By the Ionian Sea, by George Gissing (Again)

By the first time I read By the Ionian Sea, I had already read two other books by George Gissing: The Odd Women, which kicked off a year (2011) which I devoted almost entirely to reading nineteenth century British literature, and New Grub Street, which I read later that same year. I was led to By the Ionian Sea by a self-published study of Calabria, which I must have picked up when I was planning a trip to that part of Italy in 2018. I didn't end up getting By the Ionian Sea until after that trip – though it did influence a trip I took the following year to Puglia. I don't know that I would have made it to Taranto and the wonderful MArTA museum there if I hadn't read this book. I loved The Odd Women, but reading By the Ionian Sea, I developed such an affection for George Gissing – one I never would have had from reading his novels alone. Gissing is far more informed on ancient history than I am, and clearly stronger in languages, but I feel an affinity with him in his travels to these remote places more than 100 years ago. Of course, it's much easier to get to Calabria today, and the conditions there are much improved so I must give Gissing credit where credit is due. 

When I first wrote about this book, I said that Gissing's views about Southern Italy were paternalistic. I maintain that this is true – his accounts of the people are as bad as any British colonial descriptions of the developing world – but on this reading perhaps I had Carlo Levi more in mind than I did the first time around. (Which would be odd – given that I read Carlo Levi much closer to my first reading of By the Ionian Sea.) In any case, when I reflected on the fact that Gissing was visiting Calabria and Basilicata (and even the corner of Puglia) just under 40 years before Levi was exiled there and abject poverty and deeply unhygienic living conditions of people in that region, Gissing's complaints – about his accommodations, the food, the water, the wine – were probably reasonable. He contracted a severe illness during his travels, which may well have been malaria (which, I learned from Levi, was rampant in southern Italy at that time). Most of the water was probably not safe to drink, and the wine was often watered down for economic reasons. So maybe I need to give Gissing a little slack. I mention this because, despite it all, Gissing comes out of this journey joyful. On my first reading, I came away with a lingering feeling of the decrepitude of it all, while this time it's the delight that is staying with me. The worst of Gissing's time is spent at Cotrone, but even of Cotrone he says, 

My own chamber contained merely the barest necessities, and, as the gentleman of Cosenza would have said, "left something to be desired" in point of cleanliness. Conceive the places into which Cotrone's poorest have to crawl when they are stricken with disease. I admit, however, that the thought was worse to me in the moment than it is now. After all, the native of Cotrone has advantages over the native of a city slum; and it is better to die in a hovel by the Ionian Sea than in a cellar in Shoreditch. 

What I relate to in Gissing is his joy in traveling alone and discovering things that have meaning only for him. While I felt this affection for him the first time I read By the Ionian Sea, I'm not sure I could have articulated the reason. It's still a little hard to put into words, but I see myself in him in this book. 

 

P.S. When I started this post, I didn't know where it was going, and I thought I would get to something which now feels off topic. For those unfamiliar with The Odd Women, the title refers to the gender imbalance in Victorian England, where there were evidently more women than men due to war and colonialism I guess? In any case, I found myself thinking about this quite a bit while reading Testament of Youth – presumably there was an even greater gender imbalance in the postwar era. I think this fact of having Gissing in my mind is what led me to reread By the Ionion Sea. I can't imagine why else it would have been top of mind.