APS TOGETHER
Day 35
New Grub Street by George GissingChapter 35
December 10, 2023 by Yiyun Li
“‘The first duty of a novelist is to tell a story’: the perpetual repetition of this phrase is a warning to all men who propose drawing from the life.”
In our time I have heard other phrases repeated by people with strong convictions. Sometimes I wonder if the reason that literature still lives on is not because of people’s strong convictions, but despite them…
“We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.”
The Tempest quote is rather an apt summary of all writers. It feels a rare emotional, perhaps even sentimental, touch from Gissing to quote it twice when two of the most stubborn writers die in the novel.
The end of the chapter turns lyrical. Even Gissing cannot help but soften the edge of the coldest despair when death approaches.
