The Two Worlds of Writing: The Professional Writer Vs. The Novelist

In Gissing's New Grub Street, he explores some of the conflicts and experiences that he had experienced in his own life. As a talented but low paid novelist, Gissing felt that he was an artist who was not rewarded for his art with money, but would be appreciated in the future. Writer friends of his tried to convince Gissing to write more industriously for newspapers in order to build up more of an income, but Gissing felt he was above such "hack writing." This writing was referred to as "grub street" writing because this street was originally associated with young struggling writers.

Gissing compares the two ways of looking at writing (as an art and as a business) with his two main characters in New Grub Street.

New Grub Street

Jasper Milvain is a young, hard working journalist who is somewhat full of himself. He believes the secret to success is hard work and knowing the write people. He insists that it doesn't really matter how good something that you write is as long as you get it out there for the people to read. He compares readers to hungry creatures who just want something to lay their eyes on. At this time, Victorian public writing was booming and the rising middle class was anxious to use their newly learned reading abilities. People such as Jasper focused on the value of writing as a gateway towards money. This attitude of money being king was heavily criticized at the time by such famous novelists as Charles Dickens (who incidentally was very successful himself.)

Gissing's other main character is Edwin Reardon, a struggling novelist of some talent, but limited commercial success. Reardon in many ways represents Gissing himself, though a somewhat less successful version (Gissing was not amazingly popular, but he had a small following). Reardon ignores the pull of his more industrious writer friends, like Jasper Milvain, who tell him to write more in order to "get his name out." Reardon considers himself an artist who cannot simply write something--he can only write what he considers great. His wife complains to him that he needs to abandon these ways of looking at writing. The age of writers only writing when inspired is done according to her.

Writers Today

The two styles of writing that Gissing was exploring still exist today for writers. On websites like Associated Content and places like newspapers, writers are encouraged to write every day in order to supply information for the masses. Gissing may not consider such writing to be artistic, but it is certainly serves a purpose to enlighten and entertain readers around the world. Authors such as Charles Dickens were able to use their literary talent and couple it with a strong Victorian work ethic to produce a large number of books and articles for his audience. Writers today struggle to remain unique and artistic while still "powering on" to produce new content each day. It is difficult to remain within this constant balance, but what keeps content from becoming "hack" is the creativity and skill of writers today who try to embody the soul of both Gissing's Reardon and Milvain in their writing.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Grub_Street