Customer Reviews

The Whirlpool

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Although this Gissing novel was revived for critical admiration about a century after it had first appeared to mixed or lackluster reviews, it continues to remain on murky, shadowy shelves, little-read. What a supreme shame. It is interesting from the beginning, never flagging in its incisive exploration of relationships. The novel is essentially a drawing-room drama that explores the autumn of the Victorian era. Its focus is on denizens who are not the bohemians or working-class outsiders to society that populated many of Gissings other books, but the lower and middle ranks of *society* itself. It follows the folks we would today call "trust-fund children," people poorly prepared for earning their own way in life, saddled with excess leisure time and burdened with a stringent set of rules about propriety. They, like their less fortunate fellow citizens, are having to learn as they go along about the modern era and its stock-market and social commodities.

But this is only the backdrop for the meaty aspects of the book. The glory of the novel is Gissing's examination of relationships. By scrutinzing a particularly vivid woman-- a narcissist whose self-deceptions clamor to distort every attachment she forms-- the author brings an expert hand to describing marriages, friendships, parent-child bonds. Gissing shows a psychologist's keen insight into the ways that generations pass on strengths and weaknesses, the way a parent's behaviors will mold the desires of his children's adulthoods. He is perceptive about how vastly different people may attract one another in the subconscious hopes that they will counter-balance each other's excesses. He is able to show how friendships can round out-- or contaminate-- the weaknesses in a person's character. Impulses war with conscious goals in these people, loyalty is set against self-interest.

The fickleness of adolescence, the intricacies of courtship, the successes and failures of marital negotiations-- all of these are brilliantly reflected in the plot. Gissing shows a masterly hand at dialogue. Domestic and societal intrigue are drawn into the story as the femme fatale becomes increasingly desperate. The novel is less overtly philosophical than his better-known *The Odd Women.* It is no less impressive, however. I enjoyed the book from beginning to end.

The Everyman edition is especially fine-- it sports a great introduction by William Greenslade, timelines not only of Gissing's life but of the artistic and political era, as well as illuminating explanatory notes and excerpts from the reviews of the 1890s and 1980s.

George Gissing's novel "The Whirlpool" is a grim, pessimistic and thoughtful examination of materialistic, fast-paced urban life and of the difficulties of what today is frequently described as companionate marriage. Of all Gissing's novels, this book is probably the most modernistic in tone. Published in 1897, "The Whirlpool" is a late work of Gissing (1857 -- 1903. It was written after the author had achieved a degree of critical and popular recognition after writing in relative obscurity for much of his life. Most of Gissing's books deal with the London poor or with the middle class. "The Whirlpool" is unique for Gissing in its upper middle-class setting, and the book has some similarities to the writings of Henry James. Gissing wrote best about places and people that he knew. In some respects, he seems uncomfortable in his descriptions of the worlds of finance and of the business of music that form the backdrop of this novel. In its pessimism, the book is typical of Gissing. Thus, in an earlier novel, "The Nether World", The Nether World (Oxford World's Classics) Gissing's most detailed look at the London poor, Gissing observes that there is little to distinguish the nether world of the slums from the world of the upper-class. In many respects, "The Whirlpool" is "The Nether World" transferred.

The title "The Whirlpool" is the key metaphor of the book. Gissing and his main character, Harvey Rolfe describe the world of late Nineteenth Century London as "a ghastly whirlpool which roars over a bottomless pit" (p. 47)for its ceaseless and senseless activity devoted to the pursuit of money which draws everyone into its maw. In discussing the difficulties of raising children, Rolfe observes that "There's the whirlpool of the furiously busy. Round and round they go; brains humming till they melt or explode." (p. 147)

The novel centers upon the marriage between Harvey Rolfe, age 37 at the outset of the novel, and Alma Frothingham, roughly 16 years younger. Rolfe is a Gissing-type male character, educated, well-meaning, but passive, rootless, and weak. Rolfe is educated and a reader and appears content to live as a single man on a competence of investments which he manages prudently and modestly. He meets the young, beautiful Alma, however, and determines to marry her. Alma is the daughter of a financier who kills himself when his investment firm fails, bringing ruin to many people. She has difficulty living this down. Alma also is a violinist of real if modest talent who aspires to turn professional. When Harvey and Alma marry, they promise to respect each other's independence and not to interfere with one another's lives. They agree to escape London and remove to a rural area in Wales where Alma has a son, Hughie, and abandons her violin for a time.

After two years in Wales, Alma becomes restless and frustrated and the couple return to London where they both are soon drawn into the Whirlpool. Alma pursues her ambition to become a concert violinist but the price is high. She must deal with and try to manipulate two men who had earlier tried to seduce her. She also neglects her son and her husband while growing unreasonably and wrongly suspicious that Harvey has had an earlier affair. Harvey, for his part, allows Alma to pursue her musical career but at the price of seeming indifference to her. The story takes a startling turn when Alma makes a surreptitious visit to the home of one of her sponsors, a wealthy rake named Redgrave, the night before her concert. She witnesses a fight between Redgrave and a family friend named Hugh (for whom Hughie was named) Carnady who punches and accidentally kills Redgrave because he thinks, with some degree of plausibility, that Redgrave is having an affair with his wife, Sibil. Both Sibil and Alma have reasons for concealing the affair and for imputing infidelity to the other. Alma becomes fervish and ill, is blackmailed, resorts to drugs, and soon dies from an accidental overdose.

The book is replete with nasty, selfish individuals out for the main chance. Gissing is frequently at his best in his characterizations of women, and his portrayal of Alma, her ambitions, and her weaknesses is particularly insightful. Rolfe and Gissing suggest that the problems of the relationship, besides the incompatibility of Rolfe and Alma in what they want out of life, is due to the quest of both parties to the marriage for independence and autonomy. The novel shows sympathy for Alma and her ambitions, but her dreams of becoming a concert violinist are shown as unfounded given her level of musical ability and inconsistent with being a loving wife and a good mother for Hughie. In discussing companionate marriage and its difficulties in an urban, materialistic world, Gissing writes perceptively about an issue which has assumed critical importance in modern life. His thoughts on the matter are not those of most people today. But the value of the book lies in how Gissing presents the issue and in his portrayal of the weaknesses and the frustrations in the many men-women relationships that have a place in "The Whirlpool."

The book is slow-reading and clumsy, as is much of Gissing. It is also written for the most part in a flat style which is in marked contrast to the passion and the fervid, neurotic behavior of most of the characters in the story. For all its shortcomings, "The Whirlpool" is an excellent, intelligent novel of ideas and character.

This particular edition of "The Whirlpool" unfortunately is no longer in print. It includes an excellent introduction by William Greenslade of the University of West England, Bristol, and good notes which explain Gissing's many topical references to the London of his day. In addition, the edition includes a summary of critical reactions to "The Whirlpool" from the books publication to the 1980s. The novel received mixed reviews upon publication (including a review by Henry James) and then was largely forgotten in the Gissing canon (itself not well-known on the whole) until the latter part of the Twentieth Century. The book then went through several editions due to its treatment of modern marriage and the role of women. The only new editions currently available of "The Whirlpool" appear to be computer offprints which are useable but not good. A reissue of this excellent "Everyman" edition of "The Whirlpool" would be highly welcome.

Robin Friedman

Gissing has few equals in writing about relationships, especially relationships between men and women. Here he does particularly well in describing how a married couple, both with the best intentions, somehow, to the surprise and dismay of both, drift into suspicion and mistrust. Not my favorite Gissing because the story gets pretty melodramatic, but still, very good. And as always with Gissing, don't expect a happy ending.

George Gissing's last major novel was written during the 1890s and can thus appropriately be called late Victorian. Its social setting, unusually for Gissing, is among the upper middle class, in the financial world of London, which includes victims, speculators, gamblers and swindlers. With my hindsight position the book has two startling anachronisms: it reads like an invitation to occupy Wall Street, and like a prophecy that a major war is coming in the not so distant future. The men in their idle club conversations are strutting their aggressive imperialism, their sexism and racism in a nasty spirit of `social Darwinism'. Knowing that their equals in Germany talked in the same way, I smell that the clash of 1914 was in the air.

A main concern of the author and his main hero is the impossibility of a satisfactory and fulfilling married life. The weakness of the novel in relation to that theme is that GG does not let us come to this conclusion ourselves, but he needs to tell us from the start. When the future couple meets, we know right away that this is never going to work. GG was not devious enough. We are not deceived about the woman in the same way as her future husband is. He picks up with our knowledge fast enough when it is too late, but is a good sport and tries to make the best of it. Not that he is a nugget of a man himself.
And, lest I forget to mention it, having children is entirely inconvenient. That is accepted as a matter of course, hardly a debate about it.

The story starts in the year 1886. Central character is an independent gentleman who came into his moderate fortune only after living more modestly as a business employee. Harvey Rolfe, 37, is not a man who is meant to be liked much. He gets to marry a young beauty without much brains, little purpose of mind, and only middlish talents as a violinist. The marriage happens only because the girl's father commits suicide after his big investment vehicle fails. The father was a sort of minor Madoff with a prehistoric sense of honor, which led to his doing himself away before being put away. Without that, his daughter would have been in the hunt for a millionaire, not content with small fry like Rolfe.

Some have compared Gissing's style and subject to Henry James. I can't agree on that. The main similarity between the two novelists is time and location. Apart from that they are rather far apart, not only in their dominant social setting. HJ was clearly an upper class fellow, while GG had his roots in poorer strata.
Gissing was a much more direct and much less elaborate author. James could have told the same story but it would have been a different story. He would have been less explicit. You couldn't have trusted him the way you can trust Gissing. Gissing tells you his version of the truth. James tells you a story and you must blame yourself if you believe him. Gissing is full of ideas, James never had an idea in his life, as somebody said, approximately. I say this as a James admirer who wants to point out the differences, not to pass judgment. James is certainly the greater novelist, but with Gissing you get more to chew on. Reading Gissing is a dialogue from sentence to sentence. Reading James is like looking at a painting in a museum.

I really enjoyed "The Whirlpool" more than I expected to. I've heard it described as being about marriage, but I'd say it is more about the Victorian concept of "society." Some of the themes like social climbing, questing for fame, career vs. home, backstabbing, and gossip are timeless.

The plot is very intricate, but not difficult to follow. It concerns two men, the women they marry, and the choices they all make for socializing and fitting in. Nobody has to worry much about money or jobs here, these folks seem to be comfortably well off. You'd think they'd be happy with their full bellies and furnished sitting rooms, but instead they drive themselves a bit crazy bickering and gossiping about each other

Much of the plot concerns Alma, a wife/mother who is trying to become a professional violinist to get her husband's attention--even though she really doesn't care for music. To succeed as a musician, she needs the help of a variety of "society" persons, which is how she gets sucked into the whirlpool. All the people she engages have their own axes to grind, so it all turns into a big ugly tangle of motivations and alliances that is impossible to keep straight.

I thought Alma to be superficial and fairly stupid. It was kind of fun watching her be tossed about. Yes, maybe she was just a product of her time, but she seems to glory in her the stupidity. Of course nothing in the novel ends well, and this combined with the un-likeable characters probably limited the appeal of the novel in its time and today.

This is a book that demands to be read - as do all of Gissings' books but "The Whirlpool" has been unjustly
forgotten. When Gissing wrote "The Whirlpool" he was quite an expert on disfunctional families. The 1890s
were the time of his greatest literary success but privately he was in the depths of despair.
Harvey Rolfe (who was George Gissing's voice in the novel) marries Alma Frothingham. There are ominous signs
before they are wed. Alma's philosophy is that she wants to live life free of duty and obligation (read
selfish). Harvey doesn't see that - in his view she wants to be totally independant, he sees her as a "new
woman". Alma is ultimately a tragic figure, whose love of praise and adulation is eventually her downfall.
Gissing was interested in the "blood will out" view. Alma's father committed suicide but her mother is never
mentioned. Harvey makes different remarks about Alma, maybe inheriting her unstable temperament from her
mother but it is never gone into in detail.
Gissing has some forward thinking ideas - a conversation with Mary Abbott, a widow who he helps
financially when her husband commits suicide. She and Alma's stepmother, Mrs. Frothingham are two women, who
by strength of character survive. Rolfe predicts there will come a day when there will be "establishments for
young children of the middle class" - child care and kindergarten. The strongest relationship in the book is
ulimately the one Harvey Rolfe enjoys with his little son Hugh - he is determined to bring him up and educate
him in a new way, free of the restrictions of old.

'The Whirlpool' is an account of emerging middle class in London circa 1890. With it comes all the social trauma of trying to find a balance between work, rearing of children, and leisure. As with some of other Gissing's works he focuses more on the plight of the women wanting to be more than simple 'hausfraus'. Their desire for personal fulfillment while still be super-wife and super-mom is probably true to the feelings of many women today.

However as 'The Whirlpool' chronicles the lives of select London families it does so at a very slow pace. The dramatic moments are very prosaic. Fortunately the narrative and characterisations make this to be a reasonably good read, especially for anyone interested in feminism and life during that period.

Bottom line: on balance a decent book. However I recommend reading Gissing's 'New Grub Street' to really appreciate his writing talents.