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The Whirlpool
Gissing, George
Paperback
First published January 1, 1897
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About the author
George Gissing
423 books201 followersPeople best know British writer George Robert Gissing for his novels, such as
New Grub Street
(1891), about poverty and hardship.
This English novelist who published twenty-three novels between 1880 and 1903. From his early naturalistic works, he developed into one of the most accomplished realists of the late-Victorian era.
Born to lower-middle-class parents, Gissing went to win a scholarship to Owens College, the present-day University of Manchester. A brilliant student, he excelled at university, winning many coveted prizes, including the Shakespeare prize in 1875. Between 1891 and 1897 (his so-called middle period) he produced his best works, which include New Grub Street, Born in Exile , The Odd Women , In the Year of Jubilee , and The Whirlpool . The middle years of the decade saw his reputation reach new heights: some critics count him alongside George Meredith and Thomas Hardy, the best novelists of his day. He also enjoyed new friendships with fellow writers such as Henry James, and H.G. Wells, and came into contact with many other up-and-coming writers such as Joseph Conrad and Stephen Crane.
This English novelist who published twenty-three novels between 1880 and 1903. From his early naturalistic works, he developed into one of the most accomplished realists of the late-Victorian era.
Born to lower-middle-class parents, Gissing went to win a scholarship to Owens College, the present-day University of Manchester. A brilliant student, he excelled at university, winning many coveted prizes, including the Shakespeare prize in 1875. Between 1891 and 1897 (his so-called middle period) he produced his best works, which include New Grub Street, Born in Exile , The Odd Women , In the Year of Jubilee , and The Whirlpool . The middle years of the decade saw his reputation reach new heights: some critics count him alongside George Meredith and Thomas Hardy, the best novelists of his day. He also enjoyed new friendships with fellow writers such as Henry James, and H.G. Wells, and came into contact with many other up-and-coming writers such as Joseph Conrad and Stephen Crane.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
May 13, 2018
This is the fourth novel by Gissing I have read in the past few years (after New Grub Street, The Odd Women, and Born in Exile). I think that probably qualifies me as a superfan, as I don’t think anyone really reads him these days. At the moment of writing, The Whirpool has only seven text reviews on this site, and fewer than a hundred ratings, which seems astonishingly few for a major work by a writer of this caliber and historical interest.
Gissing is an “issue” novelist par excellence, tackling questions of his day such as the “woman question” (The Odd Women); the corrosive effect of Darwinism on religious belief (Born in Exile); and the similarly corrosive effect on literature of the rise of cheap, instant-gratification journalism and fiction (New Grub Street). The Whirpool, which is the latest and most ambitious of the Gissing novels I have read (1897, where the other three are early 1890s), focuses on modern marriage in an age of growing demands for women’s emancipation, and when men’s roles are increasingly unclear.
One thing that has impressed me, reading these four works in (relatively) close succession is how much range Gissing has as a novelist. If he is remembered at all now, it is as a chronicler of the world of the London poor and the “just managing” lower middle classes, seen not from the charitable perspective of a visitor from another world, such as the Elizabeth Gaskell of Mary Barton or North and South, but through the searing eyes of one who has experienced poverty himself. It was in that guise, as explorer of a “nether world” of which the majority of Victorian novelists had no personal access, that Gissing won the admiration of his most acute twentieth-century critic, George Orwell. In an essay of 1943, Orwell summarized Gissing’s major theme as a novelist in three words: “not enough money”.
The Whirlpool’s setting is quite different from the other works by Gissing I have read. It is practically a drawing-room novel, set among the middle to upper-middle classes, although Gissing retains his customary, flinty eye for money and the ways in which it conditions people’s lives. The main characters of the novel are a couple, Harvey Rolfe, and Alma Frothingham, who come together bonded by a shared desire to set the showy, stultifying social ambitions of their own class behind them and to adopt a life of rational simplicity and equality, living within their (comfortable) income, far from the “whirlpool” of London and all it represents. It should not be too much of a spoiler to reveal that all does not exactly go to plan; the pull of the vortex is too strong, especially for the restless, mercurial Alma—over than a decade younger than her more settled husband—and various forms of mayhem and tragedy result.
The Whirlpool is a rich and ambitious novel, which succeeds in representing a whole culture, caught at an important, transitional moment, while at the same time doing justice to the complexity of the human individuals whose trajectory it follows. Alma has the makings of a fictional monster in her, if you simply look at the way she acts (I found myself wondering whether she was the template for Waugh’s coruscating portrait of Brenda Last in A Handful of Dust). Gissing doesn’t allow us to judge her too easily, though. She serves as focalizer in the novel, along with her husband; and both are treated with a sympathy and nuance I wasn’t entirely expecting from Gissing (his earlier representation of a car-crash marriage, that of Edward and Amy Reardon in New Grub Street, is far harsher and less humane in its tone). This is all the more impressive in that, from what I gather from the introduction to the Penguin edition of The Whirlpool, there is a strong autobiographical element in Gissing’s portrayal of the Rolfe marriage; he wrote it during the very messy and ugly breakdown of his second marriage, to Edith Underwood, and Harvey Rolfe is clearly some kind of fictional alter ego, for example in his feelings for his young son.
Of the Gissing novels that I have read to date, I would say that The Whirlpool is the finest (although I would probably recommend the engaging The Odd Women as a starting-point for anyone approaching him from scratch). This review only just begins to engage with the themes of the novel, which are too complex and intertwined to do justice to in a short notice like this. Gissing has important and prescient things to say, for example, about British imperial jingoism, and where it is likely to lead.
I’ll leave you with a passage from one of Orwell’s essays on Gissing, written about another of his novels, but of great relevance to The Whirpool, and to Gissing’s vision more generally (“rage and querulousness” nails the tone of the earlier novels, in particular):
Gissing's novels are a protest against the form of self-torture that goes by the name of respectability. Gissing was a bookish, perhaps over-civilised man, in love with classical antiquity, who found himself trapped in a cold, smoky, Protestant country where it was impossible to be comfortable without a thick padding of money between yourself and the outer world. Behind his rage and querulousness there lay a perception that the horrors of life in late-Victorian England were largely unnecessary. The grime, the stupidity, the ugliness, the sex-starvation, the furtive debauchery, the vulgarity, the bad manners, the censoriousness — these things were unnecessary, since the puritanism of which they were a relic no longer upheld the structure of society. People who might … have been reasonably happy chose instead to be miserable, inventing senseless taboos with which to terrify themselves.
Gissing is an “issue” novelist par excellence, tackling questions of his day such as the “woman question” (The Odd Women); the corrosive effect of Darwinism on religious belief (Born in Exile); and the similarly corrosive effect on literature of the rise of cheap, instant-gratification journalism and fiction (New Grub Street). The Whirpool, which is the latest and most ambitious of the Gissing novels I have read (1897, where the other three are early 1890s), focuses on modern marriage in an age of growing demands for women’s emancipation, and when men’s roles are increasingly unclear.
One thing that has impressed me, reading these four works in (relatively) close succession is how much range Gissing has as a novelist. If he is remembered at all now, it is as a chronicler of the world of the London poor and the “just managing” lower middle classes, seen not from the charitable perspective of a visitor from another world, such as the Elizabeth Gaskell of Mary Barton or North and South, but through the searing eyes of one who has experienced poverty himself. It was in that guise, as explorer of a “nether world” of which the majority of Victorian novelists had no personal access, that Gissing won the admiration of his most acute twentieth-century critic, George Orwell. In an essay of 1943, Orwell summarized Gissing’s major theme as a novelist in three words: “not enough money”.
The Whirlpool’s setting is quite different from the other works by Gissing I have read. It is practically a drawing-room novel, set among the middle to upper-middle classes, although Gissing retains his customary, flinty eye for money and the ways in which it conditions people’s lives. The main characters of the novel are a couple, Harvey Rolfe, and Alma Frothingham, who come together bonded by a shared desire to set the showy, stultifying social ambitions of their own class behind them and to adopt a life of rational simplicity and equality, living within their (comfortable) income, far from the “whirlpool” of London and all it represents. It should not be too much of a spoiler to reveal that all does not exactly go to plan; the pull of the vortex is too strong, especially for the restless, mercurial Alma—over than a decade younger than her more settled husband—and various forms of mayhem and tragedy result.
The Whirlpool is a rich and ambitious novel, which succeeds in representing a whole culture, caught at an important, transitional moment, while at the same time doing justice to the complexity of the human individuals whose trajectory it follows. Alma has the makings of a fictional monster in her, if you simply look at the way she acts (I found myself wondering whether she was the template for Waugh’s coruscating portrait of Brenda Last in A Handful of Dust). Gissing doesn’t allow us to judge her too easily, though. She serves as focalizer in the novel, along with her husband; and both are treated with a sympathy and nuance I wasn’t entirely expecting from Gissing (his earlier representation of a car-crash marriage, that of Edward and Amy Reardon in New Grub Street, is far harsher and less humane in its tone). This is all the more impressive in that, from what I gather from the introduction to the Penguin edition of The Whirlpool, there is a strong autobiographical element in Gissing’s portrayal of the Rolfe marriage; he wrote it during the very messy and ugly breakdown of his second marriage, to Edith Underwood, and Harvey Rolfe is clearly some kind of fictional alter ego, for example in his feelings for his young son.
Of the Gissing novels that I have read to date, I would say that The Whirlpool is the finest (although I would probably recommend the engaging The Odd Women as a starting-point for anyone approaching him from scratch). This review only just begins to engage with the themes of the novel, which are too complex and intertwined to do justice to in a short notice like this. Gissing has important and prescient things to say, for example, about British imperial jingoism, and where it is likely to lead.
I’ll leave you with a passage from one of Orwell’s essays on Gissing, written about another of his novels, but of great relevance to The Whirpool, and to Gissing’s vision more generally (“rage and querulousness” nails the tone of the earlier novels, in particular):
Gissing's novels are a protest against the form of self-torture that goes by the name of respectability. Gissing was a bookish, perhaps over-civilised man, in love with classical antiquity, who found himself trapped in a cold, smoky, Protestant country where it was impossible to be comfortable without a thick padding of money between yourself and the outer world. Behind his rage and querulousness there lay a perception that the horrors of life in late-Victorian England were largely unnecessary. The grime, the stupidity, the ugliness, the sex-starvation, the furtive debauchery, the vulgarity, the bad manners, the censoriousness — these things were unnecessary, since the puritanism of which they were a relic no longer upheld the structure of society. People who might … have been reasonably happy chose instead to be miserable, inventing senseless taboos with which to terrify themselves.
January 14, 2025
Gissing's Whirlpool
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 when he 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", Gissing's most detailed treatment of the London poor, he 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" 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."
The novel centers upon the marriage between Harvey Rolfe, 37, 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 feverish 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 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.
I read the old "Everyman" edition of "The Whirlpool" which 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 adequate at best A reissue of the "Everyman" edition or a new edition of "The Whirlpool" would be welcome.
Robin Friedman
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 when he 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", Gissing's most detailed treatment of the London poor, he 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" 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."
The novel centers upon the marriage between Harvey Rolfe, 37, 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 feverish 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 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.
I read the old "Everyman" edition of "The Whirlpool" which 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 adequate at best A reissue of the "Everyman" edition or a new edition of "The Whirlpool" would be welcome.
Robin Friedman
August 23, 2021
Maybe 3.5. I enjoyed this, and it's certainly an intriguing, complex book, with interesting themes and some great climactic moments. It didn't impress me as much as the other Gissing books I've read, though – I didn't warm to the characters, the pacing felt a little off and the ending didn't feel quite right to me.
September 12, 2014
This is my favourite Gissing novel - everything close and
bitter to his heart came together in this book - dysfunctional
families, (Gissing was an expert) women's vanity and his very
forward thinking ideas on children's development. The 1890s
were the time of his greatest literary success but privately
he was in the depths of despair.
Harvey Rolfe (who was 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) but Harvey doesn't see that -
in his view he sees her as a "new woman".
Gissing may have held Alma up to ridicule but I find her such a
poignant character, a vain, unstable young woman whose downfall
is her love of praise. Gissing was also 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.She is completely undone when forced
up against Sybil - whose description given by Gissing makes her
truly malevolent I think.
Gissing has some forward thinking ideas - 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 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.
bitter to his heart came together in this book - dysfunctional
families, (Gissing was an expert) women's vanity and his very
forward thinking ideas on children's development. The 1890s
were the time of his greatest literary success but privately
he was in the depths of despair.
Harvey Rolfe (who was 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) but Harvey doesn't see that -
in his view he sees her as a "new woman".
Gissing may have held Alma up to ridicule but I find her such a
poignant character, a vain, unstable young woman whose downfall
is her love of praise. Gissing was also 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.She is completely undone when forced
up against Sybil - whose description given by Gissing makes her
truly malevolent I think.
Gissing has some forward thinking ideas - 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 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.
July 20, 2019
One of the top five books I’ve ever read that explore marriage. This book does a great job of exploring people’s ideas about marriage. Like New Grub Street, there is a feeling of understanding and commiseration towards intellectuals.
Some reviews claim this book is anti women or anti marriage. I strongly disagree. The book simply brings to light the truth: that being married is more difficult than being single. Being married means having to consider someone else’s happiness and this inevitably leads to some resentment. Marriage is complicated. This book does a great job of laying it all out.
Some reviews claim this book is anti women or anti marriage. I strongly disagree. The book simply brings to light the truth: that being married is more difficult than being single. Being married means having to consider someone else’s happiness and this inevitably leads to some resentment. Marriage is complicated. This book does a great job of laying it all out.
July 17, 2024
George Gissing is one of my favourite authors. His style is style is brilliant and I marvel at his timeless judgements of social issues and psychological conflicts. This book is less interesting than his other novels and it took me some time to get invested in the story but his writing is so beautiful that I couldn’t put it away and kept reading without any signs of boredom.
Read
September 1, 2022yuck, dnf. The previous one (spare women or similar) was brill
December 26, 2017
I like George Gissing, but this isn't the place to start: read New Grub Street (the cut-throat world of late Victorian publishing) or The Odd Women (proto-feminism!) first.
In a Gissing novel you can expect: 90% of relationships between men and women are doomed, most women are weak-minded and/or selfish, and there's a general sense of social Darwinism in the worldview. Nevertheless, his books are worth it for their interesting, often unusual settings and social commentary, and for a cast of well-developed characters of both genders who are often sympathetic or admirable despite their flaws.
I thought, based on the first few chapters, that the setting of this one was going to be the financial world : but instead, that fades into the background, and it's mostly set among upper-middle to lower-upper-class Victorian society with characters who are just barely managing to be independently wealthy.
This isn't that unusual a setting for Victorian novels: the most interesting part is that the female lead is a woman who has ambitions of being a professional violinist -- and she has just enough talent and drive to pull it off, though her heart cares more for adulation than for music. But as conventional Victorian society disapproves of upper-class women having careers, the only men she can find who will encourage her ambitions hope to take personal advantage of it.
But that's only one strand of the thread: there are other themes: relationships and marriage, rasing children and childhood education, finding meaningful and/or remunerative things to do with one's life, trying to live simply and resist the pull of "the whirlpool" of London society, the rise of the London suburbs. It's one of those novels that has a cast of generally well-meaning characters who are trying to find their way in life and don't quite make it. (Also less well-meaning characters who generally do better.)
The book has some pacing problems, as usual for Gissing. I assumed from the title that this would be one of these books where the characters go into a relentless downward spiral. But it's not quite that: the characters mostly drift around the edge of the whirlpool, then get sucked in briefly, then events happen to pull them back, and this continues until a rather abrupt denouement. The story is depressing, but it could be a lot worse: most of the time the protagonists are just quietly dissatisfied, rather than outright miserable.
I haven't said too much about the social commentary aspects: but one interesting aspect: the protagonist, in 1897, sees another great war on the horizon, though not for the reasons we'd expect. He thinks it's an inherent part of the British human spirit to seek fighting (the Social Darwininsm again!), and that the increased popularity of athleticism is a sign of this.
"We shall go on fighting and annexing, until—until the decline and fall of the British Empire. That hasn't begun yet. Some of us are so over-civilised that it makes a reaction of wholesome barbarism in the rest. We shall fight like blazes in the twentieth century. It's the only thing that keeps Englishmen sound; commercialism is their curse."
particular The Will to Battle which I recently read) where the characters are also expecting war after a long period of peace, but for their own future psychohistorical reasons.
In a Gissing novel you can expect: 90% of relationships between men and women are doomed, most women are weak-minded and/or selfish, and there's a general sense of social Darwinism in the worldview. Nevertheless, his books are worth it for their interesting, often unusual settings and social commentary, and for a cast of well-developed characters of both genders who are often sympathetic or admirable despite their flaws.
I thought, based on the first few chapters, that the setting of this one was going to be the financial world : but instead, that fades into the background, and it's mostly set among upper-middle to lower-upper-class Victorian society with characters who are just barely managing to be independently wealthy.
This isn't that unusual a setting for Victorian novels: the most interesting part is that the female lead is a woman who has ambitions of being a professional violinist -- and she has just enough talent and drive to pull it off, though her heart cares more for adulation than for music. But as conventional Victorian society disapproves of upper-class women having careers, the only men she can find who will encourage her ambitions hope to take personal advantage of it.
But that's only one strand of the thread: there are other themes: relationships and marriage, rasing children and childhood education, finding meaningful and/or remunerative things to do with one's life, trying to live simply and resist the pull of "the whirlpool" of London society, the rise of the London suburbs. It's one of those novels that has a cast of generally well-meaning characters who are trying to find their way in life and don't quite make it. (Also less well-meaning characters who generally do better.)
The book has some pacing problems, as usual for Gissing. I assumed from the title that this would be one of these books where the characters go into a relentless downward spiral. But it's not quite that: the characters mostly drift around the edge of the whirlpool, then get sucked in briefly, then events happen to pull them back, and this continues until a rather abrupt denouement. The story is depressing, but it could be a lot worse: most of the time the protagonists are just quietly dissatisfied, rather than outright miserable.
I haven't said too much about the social commentary aspects: but one interesting aspect: the protagonist, in 1897, sees another great war on the horizon, though not for the reasons we'd expect. He thinks it's an inherent part of the British human spirit to seek fighting (the Social Darwininsm again!), and that the increased popularity of athleticism is a sign of this.
"We shall go on fighting and annexing, until—until the decline and fall of the British Empire. That hasn't begun yet. Some of us are so over-civilised that it makes a reaction of wholesome barbarism in the rest. We shall fight like blazes in the twentieth century. It's the only thing that keeps Englishmen sound; commercialism is their curse."
particular The Will to Battle which I recently read) where the characters are also expecting war after a long period of peace, but for their own future psychohistorical reasons.
March 23, 2022
not my favourite of gissing’s work, characters were quite unlikeable and the story a little slow
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October 29, 2023Gissing isn't a particularly well known author these days and if he is still known, it's largely for only one of his novels, New Grub Street. That's a pity as The Whirlpool is a rather fascinating book. In part, it deals with the 'new woman' in terms that are rather reminiscent of Hardy's Jude the Obscure. The character of Alma Rolfe is at once an amibitious figure chafing against the constraints imposed on woman and equally a figure plagued by anxiety and insecurity, expressed through her unfounded suspicions of her husband having had an affair. The novel quickly establishes her lack of suitability for the conventional roles available to women, whether through her lack of finesse in managing her servants or her absence of maternal instincts, which leave the care of their child to her husband: "Fathers don't generally look after their children so young.' 'Unfortunately, they don't,' said Harvey, with a laugh. 'Mothers do, here and there.' 'But surely you don't mean that I am neglectful, Harvey?"
It's an unusual perspective, particularly in a novel which features children abandoned by their father. Alma's downfall is equally more in keeping with a male character: "I wanted to make use of Mr. Redgrave to use his influence with people in society, so that I could have a great success... You couldn't take any interest in my music, and you had no faith in my power to make a success. I wanted to show you that you were wrong... At that time I was mad to make my name known, and, though I loved you, I believe I could have left you rather than give up my ambition." In this, Alma shares the fate of her father, who commits suicide after the failure of his financial interests: "Could it but come over again, she would accept the challenge of circumstance, which she had failed to understand; accept the scandal and the hereditary shame; welcome the lot cast for her, and, like her father, play boldly for the great stakes."
Alma's inability to find a way to reconcile her ambitions as musical performer with her role as a wife and mother intersect with the novel's other predominant theme, that of the whirlpool, a Schopenhauerian metaphor for the struggle for existence: "He had always thought with uttermost contempt of the man who allows himself to be gripped, worried, dragged down, by artificial necessities. Was he himself to become a victim of this social disease? Was he, resistless, to be drawn into the muddy whirlpool, to spin round and round among gibbering phantoms, abandoning himself with a grin of inane conceit, or clutching in desperation at futile hopes? ... His days of quietude were over. He, too, was being drawn into the whirlpool. No more dreaming among his books; no more waking to the ordinary duties and cares of a reasonable life." Gissing seems to have had the same regard for Schopeanhauer that Hardy did and cites him at one point: "There's a point in the life of every man who has brains, when it becomes a possibility that he may kill himself.... Schopenhauer did the same." In a lot of ways, Gissing applies Schopenhauer to radical ends, using his ideas as a critique of capitalism and British imperialism: "We shall go on fighting and annexing, until—until the decline and fall of the British Empire. That hasn't begun yet... We shall fight like blazes in the twentieth century. It's the only thing that keeps Englishmen sound; commercialism is their curse."
A lot of these ideas filter into the character of Alma's busband, Harvey: "I should like to break away from it altogether—to live as I chose, and not care a bit what other people said... If I followed my instincts, I should make the boy unfit for anything but the quietest, obscurest life. I should make him hate a street, and love the fields. I should teach him to despise every form of ambition; to shrink from every kind of pleasure, but the simplest and purest; to think of life as a long day's ramble, and death as the quiet sleep that comes at the end of it. I should like him not to marry—never to feel the need of it; or if marry he must, to have no children." It's not an unproblematic notion though: Harvey has enough wealth that he can afford such notions, which is not open to all of the other characters. Equally, resignation from society is an easier stance for him to adopt than to force his wife into a life of domestic quietude: "he saw with pleasure that Alma no longer revolted against the common lot of woman. Perhaps, indeed, the announcement she made to him was the cause of more anxiety in his mind than in hers."
It's an unusual perspective, particularly in a novel which features children abandoned by their father. Alma's downfall is equally more in keeping with a male character: "I wanted to make use of Mr. Redgrave to use his influence with people in society, so that I could have a great success... You couldn't take any interest in my music, and you had no faith in my power to make a success. I wanted to show you that you were wrong... At that time I was mad to make my name known, and, though I loved you, I believe I could have left you rather than give up my ambition." In this, Alma shares the fate of her father, who commits suicide after the failure of his financial interests: "Could it but come over again, she would accept the challenge of circumstance, which she had failed to understand; accept the scandal and the hereditary shame; welcome the lot cast for her, and, like her father, play boldly for the great stakes."
Alma's inability to find a way to reconcile her ambitions as musical performer with her role as a wife and mother intersect with the novel's other predominant theme, that of the whirlpool, a Schopenhauerian metaphor for the struggle for existence: "He had always thought with uttermost contempt of the man who allows himself to be gripped, worried, dragged down, by artificial necessities. Was he himself to become a victim of this social disease? Was he, resistless, to be drawn into the muddy whirlpool, to spin round and round among gibbering phantoms, abandoning himself with a grin of inane conceit, or clutching in desperation at futile hopes? ... His days of quietude were over. He, too, was being drawn into the whirlpool. No more dreaming among his books; no more waking to the ordinary duties and cares of a reasonable life." Gissing seems to have had the same regard for Schopeanhauer that Hardy did and cites him at one point: "There's a point in the life of every man who has brains, when it becomes a possibility that he may kill himself.... Schopenhauer did the same." In a lot of ways, Gissing applies Schopenhauer to radical ends, using his ideas as a critique of capitalism and British imperialism: "We shall go on fighting and annexing, until—until the decline and fall of the British Empire. That hasn't begun yet... We shall fight like blazes in the twentieth century. It's the only thing that keeps Englishmen sound; commercialism is their curse."
A lot of these ideas filter into the character of Alma's busband, Harvey: "I should like to break away from it altogether—to live as I chose, and not care a bit what other people said... If I followed my instincts, I should make the boy unfit for anything but the quietest, obscurest life. I should make him hate a street, and love the fields. I should teach him to despise every form of ambition; to shrink from every kind of pleasure, but the simplest and purest; to think of life as a long day's ramble, and death as the quiet sleep that comes at the end of it. I should like him not to marry—never to feel the need of it; or if marry he must, to have no children." It's not an unproblematic notion though: Harvey has enough wealth that he can afford such notions, which is not open to all of the other characters. Equally, resignation from society is an easier stance for him to adopt than to force his wife into a life of domestic quietude: "he saw with pleasure that Alma no longer revolted against the common lot of woman. Perhaps, indeed, the announcement she made to him was the cause of more anxiety in his mind than in hers."
March 3, 2025
This novel from the 1890s chronicles the married life of Harvey Rolfe, a now independently well-off businessman, and Alma Frothingham, musically talented daughter of a banker. Upon their marriage, they determine to live simply and equally, eschewing the whirlpool of London society, ambition, and the striving for ever more wealth. They repair to Wales and are happy with a simple provincial life for a few years, but then they both begin to miss city life and Alma revives her ambitions for a musical career. Once back in the whirlpool, things gradually fall apart, leading to unhappiness and tragedy.
Gissing provides a very even-handed portrait of his complex characters and their marriage. While he is clear-eyed in his portrayal of Harvey and Alma's strengths and failings, he does not demonize either of them or make one of them the villain in the downfall of their relationship. Harvey is an essentially weak man lacking in direction and conviction. Alma, while genuinely talented, is ambitious for a music career as much for the sake of being admired and successful as for the music itself. Harvey's weakness makes him unable to either stick to his vision of a simple life or give Alma the support she wants and needs. Alma's desire to be a widely admired success leads her into a series of inadvisable social connections that lead her down questionable paths. I alternated between sympathizing with and being frustrated with each of them. The Whirlpool is a very good character study and look at the pitfalls of late Victorian city life.
Gissing provides a very even-handed portrait of his complex characters and their marriage. While he is clear-eyed in his portrayal of Harvey and Alma's strengths and failings, he does not demonize either of them or make one of them the villain in the downfall of their relationship. Harvey is an essentially weak man lacking in direction and conviction. Alma, while genuinely talented, is ambitious for a music career as much for the sake of being admired and successful as for the music itself. Harvey's weakness makes him unable to either stick to his vision of a simple life or give Alma the support she wants and needs. Alma's desire to be a widely admired success leads her into a series of inadvisable social connections that lead her down questionable paths. I alternated between sympathizing with and being frustrated with each of them. The Whirlpool is a very good character study and look at the pitfalls of late Victorian city life.
January 1, 2025
I'm ashamed to say that I hadn't read anything by Gissing before this novel, which I enjoyed both despite of and because of its cynicism. The story of Harvey Rolfe and Alma shines a light on the limited prospects for success of reasonably well-off men and women during the last decade of the nineteenth century. Harvey and Alma get married under somewhat ambiguous circumstances, clearly knowing less about each other than they should, but not perhaps knowing less about each other than many couples. They try to do their best to make choices that don't entrap them within the strictures of middle-class proprieties, but the deck is stacked against them when it comes to the roles available for women, the difficulties in making money, the necessities for having a household, and the twisted games people play for social capital. Gissing is clearly pretty frustrated with Alma, which is perhaps the biggest drawback of the book, but ultimately I had equal sympathy with both her and Harvey. It's Sibyl Carnaby and the well-named Mrs. Strangeways who you have to watch out for!
What a great read to finish the year on! Read it mostly while we were taking it easy for a few days in Palm Desert.
What a great read to finish the year on! Read it mostly while we were taking it easy for a few days in Palm Desert.
April 19, 2024
At times Gissing mentions the `Whirlpool` in the text and with reference to diverse people and their circumstances or predicaments. The Whirlpool is Gissing`s metaphor for the turbulence of life experienced by his characters to a greater or lesser degree. The pressures exerted on the person by the society surrounding them.
Gissing uses the same device in his novel The Netherworld, reiterating on occasion `the netherworld` when considering the plight of his characters. I think he succeeds more in The Whirlpool through the crafting of a coherent, plausible plot whereas in the latter the storyline tends to wander and is less cohesive.
The protagonist Alma, is an artistically gifted individual and Gissing writes with characteristic lucidity on how the course of her life is shaped by her struggles with the pressures pertaining to her creative aspirations. As usual, Gissing shows great perception when exposing the human condition and the forces at play therein.
Gissing uses the same device in his novel The Netherworld, reiterating on occasion `the netherworld` when considering the plight of his characters. I think he succeeds more in The Whirlpool through the crafting of a coherent, plausible plot whereas in the latter the storyline tends to wander and is less cohesive.
The protagonist Alma, is an artistically gifted individual and Gissing writes with characteristic lucidity on how the course of her life is shaped by her struggles with the pressures pertaining to her creative aspirations. As usual, Gissing shows great perception when exposing the human condition and the forces at play therein.
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June 13, 2022Yuck. I've decided that Gissing is not for me..
January 27, 2022
Gissing's novels are long and detailed, and exemplify the elements of literary realism. He has the ability to create complex characters who face moral dilemmas, the actions and outcomes of which he allows the reader to judge.
In this case the main character, Harvey Rolfe, a man nearing middle age, marries a much younger woman, Alma Frothingham. Harvey is comfortable and idle as a financially independent, middle upper classman, living in London.
Alma is an ambitious and talented violinist.
The tenets of this novel seem quite contemporary. Can a woman break the glass ceiling to become a successful, professional musician, whilst still maintaining a healthy family life? Will the choice to live a minimalist lifestyle in an idyllic Wales setting bring happiness? Can two people in a marriage throw off tradition and be true equals?
I felt like Harvey was so desirous of being an emancipated, modern man that he threw out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak. He threw away his own opinion and leadership abilities to constantly acquiesce to his wife's whims. He allowed her the freedom to pursue her dream, without really participating in it. He didn't even plan to attend her debut concert! There was no partnership in their endeavors.
This proved true not only in the case of Alma' musical pursuits, but also in their role as parents. The passive Harvey began to develop tenderness and concern for their little son, an interest in his education and character formation. Alma had almost no maternal instincts, and selfishly pursued her own interests, disregarding the needs of her child almost entirely. We see Harvey viewing poorer, more traditional family life almost wistfully, and yet he never exerted the courage to give up the experimental lifestyle to make it his own.
Their early, mutual decision to live a minimalist lifestyle in rural Wales suited Harvey, but Alma became restless and her desire to launch out musically pulled them back into the "whirlpool" of London life. Harvey tried to stay at the perimeter of the whirlpool, by buying a house at the edge of London--- what was to be the newly minted London suburbs. This was an interesting little slice of evolving London life.
Alma was vulnerable because she was alone in her pursuit for fame and success. She fell prey to greedy managers who sullied her reputation and compromised her morals.
This story had a tragic ending, but it was embedded with a small ray of hope as Harvey embraced a more wholesome lifestyle for his son in the end.
This is probably my third favorite Gissing novel out of the three I've read. I liked Odd Women best, followed by New Grub Street. I do find Gissing to be worthy of the time investment required. He offers an unidealized view of the Victorian era, and London life in particular.
In this case the main character, Harvey Rolfe, a man nearing middle age, marries a much younger woman, Alma Frothingham. Harvey is comfortable and idle as a financially independent, middle upper classman, living in London.
Alma is an ambitious and talented violinist.
The tenets of this novel seem quite contemporary. Can a woman break the glass ceiling to become a successful, professional musician, whilst still maintaining a healthy family life? Will the choice to live a minimalist lifestyle in an idyllic Wales setting bring happiness? Can two people in a marriage throw off tradition and be true equals?
I felt like Harvey was so desirous of being an emancipated, modern man that he threw out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak. He threw away his own opinion and leadership abilities to constantly acquiesce to his wife's whims. He allowed her the freedom to pursue her dream, without really participating in it. He didn't even plan to attend her debut concert! There was no partnership in their endeavors.
This proved true not only in the case of Alma' musical pursuits, but also in their role as parents. The passive Harvey began to develop tenderness and concern for their little son, an interest in his education and character formation. Alma had almost no maternal instincts, and selfishly pursued her own interests, disregarding the needs of her child almost entirely. We see Harvey viewing poorer, more traditional family life almost wistfully, and yet he never exerted the courage to give up the experimental lifestyle to make it his own.
Their early, mutual decision to live a minimalist lifestyle in rural Wales suited Harvey, but Alma became restless and her desire to launch out musically pulled them back into the "whirlpool" of London life. Harvey tried to stay at the perimeter of the whirlpool, by buying a house at the edge of London--- what was to be the newly minted London suburbs. This was an interesting little slice of evolving London life.
Alma was vulnerable because she was alone in her pursuit for fame and success. She fell prey to greedy managers who sullied her reputation and compromised her morals.
This story had a tragic ending, but it was embedded with a small ray of hope as Harvey embraced a more wholesome lifestyle for his son in the end.
This is probably my third favorite Gissing novel out of the three I've read. I liked Odd Women best, followed by New Grub Street. I do find Gissing to be worthy of the time investment required. He offers an unidealized view of the Victorian era, and London life in particular.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 25, 2011
This is the story of upper-middle class late-Victorian families/couples following the collapse of a bank. This is Gissing's last big novel written in 1897.
The real drama centres around Alma, a young girl of 20, who's father's shameful performance lead to the banks losses and his suicide. She has to go abroad to make plans and further her questionable musical career; she has two admirers follow her Cyrus Redgrave a wealthy bachelor (who makes an indecent proposal in the most understated Victorian way imaginable) and Harvey Rolfe (the nice one whom she ends up marrying). Harvey has a close friend Hugh who marries Sibyl. The underlying and all too subtle catalyst is what are Sibyl and Alma may or may no be prepared to do to have Cyrus as a friend and patron?
`Whirlpool' is a misrepresentation of the drama you might expect: it refers more to `life's woes' in general rather than the turmoil of the banking crash which occurs early on. At the outset it has to be said that this should really have been called `storm in a teacup'. There are some interesting parallel stories/characters but quite early you realise that the story has no drive, passion or colour - the society depicted may be rendered in realistic literary classic way but it's so, dare I say it, boring; the low key dry innuendo between the women in the story leading to the all too late (450 pages of close text) finale didn't rescue the story for me. I like Gissing but this really was an un-engaging slog for me: read Odd Women, Nether World or Grub Street first.
I felt I had read the story before and it is remarkably similar to 'Portrait of a Lady' by James written about the same time, which I also didn't rate for similar reasons. So I guess if you liked 'P o a L' then Whirlpool may be for you
The real drama centres around Alma, a young girl of 20, who's father's shameful performance lead to the banks losses and his suicide. She has to go abroad to make plans and further her questionable musical career; she has two admirers follow her Cyrus Redgrave a wealthy bachelor (who makes an indecent proposal in the most understated Victorian way imaginable) and Harvey Rolfe (the nice one whom she ends up marrying). Harvey has a close friend Hugh who marries Sibyl. The underlying and all too subtle catalyst is what are Sibyl and Alma may or may no be prepared to do to have Cyrus as a friend and patron?
`Whirlpool' is a misrepresentation of the drama you might expect: it refers more to `life's woes' in general rather than the turmoil of the banking crash which occurs early on. At the outset it has to be said that this should really have been called `storm in a teacup'. There are some interesting parallel stories/characters but quite early you realise that the story has no drive, passion or colour - the society depicted may be rendered in realistic literary classic way but it's so, dare I say it, boring; the low key dry innuendo between the women in the story leading to the all too late (450 pages of close text) finale didn't rescue the story for me. I like Gissing but this really was an un-engaging slog for me: read Odd Women, Nether World or Grub Street first.
I felt I had read the story before and it is remarkably similar to 'Portrait of a Lady' by James written about the same time, which I also didn't rate for similar reasons. So I guess if you liked 'P o a L' then Whirlpool may be for you
May 23, 2025
“The whirlpool it’s got hold of me, and I’m going down old man- and it looks black as hell”
Written in 1897 at the time Victorian valves were changing, Harvey Rolf a confirmed bachelor married Alma, an ambitious musician. George Gissing has “encapsulates the glamour and darkness of the end of a century.”
Written in 1897 at the time Victorian valves were changing, Harvey Rolf a confirmed bachelor married Alma, an ambitious musician. George Gissing has “encapsulates the glamour and darkness of the end of a century.”
January 10, 2024
Not a timeless novel in the manner of Madame Bovary but a novel that has withstood the test of time well to commentate on late Victorian upper class society and family. Blackmail, gender inequality, education, and country vs London life are also active themes. Probably appeals to Anglophiles more than others.
September 15, 2022
This was interesting, but perhaps I should’ve started with a different book? I found the characters interesting and compelling, but the pacing was odd and I wasn’t quite sure what Gissing was trying to say.
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