The character Edwin Reardon is almost a case study in the tragedy of the buffered self colliding with a stubbornly porous world.
The buffered identity imagines a sealed interior. A self that stands apart from circumstance. It believes dignity survives independent of market forces or social degradation. Edwin tells himself he is an artist first and that talent should command respect. He tries to live as though his inner standards are sovereign. That is the fantasy. He treats poverty, failure and humiliation as external distortions rather than forces that penetrate and reshape him.
New Grub Street refuses that illusion. George Gissing builds a world where identity is eaten away by environment, reputation, debt and class pressure. The porous self is everywhere. Jasper Milvain thrives because he understands this. He knows that the market defines the self. He lets the world write him. Edwin tries to resist and ends up hollowed out.
Edwin’s tragedy is not just economic. It is metaphysical. He wants the moral purity of a buffered identity but lives in a system that rewards adaptability and exposure. He cannot admit how deeply the world is already inside him. His pride is not strength. It is a refusal to see that his self is porous by nature.
Gissing seems to suggest that modernity makes buffering a dangerous fiction. The literary marketplace. London. Marriage. All of it seeps into the soul. Edwin’s imagination of himself as autonomous is beautiful and doomed. It is also very recognisable.
You could say that New Grub Street dramatizes the moment when the old Romantic self finally loses. Not because it lacks virtue. But because it misunderstands the terrain it is standing on.
The forward-looking insight here is that the buffered self may feel noble but it is often unserious about power. The porous self seems cynical but it survives. Edwin represents the cost of resisting that reality too long.
Welcome to the world of Ed Reardon, author, pipe smoker, consummate fare-dodger and master of the abusive e-mail.
Christopher Douglas stars as Ed Reardon.
Written by Christopher Douglas and Andrew Nickolds.
In a one-bedroom flat over a hairdresser’s in Berkhamsted, Ed has lived on his own since his wife and grown-up kids left him, forcing the sale of the London home.
Ed’s first and last published novel ‘Who Would Fardels Bear?’ was bought by Hollywood, relocated from Oldham to San Francisco and turned into a Sally Field movie (‘Sister Mom’) in the mid-70s. It was directed by Ed’s best mate Jaz Milvane whose career has since gone stratospheric. Ed’s broke up on re-entry; with the exception of his episode of Tenko in 1982, the royalties of which now amount to about £17 a year – but are anxiously awaited nonetheless.
Ed’s been forced into lowbrow work for the ever popular Christmas book market. Jane Seymour’s Household Hints (1996) and The Brand’s Hatch Story got him through a couple of winters.
But Ed remains bullishly optimistic. He may have just one pair of trousers and a seven-figure Amazon sales ranking, but no writer knows more about stealing his agent’s stationery… and as a freeloader Ed Reardon is the acknowledged leader of his profession.
Enjoy Ed’s flawed attempts to escape poverty and gain the literary success he strongly feels is due. Regular characters include Felix (Ed’s long-standing friend and former agent) Ping (his new ’12 year-old’ agent), the lively pensioners he teaches a screenwriting class to and the irritatingly rich and successful, Jaz Milvane.
