Something Old

Not everything worth reading is hot off the press. In this section, we recommend "something old" that is still well worth reading. "Something Old" can mean anything from a venerable and antique classic to a good book first published four or more years ago.    

“OUR FRIEND THE CHARLATAN” by George Gissing (First published in 1901) 

As some of you will be aware, in the 12 years that this blog has existed I have frequently offered you synopses and critiques of the work of George Gissing (1857-1903). Look up George Gissing on the index to the right of this text, and you will find that I have covered his New Grub Street (his best known novel, about hack writers, often regarded as his masterpiece); The Nether World  (which I regard as his second-best novel, concerning extreme poverty); Born in Exile  (about self-pity in the face of thwarted ambition); The Odd Women (an almost proto-feminist story) and Will Warburton (about upper-class snobbery towards “tradespeople” or the middle class). I’ve also examined his The Private Papers of Henry Rycroft, which is essentially a book of essays and observations in which Gissing takes over the role of a literary gentleman living in the country – something Gissing never was; and his rather botched travel book By the Ionian Sea.

George Gissing has never been anyone’s favourite author and he certainly isn’t mine. He is a realist in the sense of dealing with poverty, class issues and often what is sordid and depressing. There is little sparkle to most of his prose, which can be flat and, at his worst, plodding. And yet he is strangely readable, his reportage of social conditions is astute, and he often hits on matters that are still relevant to us, even if he was writing in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras well over a century ago.

Which brings me to one of his last novels. Our Friend the Charlatan raises the issue of the bogus intellectual – the man who wants to be seen as innovative, well-informed and a potential leader, when he is in fact completely lacking in original ideas and simply following and plagiarising another person’s treatise. Such people are still with us.

In his late twenties, Dyce Lashmar is told by his father (a country parson of modest means) that he can no longer be supported by an allowance. At about the same time, Dyce loses his job as a tutor to the sons a fashionable family. But he has a glib and ready tongue, and by a fluke he is introduced to an eccentric, widowed old aristocrat (of working-class origins) Lady Ogram. Dyce dazzles the old lady with his talk of “Bio-Sociology” which he claims to have devised himself. By “Bio-Sociology” he means that some people are born natural leaders while others are born to be governed; and that a true democracy will therefore succeed only if it elects such innate leaders.  (This sounds vaguely like a melange of Nietzsche and social Darwinism – dominance of Supermen and the Fittest – all very mainstream ideas when the novel was written). Lady Ogram happens to hate the local Conservative M.P. She proceeds to use all her influence to get Dyce nominated as the Liberal candidate. (Remember, this novel was written when there were no other MPs in the British Parliament than Conservatives and Liberals.) Dyce cultivates other people, including some other aristocrats, wealthy businessmen and an influential newspaper editor who writes anti-Conservative editorials. Dyce even gets to be called “the coming man” (which is what George Gissing was originally going to call this novel).

But two shadows hang over him. Will he (Oh scandal!) be exposed as a person of modest social origin? And will his plagiarism become known? All Dyce’s “Bio-Sociology” cant has been filched from a single book. [In a prefatory note, Gissing tells us that the book in question was actually inspired by a real book, a French book called La Cite Moderne by Jean Izoulet.]

Dyce’s loss of favour and fortune is played out gradually. A gossip discovers the original “Bio-Sociology” book and makes known whence Dyce has stolen his ideas. Then Dyce tries wooing two different young women who appear to be heirs to fortune – but he loses out in each case. He fails to win the election as a Liberal candidate. It turns out that the crusty old candidate whom Lady Ogram hated has died, and a vigorous and popular younger man has become the Tory candidate. And anyway, the local electorate was a safe Tory seat. [After he loses the election, Dyce says, in Chapter 29, what can only be utter despair: “Do you know, I have thoughts of going to New Zealand.”]

 Finally, Dyce thinks he has found a safe haven when he marries a young woman of comfortable means whom he had known before he became entangled in Lady Ogram’s set… whereupon his wife discovers that she has been swindled out of her money by a devious lawyer. So the charlatan has missed out on all counts – profitable marriage; connections with high society; political career; intellectual respectability. But perhaps there is hope for him in the very last words of the novel when, faced with the reality of an impoverished marriage, he declares “Who knows? It may be the real beginning of my career.” The implication is that he has now completed his apprenticeship in charlatanism and he may have the resources to hoodwink other willing listeners. You can’t keep real shysters down.

There are some weaknesses in this novel. Though politics are ostensibly one of the novel’s focuses, we are never shown the mechanisms of an election. Indeed the election in which Dyce is a candidate is basically “noises off”. We never see Dyce on the hustings or making his case before an audience, so we do not really hear how persuasive a chap as he is supposed to be. There is also the problem of “padding” which appears in many novels by Gissing. A redundant story concerns a lord who was interested in one of the prospective brides Dyce coveted. And in another side issue which I haven’t included in my synopsis, there is a tussle over a contested will, a very creaky story device even in the late Victorian age.

On the positive side, though, there is the (generally) uncluttered prose, the neat, clear sketches that introduce important characters and the well-prepared twists.

There’s also a neat analysis of Dyce Lashmar’s essential mentality when he is just beginning his deceptive ways, laying bare the narcissism of an idle egotist: “Among the many possibilities of life which lie before a young and intelligent man, one never presented itself to Dyce Lashmar’s meditation. The thought of simply earning his living by conscientious and useful work, satisfied with whatever distinction might come to him in the natural order of things, had never entered his mind. Every project he formed took for granted his unlaborious pre-eminence in a toiling world. His natural superiority to mankind at large was, with Dyce, axiomatic. If he used any other tone about himself, he affected it merely to elicit contradiction;  if in a depressed mood he thought otherwise, the reflection was so at conflict with his nature that it served only to strengthen his self-esteem when the shadow has passed.” (Chapter 4)

His callous attitude towards others, born of the filched treatise he has read, is made plain in his conversation with a newspaper editor. Dyce says : “Political education is our pressing need, and political education means teaching the People how to select its Rulers. For my own part, I have rather more hope of a constituency such as Hollingford [his constituency], than one actively democratic. The fatal thing is for an electorate to be bent on choosing the man as near as possible like unto themselves. That is the false idea of representation. Progress does not mean guidance by one of the multitude, but by one of nature’s elect, and the multitude must learn how to recognize such a man.” Obviously the peasants must bow down to their betters.

Flawed though it may be as a novel, Our Friend the Charlatan rings true in its understanding of many a self-promoting arriviste who attempts to step into the arena of politics..