喬治·吉辛 (George Gissing) 於1891年創作了這部小說'New Grub Street'.' 高中讀的遠東註解本 The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft' By George Gissing
喬治·吉辛於1891年創作了這部小說，但讀起來卻像是我今天認識的每一位疲憊不堪的作家發來的短信。人名變了，科技也變了，但其根本的殘酷卻始終如一：在一個只看重銷量的世界裡創作藝術，是令人窒息的苦差事。吉辛並沒有美化這種掙扎。他如實地展現了貧窮、妥協和無止盡的拒絕如何將人磨滅殆盡，最終只剩下苦澀和破碎的夢想。這是我讀過的最坦誠的關於寫作的書，而我卻痛恨其中每一個精準的字眼。
艾德溫·裡爾頓是一位小有名氣的作家，娶了一位出身遠高於他的女人。他的妻子艾咪愛他，或自以為愛他，但她也愛的是安逸、體面，以及嫁給成功作家的幻想。當裡爾頓的書不再暢銷，當資金枯竭，當他無法再按需創作時，他們的婚姻便走向了一場緩慢的災難。艾米並沒有因為他貧窮而不再愛他，而是因為他不願意為了追求大眾的成功而降低自己的原則，而不再尊重他。你眼睜睜地看著他為了藝術的完整性而放棄婚姻和幸福，不禁會想，原則真的值得為之犧牲嗎？
然後是賈斯柏·米爾文，小說中最引人入勝的角色，正是因為他務實得近乎反社會。賈斯柏完全了解遊戲規則。他為雜誌撰寫書評，源源不絕地創作內容，不遺餘力地拓展人脈，甚至在婚姻上也頗具策略性。他對藝術、真理和品質都毫無幻想。文學是一門生意，而他的目標是贏。更可怕的是，他成功了。裡爾頓為了堅守原則而苦苦掙扎，而賈斯柏卻透過放棄原則而飛黃騰達。
吉辛在格魯布街塑造了一群處於失敗與妥協各個階段的作家。阿爾弗雷德·尤爾，這位憤世嫉俗的學者，他的巨著永遠無法完成，他被怨恨和受挫的雄心壯誌所折磨。哈羅德‧比芬，他以冷峻的寫實筆觸描寫工人階級的生活，卻無人問津；他寧願選擇冰冷的閣樓，也不願追求商業上的成功，最終為此付出了生命的代價。每個角色都是對同一個問題的不同答案：為了成為作家，你願意犧牲多少？
小說中的女性身陷囹圄，與男性的掙扎相比，她們的困境顯得微不足道。瑪麗安·尤爾是她父親的無薪研究助理，她自己的文學抱負在父親的苛求下被扼殺。她愛著賈斯珀，但沒有錢就無法嫁給他；當她預期的遺產消失時，賈斯珀也失去了興趣。艾美·裡爾頓醒悟得太晚，才明白愛上一個藝術家和與一個失敗的藝術家共同生活是截然不同的兩件事。吉辛揭示了貧窮如何以不同的方式摧毀女性，不僅摧毀她們的夢想，也摧毀她們的自主權。
這部小說最令人難以忍受之處在於它對金錢的無情描繪。吉辛追蹤每一英鎊，每一筆逾期付款，每一次在取暖和食物之間的抉擇。他清楚地展現了經濟壓力如何扼殺創造力，持續不斷的生存焦慮如何使人無法創作出優秀的作品，這意味著無法賺錢，從而導致更大的焦慮。這是一個無路可逃的陷阱，而他以親歷者的精準記錄了這一切。
吉辛筆下的倫敦骯髒、擁擠、冷漠。大英博物館閱覽室反覆出現，那些絕望的作家們伏案苦讀，研究著他們並不關心的文章，爭奪著微薄的稿酬。這裡沒有社群，沒有團結。只有原子化的個體為了生存而掙扎，同時假裝熱愛文學。波西米亞式的藝術家貧窮的浪漫神話被徹底粉碎。
裡爾頓的墮落令人痛心，因為它如此漸進，如此平凡。他沒有經歷戲劇性的崩潰。他只是累了，累了，累了抗爭，累了貧窮，累了眼睜睜看著婚姻破裂，累了明明市場已經否定了他的作品，他卻還堅信它有意義。最終，他徹底停止了寫作，這本身就是一種死亡。吉辛明白，大多數藝術上的失敗並不轟轟烈烈，而是精疲力竭的最終勝利。
如果你曾經一邊為房租煩惱一邊嘗試創作藝術，那就讀這本書吧。如果你曾眼睜睜看著那些天賦不如你、但更努力的人獲得成功，而你卻還在苦苦掙扎，如果你想明白為什麼「做你熱愛的事」這條建議只有在你擁有金錢的時候才適用，那就讀讀這本書吧。吉辛不會激勵你，也不會讓你對自己的選擇感到更滿意。但他會讓你在掙扎中感受到被理解。有時候，在苦苦掙扎的過程中，被理解是唯一重要的慰藉。這本書不會拯救你。但它會在黑暗中陪伴你，證實你：是的，生活真的如此艱難。而不知為何，這種坦誠本身就是一種奇特的禮物。
書籍連結：https://amzn.to/3MNn9XK
George Gissing wrote this novel in 1891, but it reads like a text message from every exhausted writer I know today. The names change, the technology shifts, but the fundamental brutality remains: making art in a world that only values what sells is soul-crushing work. And Gissing doesn't romanticize the struggle. He shows you exactly how poverty and compromise and endless rejection grind people down until there's nothing left but bitterness and broken dreams. It's the most honest book about writing I've ever read, and I hated every accurate word.
Edwin Reardon is a novelist of modest success who's married above his station. His wife Amy loves him, or thinks she does, but she also loves comfort, respectability, the idea of being married to a successful author. When Reardon's books stop selling, when the money dries up and he can't produce on demand, their marriage becomes a slow-motion catastrophe. Amy doesn't stop loving him because he's poor, she stops respecting him because he won't compromise his standards to chase popular success. And you watch him choose artistic integrity over his marriage, over his happiness, and wonder if principles are worth dying for.
Then there's Jasper Milvain, the novel's most fascinating character precisely because he's so pragmatic it borders on sociopathic. Jasper understands the game completely. He writes book reviews for magazines, churns out content, networks relentlessly, marries strategically. He has no illusions about art or truth or quality. Literature is a trade, and he's in it to win. And the horrifying thing? He succeeds. While Reardon starves for his principles, Jasper thrives by abandoning his.
Gissing populates Grub Street with writers at every stage of failure and compromise. There's Alfred Yule, the bitter scholar whose magnum opus will never be finished, poisoned by resentment and thwarted ambition. There's Harold Biffen, who writes stark realism about working-class life that absolutely no one wants to read, who chooses freezing garrets over commercial success and pays for it with his life. Each character is a different answer to the same question: How much of yourself will you sacrifice to survive as a writer?
The women in this novel are trapped in ways that make the men's struggles look almost quaint. Marian Yule works as her father's unpaid research assistant, her own literary ambitions crushed under his demands. She loves Jasper but can't marry him without money, and when her expected inheritance vanishes, so does his interest. Amy Reardon discovers too late that loving an artist and living with a failing one are different things entirely. Gissing shows how poverty destroys women differently, not just their dreams, but their very agency.
What makes this novel almost unbearable is its relentless specificity about money. Gissing tracks every pound, every delayed payment, every choice between heat and food. He shows you exactly how financial pressure poisons creativity, how the constant anxiety of survival makes it impossible to produce good work, which means you can't earn money, which means more anxiety. It's a trap with no exit, and he documents it with the precision of someone who lived it.
The London that Gissing depicts is grimy, crowded, indifferent. The British Museum Reading Room becomes a recurring image, all those desperate writers hunched over books, researching articles they don't care about, competing for the same scraps of paid work. There's no community here, no solidarity. Just atomized individuals clawing for survival while pretending to care about literature. The romantic myth of bohemian artistic poverty is thoroughly demolished.
Reardon's descent is painful to watch because it's so gradual, so ordinary. He doesn't have a dramatic breakdown. He just gets tired, tired of fighting, tired of poverty, tired of watching his marriage disintegrate, tired of believing his work matters when the market has decided it doesn't. And eventually he stops writing altogether, which is its own kind of death. Gissing understands that most artistic failure isn't spectacular, it's just exhaustion winning.
Read this if you've ever tried to make art while wondering how you'll pay rent. Read it if you've watched someone with less talent and more hustle succeed while you're still struggling, if you want to understand why "do what you love" is advice that only works when you have money. Gissing won't inspire you or make you feel better about your choices. But he'll make you feel seen in your struggle. And sometimes, in the middle of the grind, being seen is the only comfort that matters. This book won't save you. But it will sit with you in the dark and confirm that yes, it really is this hard. And somehow, that honesty is its own strange gift.
BOOK: https://amzn.to/3MNn9XK
An article by George Gissing on “Mr. Swinburne and Dickens”, first published in the TLS on July 25, 1902
讀到某人引
"十七世紀" (sic) 的英國作家吉辛 ( George Gissing ) 曾經鼓勵人們「要能夠挺胸應付壞天侯，並在和它掙扎中得到快樂。」他又嘆喟；「生活若不是想辦法使自身可以忍受，我怎麼能活過那許多年呢？人有一種可驚的力量使自已適應無可避免的情況。」
這位仁兄的一本名著The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft 我竟然是在高中二年級1968年讀完的 可見我四十年來英文無大長進
(born Nov. 22, 1857, Wakefield, Yorkshire, Eng. — died Dec. 28, 1903, Saint-Jean-de-Luz, France) British novelist. He had a brilliant academic career but an unhappy personal life; twice involved in miserable marriages, he experienced the life of near poverty and constant drudgery that he described in New Grub Street, 3 vol. (1891), his best-known work, and The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (1903). Inspired by Honoré de Balzac, he wrote a cycle of 22 novels, which included Born in Exile (1892) and The Odd Women (1893). His realistic novels of lower-middle-class life are noted for their acute perception of women's social position and psychology.
'New Grub Street'.'The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft' By George Gissing
Under her care he was able to resume writing: a history of the short story and some "Memories of a Writing Life" modestly and perhaps romantically titled As I Walked Down New Grub Street (1981). A source-book for innumerable biographers, it is a spirited series of reminiscences, its eye as sharply amusing as he was in conversation, bringing to life the great and those who simply milled around the fringes
George Gissing died #OTD 1903. Gissing was educated at Owen's College, Manchester. When he was caught stealing from school friends to support a prostitute, Nell Harrison, he was sentenced to a month's hard labour. He subsequently worked in America. In 1877, Gissing moved to London, and married Nell; they were separated by 1883. His best-known work is 'New Grub Street'.
天津
李霽野 《四季隨筆》 《唐人絕句啟蒙》。張清吉，秦賢次介紹天津李霽野給張清吉，周超駿、陳香妃、曹永洋校對
HC 11月27 2024 請教秦賢次先生： 謝謝。您兩次與張清吉先生到中國大陸，請問會見那些作家譯者？。
答：祗幫他介紹天津李霽野。其他,都是北京友人陪他去找人。我們忙著買舊書。
19910720 簽送季季 唐人絕句啟蒙 一書
廖為民 很難得的大前輩 (HC案： 在陳儀"主政"台灣時，李霽野來台......)
李霽野
1991 新潮文庫
| 340 | 四季隨筆 | 喬治·吉辛著，李霽野譯，周超駿、陳香妃、曹永洋校對 |
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