ABSTRACT
Mr George Gissing is an author apart; he belongs to no school, and has founded none. He describes human life with the relentlessness of a Zola, but without his uncleanness. His characters do not lead happy lives, nor, it is fair to add, do they generally deserve to do so. No doubt he could draw gentlemen and ladies ifhe chose, but he does not choose. The subjects of his pen are, for the most part, at best genteel, and not so very genteel. So far as I remember, he never indulges in humour, nor permits his dramatis personae to do so. Their lives are not worth living, but thanks to the genius he unquestionably possesses they are well worth describing. He contrives to interest us in them in spite of ourselves. They are unhappy and frequently morose, their views are commonplace and sordid, they are often vicious in an unattractive fashion, yet we feel that they are real people, photographed from the life; indeed, they are themselves like photographs-cheap ones-ungainly, uncomely, and colourless. Their end, like their beginning, is almost always an unhappy one. The note from first to last is pessimist. Still, out of these unpromising materials it is seldom that Mr George Gissing fails to weave an attractive tale. He is obviously in
earnest, and yet so disinclined to preach, so sympathetic, yet without a particle of gush; above all, he strikes one as being honest as the day, with entire freedom from affectation. He deals with the vulgar from their own standpoint-not humorously, as Dickens did, and far less de haut en bas; he describes them with pitiless accuracy, but without apology. In the Year ofJubilee is quite as goodas anythinghe has written. It is, as usual, crowded with characters not one ofwhom can lay claim to be a hero, though none has a valet de chambre to question it. Mary W oodruH: a housekeeper worthily translated to the parlour, is the only one of the dramatis personae who is favourably presented to our notice. The principal personage, Lionel Tarrant, speaks of her as 'that most wonderful phenomenon in nature-an uneducated woman who was neither vulgar nor foolish.' And all the other women in the book are uneducated. Tarrant-though when he throws offthe slough ofdissipation he becomes a prig, and has views he believes to be philosophic, but which in fact are very silly, about marriage and other social matters-is an interesting study, full of contradictions, and yet singularly lifelike. This, indeed, is the charm of the novel: the people in it are all alive; there are no marionettes, which is fortunate, since there is no dance-music provided for them.
