Maria Espinosa

A novel I read several years ago sticks in my mind: NEW GRUB STREET, a turn of the century novel by George Gissing. The London literary scene he depicts with merciless clarity has such parallels to the contemporary world. On cleanliness: “It is often said by people who are exquisitely ignorant of the matter that cleanliness is a luxury within reach of even the poorest. Very far from that. Only with the utmost difficulty, with wearisome exertion, with harassing sacrifice, can people who are pinched for money preserve a moderate purity in therir persons and their surroundings.” A homeless woman told me how she tries to give herself sponge baths in Wendy’s bathrooms.. Yesterday I read of a famous Russian writer who is living out of his car in Sacramento. On money. “….A great fortified of self-respect. Since she had become the owner of five thousand pounds, Marian spoke with a steadier voice, walked with a firmer step. Mentally she felt herself altogether a less dependent being…” And on literary fame, one of the less scrupulous characters says, “We know that a fairly good book will ….receive fair treatment from two or three reviewers…but more than likely it will be swamped in the flood of literature that pours forth week after week…the struggle for existence among books nowadays is as severe as among men…”