Dawn’s Comments (group member since Feb 15, 2021)

Dawn’s comments from the The Obscure Reading Group group.

Finally finished! Just a few final thoughts...
1) Having rewatched a couple old Frasier reruns, I still have this weird desire to superimpose Frasier onto Charles, maybe since both characters can come across as pompous with delusions of grandeur and can easily go off the handle when questioned or when feeling victimized, yet still earn our sympathies and make us laugh at their absurd behavior - so I'd definitely like to see Kelsey Grammer in the movie version. :)
2) “Did you know that dolphins sometimes commit suicide by leaping onto the land because they're so tormented by parasites?" I really liked James for his leveling effect and for sharing gems like this.
3) Is the answer to Charles' repeated question "who do we love first" ourselves?
4) Why was Hartley wet when she returned home the first time she escaped from Charles?
5) I appreciate that Murdoch let Charles have his aha moments in the last section after James' death so we know he's realized his madness and we can feel assured he won't be getting on a plane to Sydney any time soon. Whew!
6) I think being friends with Charles would make every day feel like opposite day (‘I want to be alone, but pay attention to me!’ ‘Let me be your father, but I can’t possibly be your father’ etc.).
7) This book is a decent PSA about steering clear of your exes.
8) Ken, since the story is set in Europe, it may be plausible that Titus would be so carefree about swimming in the buff with some random old man. They do have more nude beaches than we do. Haha.

What a great book filled with interesting characters and vivid imagery. I agree with Ken regarding Murdoch's talents as a writer. She definitely had me feeling all kinds of emotions and despite my frustrations, I felt compelled to keep reading.

Thanks to everyone for selecting this title and for sharing your thoughts! It was a fun discussion!

I still have a ways to go in the book, but wanted to share that partway through History Four, I started hearing Dr. Frasier Crane‘s voice in place of Charles Arrowby’s and haven’t been able to stop that since. :)

Charles is such a cad! Haha. I agree with others in that he was amusing in the Pre History, but has since irritated me with his selfishness to the point I want to shake him. Yet, there is still a small part of me that simply believes him to be a naive man-child who is oblivious to the world around him and in that sense somewhat devastatingly comical. And, I may be alone in this, but Hartley is annoying me almost as much as Charles. Perhaps they are meant to be. I'm anxious to see what happens in the next section. May the sea swallow them all whole. :)

I am really enjoying this title so far. I have never read anything by Murdoch before and am finding her writing somewhat tedious yet incredibly absorbing and entertaining. I find myself chuckling and gasping and talking back to the book quite often. I don’t have much else to add except that Charles’ comment on Peregrine seems to be a bit of self-diagnosis…“Peregrine (he detests being called 'Perry' as much as I detest being called 'Charlie'; only people who do not know me call me ‘Charlie') is one of those who have a strong concept of the life they want to lead and the role they want to play and lead it and play it at the expense of everyone, especially their nearest and dearest. And the odd thing is that such people can in a sense be wrong, can as it were miscast themselves, and yet battle on successfully to the end, partly because their ‘victims' prefer a definite simple impression to the pains of critical thought.”

I share Ken’s fantasy. All this greed for money and power is a contemptible trait of man. It never ceases to amaze me how similar our lives really are to those who lived over a century ago despite the human advancements that have taken place. While change is constant, some things never really do change, especially social issues like poverty. A fittingly bleak end to the discussion on a book whose author despaired of identifying any viable solutions himself.

Thanks, Kathleen! Agreed on the quote from Gissing’s diary. You can definitely see how his tragic life influenced his characters and what the impetus is for his social commentary/soapboxing. Knowing Gissing walked the same streets and that this novel is essentially a firsthand account of life in the slums is meaningful.

Ken, thanks so much for the response.

In fact it did! At the start, Snowdon stopped at the cemetery gate, peered inside, and “fixed his eyes half absently on the inscription of a gravestone near him” before walking toward the detention facility and, at the end, Jane and Sidney meet at the cemetery near Snowdon’s grave to pay their respects. Regarding my Hardy comment, that was more with respect to writing style. If you compare the first paragraphs of Nether World to Mayor of Casterbridge, there is a definite pacing and form used by both authors that struck me.

Nether World:
“In the troubled twilight of a March evening ten years ago, an old man, whose equipment and bearing suggested that he was fresh from travel, walked slowly across Clerkenwell Green, and by the graveyard of St. James’s Church stood for a moment looking about him. His age could not be far from seventy, but, despite the stoop of his shoulders, he gave little sign of failing under the burden of years; his sober step indicated gravity of character rather than bodily feebleness, and his grasp of a stout stick was not such as bespeaks need of support. His attire was neither that of a man of leisure, nor of the kind usually worn by English mechanics. Instead of coat and waistcoat, he wore a garment something like a fisherman’s guernsey, and over this a coarse short cloak, picturesque in appearance as it was buffeted by the wind. His trousers were of moleskin; his boots reached almost to his knees; for head-covering he had the cheapest kind of undyed felt, its form exactly that of the old petasus. To say that his aspect was Venerable would serve to present him in a measure, yet would not be wholly accurate, for there was too much of past struggle and present anxiety in his countenance to permit full expression of the natural dignity of the features. It was a fine face and might have been distinctly noble, but circumstances had marred the purpose of Nature; you perceived that his cares had too often been of the kind which are created by ignoble necessities, such as leave to most men of his standing a bare humanity of visage. He had long thin white hair; his beard was short and merely grizzled. In his left hand he carried a bundle, which probably contained clothing.”

Casterbridge:
“One evening of late summer, before the nineteenth century had reached one-third of its span, a young man and woman, the latter carrying a child, were approaching the large village of Weydon-Priors, in Upper Wessex, on foot. They were plainly but not ill clad, though the thick hoar of dust which had accumulated on their shoes and garments from an obviously long journey lent a disadvantageous shabbiness to their appearance just now.
The man was of fine figure, swarthy, and stern in aspect; and he showed in profile a facial angle so slightly inclined as to be almost perpendicular. He wore a short jacket of brown corduroy, newer than the remainder of his suit, which was a fustian waistcoat with white horn buttons, breeches of the same, tanned leggings, and a straw hat overlaid with black glazed canvas. At his back he carried by a looped strap a rush basket, from which protruded at one end the crutch of a hay-knife, a wimble for hay-bonds being also visible in the aperture. His measured, springless walk was the walk of the skilled countryman as distinct from the desultory shamble of the general labourer; while in the turn and plant of each foot there was, further, a dogged and cynical indifference personal to himself, showing its presence even in the regularly interchanging fustian folds, now in the left leg, now in the right, as he paced along.”

A story of a man from the past, intricately described, both travelers.

You are so right about translations! I often feel mood is impacted. This is particularly true of idioms, as all cultures use them.

I realize I am quite late to the game, but just completed The Nether World and had a couple thoughts to share. Hoping it will be worth your time and also that I’m not repeating any insights already shared by another member!

First, I would like to thank the group for introducing me to an author whose writing I had not yet experienced. Great discussion! I always learn a lot in reviewing the commentary on the books this group reads. Second, I agree the book is grim (for starters, it both opens and closes in a cemetery), but I really enjoyed the story, particularly the historical accounts of the region. Most readers of Classics have a good grasp of the way of life of working class London, but Gissing opened my eyes to aspects of history I was not yet aware (“housing farmers,” “bank holiday” celebrations, etc.) and/or made things that were obvious more tangible (industry’s negative impact on the skilled craftsman through Bob Hewett’s story). Next, I know some group members thought the novel read like Dickens, but I felt Gissing’s writing style really resembled Thomas Hardy. The manner in which the story opens and the detailed character description in the first couple paragraphs was especially reminiscent to me of the opening scene of The Mayor of Casterbridge, which drew me in immediately. Along these lines, I also appreciated the level of detail that went into establishing the setting and almost feel this was done with more skill than developing the characters of the story. This led me to do some research of Gissing online and I learned that he wrote from personal experience, having lived near the area and married an alcoholic prostitute named Nell with whom he later had a falling out and divorced. Writing in his diary about his estranged wife’s death after viewing the body, which was presumably the catalyst to writing The Nether World, Gissing shares…

“Linen she had none; the very covering of the bed had gone save one sheet and one blanket. I found a number of pawn tickets, showing that she had pledged these things during last summer, - when it was warm, poor creature! All the money she received went in drink …
  She lay on the bed covered with a sheet. I looked long, long at her face, but could not recognize it. It is more than three years, I think, since I saw her. And she had changed horribly. …
  Came home to a bad, wretched night. In nothing am I to blame; I did my utmost; again and again I had her back to me. Fate was too strong. But as I stood beside that bed, I felt that my life henceforth had a firmer purpose. Henceforth I never cease to bear testimony against the accursed social order that brings about things of this kind. I feel that she will help me more in her death than she balked me during her life. Poor, poor thing!”

In response to the comments on the title, I learned this may have been a throwback to Dante’s Inferno, which Gissing read to learn Italian and that the Cary’s translation with which he was familiar contained the phrase ‘the nether world.’ It is also said that Gissing was not the first to make the connection between Dante’s Inferno and Clerkenwell. “A local clergyman had, in the mid-1880s, likened the noises emanating from the deep trench built for the underground railway to ‘the shrieks and groans of the lost souls in the lowest circle of Dante’s Inferno’. “

Finally, while bleak overall, for me the story ends in a bit of hope (“She looked up, with no surprise, and gave her hand for a moment”). It is true that Sidney and Jane were both victims of Michael Snowdon’s idealism, but they were also beneficiaries and neither fully succumb to the vileness of The Nether World.

New to the group. Excited to read Brothers, as it has been on my list for a long time. I was warned away from P&V and CG, so ended up with McDuff. Thanks for the list of nicknames and, instead of the t-shirt, I want the shower curtain, so the bathroom is pre-equipped with reading material. 🤣