Gissing in Italy

ELT 43 : 4 2000 Gissing in Italy With Gissing in Italy: The Memoirs of Brian Ború Dunne. Paul F. Mattheisen , Arthur C. Young, and Pierre Coustillas, eds. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1999. ix + 207 pp. $39.95 THE APPEARANCE of Brian Boni Dunne's memoir With Gissing in Italy, a hitherto unknown work, represents a welcome addition to George Gissing scholarship. Discovered by the editors during their preparation of the nine-volume edition of Gissing's letters, the material, consisting of several drafts of the piece ranging from rough sketches to submitted articles, is published here for the first time. The work records the time spent by Dunne, a prodigiously talented American journalist, with Gissing in Siena and Rome, when Gissing, having freed himself from his troubled life with Edith, was writing his study of Dickens, collecting material for Veranilda, and traveling through southern Italy, a journey which would be recorded in By the Ionian Sea. The memoir is certain to provide at least three main talking points for Gissing critics. The most obvious is the way the memoir redraws the most commonly accepted portrait of Gissing's personality, for, as the editors point out, it sheds light on an aspect of his personality that is rarely discussed. While, as the editors note, Wells in Experiment in Autobiography wrote that Gissing "craved to laugh, jest, enjoy, stride along against the wind, shout, 'quaff mighty flagons,'" the typical picture of Gissing is of an overly serious, overly bookish, gloomy man, often associated with his fictional novelist Edwin Reardon. Consider, for instance, the unhappy picture painted by the sub-headings in the biographical introduction to Robert Selige George Gissing (Twayne, 1983): after Early Years, we read Disgrace and Exile; Marital Disaster, Release and Frustration; Unhappy Remarriage and Achievement; and Extralegal "Marriage" and Final Works. Similar titles appear in John Halperin's Gissing: A Life in Books (Oxford University Press, 1983). This view is, of course, in many ways accurate, and Gissing's difficult life offers ample cause for his mental state (and we should emphasize that Wells wrote that Gissing "craved" enjoyment, not that he was actually able to have it). Yet Dunne's memoir catches Gissing at a rare moment of personal and professional happiness. Gissing's acclaim as a novelist was growing, and he was finally reaping financial rewards from his work, not to mention the separation from his second wife. Thus, while at times oppressed by still working under a strict deadline (for the Dickens book), he is often seen as relaxed and in good humor, as in his joke at the expense of the 488 BOOK REVIEWS King of Italy, his amusement at a music hall performance, and his convivial temper when drinking. As Dunne writes, "All seemed well, with Gissing—charming as only he could be___"In fact, Gissing is often seen laughing—Dunne repeatedly uses the word "chuckle"—a picture that seems odd, given the usual descriptions of him. Of course, this is not the only portrait that Dunne provides. He also notes, while discussing Gissing's second marriage, "He was a superlatively unhappy man." But his balanced view is striking in the light of what we have typically seen of Gissing. Another interesting aspect of the portrait is the way it may remind us ofThe Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft. Critics have often bemoaned the way this novel has been read autobiographically. Gillian Tindall writes in his introduction to the novel, Gissing "is one of those novelists whose books are closely associated with his life___Sometimes if taken too literally , they distort and mislead: the widespread misinterpretation of his pseudo-autobiography The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft provides a classic example of this" (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974, 25). In a letter , Gissing himself had complained about this: "I hope too much will not be made of the few autobiographical pages in this book" (in Jacob Korg, George Gissing: A Critical Biography [Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1963], 244.) But despite this disclaimer, Gissing's opinions as recorded by Dunne often find echoes in Ryecroft's. For example, both Gissing in these memoirs and Ryecroft expound upon the superiority of all things English, in most cases with...