Kipling: Reappraisal of the Late Style

245 starvation (as late as I89O he had to sell'off his books to keep himself alive while writing NEW GRUB STREET), hostile reviews and poor sales. Again when we read that "with LIZA OF LAMBETH Somerset Maugham bettered all Gissing's earnest novels of working class life," we regret that the editor fails to make a difference between the sincere, soul-moving pictures of THYRZA or THE NETHER WORLD and the pastiche of a medical student trying his hand at literature. If these are after all but examples of hyperdebatable opinion, the factual errors with which the foreword is teeming will better convey the carelessness of the method and the feebleness of the information. A long series of statements must be contradicted. Thus Gissing never went to the German University of Jena; his first wife did not die In hospital but in a Lambeth lodging-house; he did not sell THE NETHER WORLD and NEW GRUB STREET through an agent but directly to Smith, Elder who paid him f150 for each. As regards his third trip to Rome, Mr. Chisholm obviously consulted H. G. Wells's EXPERIMENT IN AUTOBIOGRAPHY which is notorious for its inaccuracy of facts and names (for instance Gabriel Ie Fleury becomes Thérèse); after the Manchester episode, Gissing was not rescued in court but served one month's imprisonment with hard labour. Speaking of RYECROFT, he never used the word "inspiration"; to Austin Harrison he wrote that it was "much more an aspiration than a memory," as is confirmed by the motto of the book "Hoc erat in votis." Also, what should one think of the legend set afloat by T. P. O'Connor who would have us believe that the book scarcely stirred a ripple on publication (whereas dozens of reviews testify to the contrary) and owes its popularity to a series of frontpage articles in T, P.'s WEEKLY (the said articles being conspicuously absent from the files of the magazine)? Nor do the mistakes all concern Gissing. We hear with surprise that in 1903 Meredith and Hardy were still writing novels and that OF HUMAN BONDAGE appeared as early as 1897! Indeed it is something of a feat to have committed so many errors within so short a space, and one can only hope that Messrs. Dent will, for the next printing, do away with this foreword, and ask some more competent and sympathetic critic to write a more reliable introduction. University of Paris P. Coustillas 6. Kipi inq: Reappraisal of the Late Style C. A. Bodelsen. ASPECTS OF KIPLING'S ART. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1964. $5.00 Professor Bodelsen insists that the stories Kipling wrote after 1914 require careful textual analysis for complete understanding. By this time Kipling had developed a difficult, condensed, and concentrated method of writing in which he persisted despite a loss in popularity. Using definite standards of analysis which he ennumerates in Chapter Vl, "Kipling's Late Manner," Professor Bodelsen examines such matters as Kipling's self-revelation concerning his position as an artist, Kipling's concern with expressing transcendental experience through "cosmic mirth," and the meaning of "Mrs. Bathurst" and "The Comprehension of Private Copper." Though close textual analysis is not new, it has seldom been applied to Kipling's short stories (J. M. S, Tompkins' THE ART OF RUDYARD KIPLING [19591 being an exception). The result of Professor Bodelsen's analyses shows that Kipling made use of multiple meaning and symbolism, key phrases and frameworks to the fullest extent, often concentrating into a short story the material for a complete novel. Professor Bodelsen's seven essays on the late Kipling are required reading for all Kipling scholars, for they, with Miss Tompkins' study, indicate the recent trend toward reappraisal of Kipling's accomplishment as literary artist. Purdue University Edward S. Lauterbach ...