler or more admirable than when two people who see
eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting
their friends. The first part is true - but Eduard Bertz was George's lifelong man-wife, the significant other George should have married. George might have paid lip service to the 'man and wife part' but none of his women filled this role, mainly because he never really believed women could be up to the intellectual standard of the male - one of George's choicer quotes (said to his sister!) was that he thought the average male idiot is smarter than the average female.
Hateful to me as are the gates of hell, is he who,
hiding one thing in his heart, utters another. Not exactly Mr Truthful, George often told blatant lies to gain his own ends, and certainly rewrote some of his Diary entries to airbrush out the bits he didn't like - all of the Diaries pre 1888 when his first wife died were destroyed. You should read his letters to Gabrielle Fleury and Clara Collet if you don't believe his pants were on fire quite a lot of the time.
Each man delights in the work that suits him best. George hated to have to work - after all, aristocrats from the ancient world didn't have to, they just sat around reading and philosophising and drinking wine. He hated writing and was never happy with what he wrote. You might try and pass this off as his rampant perfectionism, but you'd be wrong. Some say he would have been happy as a college don - tosh because he couldn't stand teaching, and as he would be required to support the Christian doctrines - in 1871 over half of all teaching staff in the main universities were either clergy or working towards being clergy - he would have been expected to be celibate until the 1882 rules changed click.
And his good wife will tear her cheeks in grief, his sons are orphans
and he, soaking the soil red with his own blood, he rots away himself—more
birds than women flocking round his body! His own death was a shambolic affair with the wrong people round him and the wrong religious overtones on display. And he was not happy about dying in France - that was never part of the Gabrielle Fleury plan!
Ah how shameless – the way these mortals blame the
gods. From us alone they say come all their miseries yes but they themselves
with their own reckless ways compound their pains beyond their proper share. George liked to blame fate for his shortcomings whilst blinding himself to his own role in events. One such was that his first wife had died in poverty and want which was the accursed hand of fate but which was, in reality, his neglect of her and his failure to pay adequate alimony.
It behoves a father to be blameless if he expects
his child to be. It's difficult to assess exactly the psychological damage George did to his children. In modern terms, he would be classified as an abuser. Child abuse can be sexual, physical, emotional, and neglect. Though he was not guilty of the first, he certainly was of the third and last and probably the second. Heroic? Non!
Any moment might be our last. Everything is more
beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We
will never be here again. George did think we are all doomed but he never was one to really enjoy the moment. When he does record his moments of wonder it is usually at Nature but his tendency is to have moments of wonder about how awful things are not how sublime they are.
Scepticism is as much the result of knowledge, as
knowledge is of scepticism. To be content with what we at present know, is, for
the most part, to shut our ears against conviction; since, from the very
gradual character of our education, we must continually forget, and emancipate
ourselves from, knowledge previously acquired; we must set aside old notions
and embrace fresh ones; and, as we learn, we must be daily unlearning something
which it has cost us no small labour and anxiety to acquire. Once George had made his mind up on a topic it remained fixed even in the face of evidence suggesting he was wrong. He had a closed mind more than an inquiring one despite all the reading he did, because he seemed to prefer to find things that backed his own point of view, rather than set off looking for fresh insights. And he was too swift to dismiss things he didn't like the sound of, despite his lack of knowledge - science, for example, bored him!
Discover more great Homer and Homer quotes at
https://www.goodreads.com
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