Commonplace 195 George & His American Notebook PART TWO.
With images of works by Dame Barbara Hepworth, whose association with Wakefield is memorialised by the Barbara Hepworth Museum situated not far from where George was born click
Bouwe Postmus makes it clear in his introduction to George's American Notebook that most of the notes were made after George returned to the UK in late 1877. He suggests that the first 25 pages (as numbered by our man) are probably authentically 'American', but as George did not use consecutive pages when making his random notes, many of the later entries were made after his return to the UK. To add to the confusion, those entries he made when in America are probably not in chronological order.
The notes are a smorgasbord of quotes netted from his reading of the French and Latin authors and philosophers he admired, plus longer extracts from his wider reading. More importantly for a fan, the book contains random ideas for stories. Who among us wouldn't want to see more from our man Gissing?
Despite his exposure to the Classical writers he would spend his life studying, George's idea of a successful - and, therefore, respected and well-paid - writer was always going to be Charles Dickens. He had fond memories of his father's love for the author, and a portrait of Dickens had pride of place in the Gissing family home. Dickens loved to invent illustrative names for his characters as a good way to remember who was who in often densely-populated plots. Dickens gave us the likes of Mr Badger, Noddy Boffin, Sgt Buzfuz, Luke Honeythunder, and Mrs Gamp. See this click for more Dickens creations. In the Notebook, we find lists of names with a Dickensian twist (see what I did there haha), that George might use for future projects - Goggin, Flipp, Potwin, and Fitzgerald Fussey. George kept up this sort of homage to Dickens, and his realised characters often have names that show us their personality - such as Whelpdale and Golding, and let us not forget Mr Fadge (sounds like...) and Mr Jedwood (!) from New Grub Street.
Here are some of George's ideas for future works, not necessarily from notes made in America, but included in the American Notebook. These are some of the books that got away:
Trace the gradual seduction of a masculine woman. Echoes of The Odd Women's Rhoda Nunn?
Mother supposed to die in Hospital and leaves child at Deprt'. of Charities. Child adopted by rich people. Mother turns up and claims. Highly unlikely homage to Oliver Twist, so a good idea to abandon it.
Young, enthusiastic man marries and is deceived by his wife. Loses all faith in women and becomes wild.(?) Woman of the town falls in love with him and reclaims him. A touch of The Unclasseds?
Man becomes adept at poisoning. Teaches his mistress. They poison his wife and then proceed to the other members of the family. The mistress insists on marrying the man, and proceeds to kill her own husband. The man however keeps him alive by antidotes. At length he narrowly escapes poisoning; flees for his life, and lives in constant terror. An intriguing plot that might be influenced by Edgar Allan Poe or Thomas De Quincy or Wainewright The Poisoner. Or a tribute to the case of Mrs Florence Maybrick, imprisoned for poisoning her husband. See click
Old philanthropist who has got so into habit of rebuking people for misdeeds that he can never keep quiet. Early version of Henry Ryecroft?
Man marries thoughtlessly selfish woman. She drives him to such expenses that he commits a crime to support them. Is discovered and his wife sees her folly. The sort of tosh people mistake for autobiography - all those biographers and literary thesis writers who blame Marianne aka Nell for George's crime spree at Owens College feed off this sort of throwaway line.
Character - Beautiful face, with insipid character. Sleeping Fires' illegitimate son with 'silky pencillings' for a moustache and the totally unbelievable name of Lou Reed. (RIP, Lou.)
Father's treatment of son when he gets to a reasonable age. Later on, George's treatment of his own two sons would fall so far below what was good parenting that his biographers have felt compelled to sweep it all under the carpet and blame his second wife, Edith. He began a long campaign to drive her mad and remove his first son from her care by accusing her of beating the child. He never offered any witnesses or proof. As for the second son - he did not speak to him at all on his last meeting with the lad. Some father he made! And, yet, he commented on the sin of bad parenting in several of his novels - The Whirlpool, for example.
Bastard in love, rejected on account of his birth. George was a little bit obsessed with illegitimacy - see Piers Otway (Crown of Life); Sleeping Fires' Lou Reed again. Maybe George had skeletons he was keeping in his own cupboard?
Ugly, despised and miserable man has trances in which he seems to possess love and treasures. Sees a girl who resembles something seen in dreams. Pursues her, and her scorn kills him. Homage to Victor Hugo?
Plot - 'In Search of a Friend'. Man leaves his mistress, of whom he has become tired because she is not intellectual, and forms an idea that friendship, devoid of passion, is true happiness. Travels in search of a friend.
His mistress, who loves him, laments his desertion and rejects addresses of another suitor. This suitor eventually falls in with the former and becomes his friend. They return together to the town and have eclaircissement (an unnecessarily poncy word for 'clarification'). Later gives up his love (whom he has at length persuaded to marry him). Former recovers his lost affection. Everything you need to know about George and his attitude to women - he writes about a character who leaves a woman he has kept as a mistress because she isn't intellectual enough? Why had it taken him so long to work that out?? Was he so busy having sex that he forgot to have a conversation with her?
Plot - Two young people marry and live in poor lodging house. Man becomes dissipated and leaves his wife, who, through strange circumstances, rises high in society and has good offer of marriage. Husband returns. Live together again, and husband by his dissipation brings wife to suicide. Strange ideas about crossing class barriers was a bit of an obsession for George who struggled with his own humble origins. One way he asserted his class credentials was to marry women he considered inferior. See Commonplace 71.
Man marries wife and leaves her. Gets rich, and returns with mistress. Wife regains influence, but mistress murders him for his money, which he has left her by will. Definitely not George's sort of thing except as a piece that might sell.
Young man leaves his family in the country and goes to city. Gets good position in merchant's office.
After a time hears that father is on point of being ruined for want of a small sum of money. Steals it and sends. Is discovered. The father visits him in prison, and commits suicide. Again, when biographers cherry-pick George's notes for clues to his personality and motivation, this sort of thing figures in their final drafts as 'George stole money whilst he was a student' gets turned into 'George stole money to give to his girlfriend, Marianne aka Nell' - yet there is no proof she even knew he was stealing. In fact, George stole money over several months, and also stole books, so the stealing was habitual. Petty theft in adolescence is often an unconscious solution to pressures of anxiety. Ask yourself, what is more likely - 1) by stealing enough money to splash about as if he had plenty to spend he eased the pressure on his self-image caused by being in a world populated by higher class peers with lots of cash; 2) he ran a mistress with expensive tastes? At no time in the Letters (especially from George's brother, William) does Nell ever come across as a spendthrift or a gold-digger, except in the minds of biographers with issues of their own who insist that she was.
Excusable theft is a major part of A Life's Morning, and guess what happens to the old chap who steals to buy himself a hat because his is lost? George's rationalisation is that Mr Hood (see that thing about illustrative names at work?) is too SHY to be seen without a hat because everyone would stare at him. Better to be a thief than to be hatless?? He 'borrows' the £10 required to buy a hat - but £10 was a fortune in 1888, when the book was first serialised in Cornhill Magazine. This website click suggests it was worth over £900 in today's values. If it's a short step between that kind of social awkwardness and self-justification of larceny for a character, then the same could be true for the author.
JOIN ME IN COMMONPLACE 196 TO EXPLORE THIS CRIME AND PUNISHMENT MOMENT.
With images of works by Dame Barbara Hepworth, whose association with Wakefield is memorialised by the Barbara Hepworth Museum situated not far from where George was born click
Bouwe Postmus makes it clear in his introduction to George's American Notebook that most of the notes were made after George returned to the UK in late 1877. He suggests that the first 25 pages (as numbered by our man) are probably authentically 'American', but as George did not use consecutive pages when making his random notes, many of the later entries were made after his return to the UK. To add to the confusion, those entries he made when in America are probably not in chronological order.
The notes are a smorgasbord of quotes netted from his reading of the French and Latin authors and philosophers he admired, plus longer extracts from his wider reading. More importantly for a fan, the book contains random ideas for stories. Who among us wouldn't want to see more from our man Gissing?
 |
| Figure In A Landscape 1960 |
Here are some of George's ideas for future works, not necessarily from notes made in America, but included in the American Notebook. These are some of the books that got away:
Trace the gradual seduction of a masculine woman. Echoes of The Odd Women's Rhoda Nunn?
Mother supposed to die in Hospital and leaves child at Deprt'. of Charities. Child adopted by rich people. Mother turns up and claims. Highly unlikely homage to Oliver Twist, so a good idea to abandon it.
 |
| Winged Figure 1963 |
Young, enthusiastic man marries and is deceived by his wife. Loses all faith in women and becomes wild.(?) Woman of the town falls in love with him and reclaims him. A touch of The Unclasseds?
Man becomes adept at poisoning. Teaches his mistress. They poison his wife and then proceed to the other members of the family. The mistress insists on marrying the man, and proceeds to kill her own husband. The man however keeps him alive by antidotes. At length he narrowly escapes poisoning; flees for his life, and lives in constant terror. An intriguing plot that might be influenced by Edgar Allan Poe or Thomas De Quincy or Wainewright The Poisoner. Or a tribute to the case of Mrs Florence Maybrick, imprisoned for poisoning her husband. See click
Old philanthropist who has got so into habit of rebuking people for misdeeds that he can never keep quiet. Early version of Henry Ryecroft?
 |
| Monolith Empyrean 1953 |
Character - Beautiful face, with insipid character. Sleeping Fires' illegitimate son with 'silky pencillings' for a moustache and the totally unbelievable name of Lou Reed. (RIP, Lou.)
Father's treatment of son when he gets to a reasonable age. Later on, George's treatment of his own two sons would fall so far below what was good parenting that his biographers have felt compelled to sweep it all under the carpet and blame his second wife, Edith. He began a long campaign to drive her mad and remove his first son from her care by accusing her of beating the child. He never offered any witnesses or proof. As for the second son - he did not speak to him at all on his last meeting with the lad. Some father he made! And, yet, he commented on the sin of bad parenting in several of his novels - The Whirlpool, for example.
 |
| Family of Man by Dame Barbara Hepworth 1970 |
Ugly, despised and miserable man has trances in which he seems to possess love and treasures. Sees a girl who resembles something seen in dreams. Pursues her, and her scorn kills him. Homage to Victor Hugo?
Plot - 'In Search of a Friend'. Man leaves his mistress, of whom he has become tired because she is not intellectual, and forms an idea that friendship, devoid of passion, is true happiness. Travels in search of a friend.
His mistress, who loves him, laments his desertion and rejects addresses of another suitor. This suitor eventually falls in with the former and becomes his friend. They return together to the town and have eclaircissement (an unnecessarily poncy word for 'clarification'). Later gives up his love (whom he has at length persuaded to marry him). Former recovers his lost affection. Everything you need to know about George and his attitude to women - he writes about a character who leaves a woman he has kept as a mistress because she isn't intellectual enough? Why had it taken him so long to work that out?? Was he so busy having sex that he forgot to have a conversation with her?
Plot - Two young people marry and live in poor lodging house. Man becomes dissipated and leaves his wife, who, through strange circumstances, rises high in society and has good offer of marriage. Husband returns. Live together again, and husband by his dissipation brings wife to suicide. Strange ideas about crossing class barriers was a bit of an obsession for George who struggled with his own humble origins. One way he asserted his class credentials was to marry women he considered inferior. See Commonplace 71.
Man marries wife and leaves her. Gets rich, and returns with mistress. Wife regains influence, but mistress murders him for his money, which he has left her by will. Definitely not George's sort of thing except as a piece that might sell.
Young man leaves his family in the country and goes to city. Gets good position in merchant's office.
After a time hears that father is on point of being ruined for want of a small sum of money. Steals it and sends. Is discovered. The father visits him in prison, and commits suicide. Again, when biographers cherry-pick George's notes for clues to his personality and motivation, this sort of thing figures in their final drafts as 'George stole money whilst he was a student' gets turned into 'George stole money to give to his girlfriend, Marianne aka Nell' - yet there is no proof she even knew he was stealing. In fact, George stole money over several months, and also stole books, so the stealing was habitual. Petty theft in adolescence is often an unconscious solution to pressures of anxiety. Ask yourself, what is more likely - 1) by stealing enough money to splash about as if he had plenty to spend he eased the pressure on his self-image caused by being in a world populated by higher class peers with lots of cash; 2) he ran a mistress with expensive tastes? At no time in the Letters (especially from George's brother, William) does Nell ever come across as a spendthrift or a gold-digger, except in the minds of biographers with issues of their own who insist that she was.
Excusable theft is a major part of A Life's Morning, and guess what happens to the old chap who steals to buy himself a hat because his is lost? George's rationalisation is that Mr Hood (see that thing about illustrative names at work?) is too SHY to be seen without a hat because everyone would stare at him. Better to be a thief than to be hatless?? He 'borrows' the £10 required to buy a hat - but £10 was a fortune in 1888, when the book was first serialised in Cornhill Magazine. This website click suggests it was worth over £900 in today's values. If it's a short step between that kind of social awkwardness and self-justification of larceny for a character, then the same could be true for the author.
JOIN ME IN COMMONPLACE 196 TO EXPLORE THIS CRIME AND PUNISHMENT MOMENT.
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