275).]
Gissing was a sedulous artist; some of his books, it is true, are very
hurried productions, finished in haste for the market with no great amount
either of inspiration or artistic confidence about them. But little
slovenly work will be found bearing his name, for he was a thoroughly
trained writer; a suave and seductive workmanship had become a second
nature to him, and there was always a flavour of scholarly, subacid and
quasi-ironical modernity about his style. There is little doubt that his
quality as a stylist was better adapted to the studies of modern London
life, on its seamier side, which he had observed at first hand, than to
stories of the conventional dramatic structure which he too often felt
himself bound to adopt. In these his failure to grapple with a big
objective, or to rise to some prosperous situation, is often painfully
marked. A master of explanation and description rather than of animated
narrative or sparkling dialogue, he lacked the wit and humour, the
brilliance and energy of a consummate style which might have enabled him to
compete with the great scenic masters in fiction, or with craftsmen such as
Hardy or Stevenson, or with incomparable wits and conversationalists such
as Meredith.
Pages:
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90