By the Ionian Sea

by George Gissing

By the Ionian Sea

Genres: Travel, Italy, Nonfiction, British Literature, Memoir, Classics

104 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1901

About the author

People 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.

Reviews

[robin friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Ramble To Calabria With Gissing

By 1897, the English novelist George Gissing (1857 - 1903) had achieved a degree of financial and critical success after years of writing. He took a vacation to Calabria, the "toe" of the southernmost part of the "boot" of Italy. From his youth, Gissing had loved the ancient world. He was especially fond of Gibbon and had been awarded a set of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" for his early academic accomplishments. Calabria had been the home of the Greeks, Romans, and Goths. Although Gissing had earlier traveled to Italy he had never been to Calabria. He was eager to see the places he knew only from books for himself. Thus with guidebook in hand, Gissing set out for his "ramble" to southern Italy.

In 1901, Gissing wrote a short memoir of his journey titled "By the Ionian Sea". At the time of his visit, Calabria was difficult of access, little developed, known for an unhealthy environment, and rarely visited by tourists. Friends and people further north in Italy tried to discourage the visit. But in the first chapter of his book Gissing explained with enthusiasm the attraction Calabria held:

"I shall look upon the Ionian Sea, not merely from a train or a steamboat as before, but at long leisure: I shall see the shores where once were Tarentum and Sybaris, Croton and Locri. Every man has his intellectual desire; mine is to escape life as I know it and dream myself into that old world which was the imaginative delight of my boyhood. The names of Greece and Italy draw me as no others; they make me young again, and restore the keen impressions of that time when every new page of Greek or Latin was a new perception of things beautiful. The world of the Greeks and Romans is my land of romance; a quotation in either language thrills me strangely, and there are passages of Greek and Latin verse which I cannot read without a dimming of the eyes, which I cannot repeat aloud because my voice fails me. In Magna Græcia the waters of two fountains mingle and flow together; how exquisite will be the draught!"

Although almost all of Gissing, including "By the Ionian Sea" remains too little known to modern readers, this short work is among the best travel books ever written. It ranks with the best of Gissing's work and has rarely been out of print. The book is written in a lyrical, elegant prose with Gissing speaking throughout in his own voice about a place he knew and loved. The book has a sense of ease and happiness that is absent from most of Gissing's novels. With almost painterly detail, Gissing describes the sea and the mountains, the orange groves, ruins, small dusty towns, hotels, and people that he observed on his journey. Much of the book describes Gissing's search for places of the ancient world. He discusses sites related to Horace, Alaric, Hannibal, Pythagoras, and Cassidorus, among others. Without pedantry, Gissing gives an relaxed sense of the ancient riches of Calabria. Throughout the book, he contrasts the ancient history of the region with the contemporary people he met and places he observed.

Gissing's journey began in Naples, just north of Calabria. The story begins with a short vivid portrait of Naples as well as of his steamship voyage to Paola at the northernmost part of the region. Although located on the sea, much of Calabria is mountainous. Gissing describes his journey from town to town by railroad, horse-drawn carriage, and steamer. The towns described include Taranto, Cotrone, Cantazaro, and Squillace. Gissing concluded his ramble at Reggio, at the southernmost tip of Italy just across from Sicily. He describes the mostly simple and unsophisticated people of the Calabria of his time and the sites. He tells of ancient churches and monasteries, hidden rivers, mountain villages, caves, farmers and their donkeys plowing the fields as they did 1000 years earlier, tiny book stores, street musicians, museums, and frequently bad food.

As had been predicted by his friends, Gissing fell ill with malaria during his visit to the town of Cotrone. He almost died. Gissing recovered his health under the care of a young doctor, Ricardo Sculco, who receives an affectionate portrayal in the story. Even with this serious illness, the overriding tone of the book is one of happiness as Gissing discovered for himself a place he had long only imagined. At the end of his journey, for all his experiences of the sights around him, Gissing's heart remains with antiquity. He concludes the story of his ramble:

"Alone and quiet, I heard the washing of the waves; I saw the evening fall on cloud-wreathed Etna, the twinkling lights come forth on Scylla and Charybdis; and, as I looked my last towards the Ionian Sea, I wished it were mine to wander endlessly amid the silence of the ancient world, to-day and all its sounds forgotten."

In 2000, an American journalist, John Keahey, was inspired by Gissing's travel book. Keahey retraced Gissing's journey of over 100 years earlier and wrote his own sequel, "A Sweet and Glorious Land". (2000) I found it helpful in reading Gissing's book to examine a map of southern Italy. Because I have no independent knowledge of the area, I also found it useful to read the Willkipedia article on Calabria for brief background on the places Gissing so beautifully describes.

Robin Friedman

[Donato · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title says what it is. An English classicist visits Calabria (and a bit of Puglia) in the late 19th century, searching for the past. He notes both the past and the present, but also perhaps inadvertently finds the future?

I'd heard of this book many years ago as a possible source of the word "paparazzo", which Fellini used as the name of a photographer in "La Dolce Vita" (we all know what became of the word later). But I'm highly skeptical. The word appears once as the last name of a hotel owner who was upset that his guests would not eat in his establishment. Why would Fellini (if he even read the book) just randomly pick that name?

Anyway, that's neither here nor there. What's interesting is an Englishman's view of southern Italy in the late 19th century. He travels by train and horse-drawn coach, visiting ancient sites that mostly no longer exist. But he wants to step where ancient poets, monks and generals stepped. He wants to see what they might have seen, despite the many changes. He wants to breathe in the same air. He writes not only of what he knows of the past, but also of what he sees in the present, of the people, of their ways of life, the food, the wine, and how it's different from England.

I made several notes that would require an entire blog-post or essay to comment on, so I'll leave you with one. This is a thought I've thought myself many times (comparing Italy to the US) and it has to do with beauty:

"Pottery for commonest use among Calabrian peasants has a grace of line, a charm of colour, far beyond anything native to our most pretentious china-shops... There must be a great good in a people which has preserved this need of beauty through ages of servitude and suffering. Compare such domestic utensils...with those in the house of an English labourer. Is it really so certain that all virtues of race dwell with those who can rest amid the ugly and know it not for ugliness?" (pg 21)

[Michael Bafford · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mr. Gissing is a likable traveling companion. He has his peculiarities. At the beginning of this journey I got the impression that he was planning a walking tour of southern Italy. Not so, he rode trains, took a horse and carriage, an ox-cart, but the only walking he did was an occasional promenade. Staring into the distance at the one remaining column of the temple of Hera near Crotone, the sea was too stormy to go by boat and he became too sick to walk there. Mr Gissing is careful with his health but this was in the days when people died more easily.

On the other hand, he is completely honest and quite humble. Up in the mountans in Catanzaro:
"On the dining-room table one evening lay a little printed bill, which made known that a dramatic company was then in the town. Their entertainment consisted of two parts, the first entitled: "The Death of Agolante and the Madness of Count Orlando"; the second: "A Delightful Comedy, the Devil's Castle with Pulcinella as the Timorous Soldier." In addition were promised "new duets and Neapolitan songs."... It was unpardonable in me that I did not seek out the Teatro delle Varieta... But the night was forbidding; a cold rain fell heavily. Moreover, just as I had thought that it was perhaps worth while to run the risk of another illness—one cannot see the Madness of Count Orlando every day—there came into the room a peddler laden with some fifty volumes of fiction and a fine assortment of combs and shirt-studs. The books tempted me; I looked them through... a real Italian work was discoverable, and, together with the unfriendly sky, it kept me at home. I am sorry now, as for many another omission on my wanderings, when lack of energy or a passing mood of dullness has caused me to miss what would be so pleasant in the retrospect."(P. 119) (73%)

Mr. Gissing often refers to various classical authors, Latin but also others. He was particularly fond of a Roman consul, Cassiodorus, born about 480 CE, whose work he had grappled with in his youth. Towards the end of his long life, Cassiodorus moved down to Calabria and founded a monastery.
"Only one of his monastic brethren is known to us as a man of any distinction: this was Dionysius Exiguus, or the Little, by birth a Scythian, a man of much learning. He compiled the first history of the Councils, and, a matter more important, originated the computation of the Christian Era; for up to this time men had dated in the old way, by shadowy consulships and confusing Indictions. " (p. 144) (90%)

What an accomplishment! And it was here, on the sole of Italy, that it happened. I am reading Thucydides and he divides his chronicle into summer and winter exploits for the years of his history. Each city-state had its own calendar based on who held an important post, or something else incomprehensible. Not tidy at all. “Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night: God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.” As Mr Pope wrote. We can say with him, if less melodiously, "the Scythian monk Dionysious Exiguus came and history was put in order".

Gissing is most famous as a novelist and spokesman for the poor. Criticism of society was part of his personality. Here in Reggio:
"An interesting feature of the streets is the frequency of carved inscriptions, commemorating citizens who died in their struggle for liberty. Amid quiet by-ways, for instance, I discovered a tablet with the name of a young soldier who fell at that spot, fighting against the Bourbon, in 1860: offerse per l'unita della patria sua vita quadrilustre". (sacrificed for the unity of his homeland his twenty-year-old life)
The very insignificance of this young life makes the fact more touching; one thinks of the unnumbered lives sacrificed upon this soil, age after age, to the wild-beast instinct of mankind, and how pathetic the attempt to preserve the memory of one boy, so soon to become a meaningless name! His own voice seems to plead with us for a regretful thought, to speak from the stone in sad arraignment of tyranny and bloodshed. A voice which has no accent of hope. In the days to come, as through all time that is past, man will lord it over his fellow, and earth will be stained red from veins of young and old. That sweet and sounding name of patria becomes an illusion and a curse; linked with the pretentious modernism, civilization, it serves as plea to the latter-day barbarian, ravening and reckless under his civil garb. How can one greatly wish for the consolidation and prosperity of Italy, knowing that national vigour tends more and more to international fear and hatred? They who perished that Italy might be born again, dreamt of other things than old savagery clanging in new weapons. In our day there is but one Italian patriot; he who tills the soil, and sows, and reaps, ignorant or careless of all beyond his furrowed field... "p. 153.

This was written in 1897 when jingoism in Mr Gissings homeland was about to bring on the first Boer War. And it is of course reminiscent of Wilfred Owen's
"My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori."
But it could just as well be about the partition of Yugoslavia or the invasion of Afghanistan by the various nations, or attempts to unite that country. Things do not look good for the future either.

This is an interesting and different travelogue. I began reading it in Swedish – on loan from the library – and found the notes by Pierre and Hélène Coustillas very helpful as was the preface by the translator, Christna Sjöhlom. She explained where Gissing was, "along the journey of his life", when he travelled to Calabria.

I have often considered the English classical education a complete waste of young minds and energy. But here we have a young man who falls so in love with another country – and another time – that visiting places he discovered reading about in Latin prompt a journey, nearly a lifetime later. And finding them as familiar, and as dear, it is difficult not to see something positive in it as well.

[Renee Anderson]

Interesting and opinionated late 1800s travelogue to southern Italy by Brit writer in pursuit of ancient sites.

[AJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

A few years before his untimely end during a period of failing health English Novelist George Robert Gissing's travelog "By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy" recounts a byway excursion to Magna Grecia the land of Roman, Goth, and Greek (to name a few) which captivated him as a boy.

In this memoir Gissing speaks on the glory of ancient times, generals, medieval saints, and statesmen painting us a starry-eyed picture what Italy used to be all the while giving us a lecture on what it had in many ways then as well as in his own mind become (post-Unification 1897-1898).

During his ventures Gissing describes his acquaintances, the people, and the places he discovers and interacts with along his route in a rather colorful, unfiltered and at times brash way, yet not without an equal measure of praise or consideration.

There is some humor to be found in Gissing's self-inflicted predicaments born of an eccentric's journey of unmet expectations that largely consist of bad food and drink, overall discomfort, intellectual stagnation, cultural decay, and a healthy distaste for the crude reality of industrialization.

Gissing comes to terms with these less fortunate surroundings in a self-confession of guilt over his prejudices during an episode in which he is bedridden with a fever that brought him to the verge of death from which he must be nursed back to health by his hostess at the direction of a local doctor.

I recommend this story for anyone with interest in Greco-Roman history desiring a glimpse of an Italian region in times long since past. There is an antiqued style to the writing, but if that doesn't bother you it's an otherwise short and pleasant read none the less.

[Alastair · Rating 4 out of 5]

A dreamy Victorian chap travels through Calabria, Basilicata and Puglia, pondering the classics, observing the locals, drinking wine for breakfast, going off the beaten track … well, to be honest there wasn’t even a beaten track in those days: “very rarely indeed could he show his garden to one from a far-off country”.
Nothing much happens, but somehow that is quite charming:

“Far away, the boats of fishermen floated silently. I heard a rustle as an old fig tree hard by dropped its latest leaves. On the sea-bank of yellow crumbling earth lizards flashed about me in the sunshine. After a dull morning, the day had passed into golden serenity”

In Cotrone (modern-day Crotone) he comes down with malaria for which he is prescribed quinine, steak and Marsala (doctor’s orders), and from his bed observes the comical dramas of his hostess and her staff.

NOTE:
Whilst reading I realised I had forgotten why I had picked this book up, but then in Chapter XII the realisation struck: The owner of the hotel in Catanzaro is called Coriolano Paparazzo, which was the inspiration for the name of Walter Santesso’s role as the photographer in Fellini’s “La dolce vita” - and thus the word paparazzi was born.

[Oanh · Rating 3 out of 5]

George Gissing was a very 19th century English traveller; he travelled with dreams in his head of how he wanted southern Italy to be and when the reality turned out rather differently, he got into a muddle and retreated to his trunk (a trunk! he travelled with a trunk) of books. Rather similar in vibe to Edith Wharton's Where Angels Fear to Tread, except that EW intended to portray the characters' dislocation, discomfort and inappropriate behaviour, and GG may not have. Southern Italy turned out to be neither how GG saw it (in the 19th century, after all), nor how it may have been during the Roman era.

[Ευθυμία Δεσποτάκη · Rating 2 out of 5]

Με προβλημάτισε αυτό το βιβλίο. Δεν ξέρω αν μου αρέσει ή όχι, αν συμπαθώ τον συγγραφέα ή όχι, αν πρέπει να δώσω περισσότερη σημασία στις περιγραφές των τοπίων ή στα όσα περί συγγραφικής κλίκας αναφέρει εδώ κι εκεί. Το μόνο που μου μένει είναι πως κανόνισε και εκτέλεσε ένα ταξίδι από Νοέμβριο ως Φλεβάρη, από Αγγλία σε Ιταλία και Ελλάδα, με τα κέρδη από το πρώτο του βιβλίο. Που σήμερα, λογικά, ίσα ο Στίβεν Κίνγκ να μπορούσε να κάνει κάτι τέτοιο. Αχ, έτσι συντηρείται ο μύθος του μποέμ καλλιτέχνη...

[Gail Pool · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the late 1890s, the writer George Gissing set off on a trip to Southern Italy, an intensely personal journey into Magna Graecia with its ancient Greek ruins. “The names of Greece and Italy draw me as no others;” he writes; “they make me young again, and restore the keen impressions of that time when every new page of Greek or Latin was a new perception of things beautiful.”

Not everything on this rugged journey was beautiful, but Gissing retains his passion throughout, as he travels south from Naples to Calabria and on to Sicily. In Paola, he reflects on Hannibal and the Visigoths. In Taranto, he finds that the fishermen—“their lithe limbs, their attitudes at work or in repose, their wild, black hair”—remind him of “shapes pictured on a classic vase.”

He searches for the Galaesus, Horace’s “beloved river,” and in Metapontum, he thinks of Pythagoras, said to have died there in 497 BC, “broken-hearted at the failure of his efforts to make mankind gentle and reasonable.” Gissing observes that “In 1897 AD that hope had not come much nearer to its realization.” Nor in 2018, this reader would add.

Beyond the allusions to classical history, Gissing describes the daily experience of his trip, vividly recreating scenes—the albergo filthier even than the other filthy albergos with its inedible food and its swindling innkeeper; the surprise of a tasteful building that turns out to be an abattoir; the restaurant where two military men enter together but sit at different tables conversing by shouting across to one another.

Present and past converge dramatically when Gissing falls ill in Cotrone and, in the grip of fever, hallucinates ancient scenes in detail—“great vases,” “sepulchral marbles,” “halls of feasting,” even Hannibal’s soldiers. “The delight of these phantasms,” he says, “was well worth the ten days’ illness which paid for them.”

By the Ionian Sea is, as its title makes clear, the story of a ramble—“a walk for pleasure.” Leisurely, erudite, and quirky, it offers readers a journey not only into the classical and 19th century past, but also into the past of travel writing.

[Gary Reger · Rating 2 out of 5]

George Gissing spent a few weeks exploring Calabria -- the "toe" of the Italian peninsula. He visited towns on the coast and up in the mountains, endured bad hotels and downpours, and defied friends in Naples who'd shuddered in horror at his plans to sojourn in the uncivilized south.

His visit came not too many years before Norman Douglas, who wrote up his experiences in Old Calabria. Gissing's account reads much like a lightly edited printing of his travel journal -- some parts charming, evocative, or insightful, others on the dull side. Nor does the book really end -- it just stops. His training as a journalist seems to have inflected his prose, not always for the better. His stopping points on the trip were few, and much of the region he simply missed. As you would expect, he evokes the deep classical past; the region hosted several important Greek colonies, which at the time were largely unexplored by archaeologists, so Gissing could let his imagination provide scenery.

I'm sad to say that "By the Ionian Sea" hasn't worn all that well. It has the feel of a throw-away for Gissing, and if you are following, sort of, in his footsteps, he's not a great guide, I suspect. (I spent some time traveling in the same general region years ago, before I read Gissing, but didn't hit most of the sites he did.) I found it got tiresome and had to put it down, sometimes for several weeks, before I could return. It's not long, but it took me way longer to get through than its 100+ pages, widish margins, and largish print might have predicted.

[Debi Knight · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyable. I’ve read the book as part of my reading challenge for 2019. This is by a local author, I chose the book randomly by way of it being the cheapest on eBay. I had never read Gissing before, though as a Wakefield lass I knew of him.

A more entertaining book I could not have picked. I love Italy, history, & learning about cultures - perfect book for me. Gissing comes across as an honest observer & one who respects the customs of the country he explores. Wonderful, just wonderful.

Why 4* well I’d have liked some basic illustrations such as maps at the start of each chapter or sketches of the areas visited, as this is non fiction. I’m a visual person so it would have helped me engage even further.

[Herrholz Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Travel is not a genre I turn to as a rule, but having enjoyed reading George Gissing`s novels, the decision to read this account of his experiences in southern Italy was an easy one. Gissing`s literary style - his perceptive and imaginative qualities are here once again exhibited.
The author is interested in visiting the ancient stomping grounds of the behemoths of classical antiquity. While doing so, he is also writing about his experiences with the local people and the environment around the time of his visit in 1898.
For me, the most memorable episode is where he relates his dream-like hallucinations during a period of feverish incapacity - the place he was staying was notorious for the ague at this time. He experiences lucid, vivid visions of people and dramatic events in ancient history and uses his characteristic literary abilities to convey this to the reader.

[Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a mostly pleasant little memoir of a mostly pleasant little tour in 1897. Gissing chose his destinations from readings of Latin and Greek, and seems more interested in comparing the real scenery to what he imagined than in getting to know Calabria in his day. And there are distasteful moments of condescension, as when he asks several passers-by the name of a river and it doesn't match his reading until a "more intelligent-looking" local uses the name that he wants to hear.
Overlooking those lapses, he writes charmingly and does get his nose out of his books enough to draw some vivid characters.

[Jim Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

George Gissing is one of my favorite Victorian novelists. He is known for his extreme social realism and sympathy for the downtrodden of England. He’s not for known for his humor or bon homie. What a delight then, to read By the Ionian Sea, about his travels in Calabria in 1897. Here Gissing is in his element—drawing from his vast knowledge and fascination for the Classical Age and his deep interest in the people of Southern Italy, he writes a travel book which is just as delightful today as when it was written. This made me want to see this part of Italy more than any travel show!

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written at the turn of the century, with the author in declining health, he moves through a region looking for and admiring the fading traces of the Roman and Goth imprints. He writes well and lovingly connects his places to their antecedents in history.

[Emanuela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un viaggio nelle terre della Magna Grecia... nel leggere i passaggi sembra si parli di tempi molto antichi, ma in realtà è ambientato nel 1897..
Le descrizioni sono meticolose e indubbiamente lasciano spazio ai parallelismi con la situazione odierna.

[Kathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

No wonder Gissing undertook this journey alone! A more unlikeable travelling companion it would be hard to imagine! Pretentious, pompous, patronizing, and hypochondriac. I had fun imagining what all the "peasantry" he met along the way thought of him.

[Alex (TheDiscoKing) · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's just this slightly grumpy, really funny Victorian man going on a holiday and not enjoying it very much, best shit I've ever read.

[refgoddess · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good old fashioned travel book, full of classical references, keen observations and personal quests

[Ernest · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Steve TK · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was casting about for something to read on a recent holiday on Kephalonia when I came across this. I've read the odd Gissing novel and always thought it a shame that his name isn't more widely known. Perhaps it's time The Nether World got the BBC costume drama treatment, although I'm not sure how it would go down with the Sunday evening Antiques Roadshow audience.

This book turned out to be the perfect choice. Gissing follows the trail of traces of antiquity along the Ioanian coast, with diverting vignettes of life in small Italian villages at the end of the 19th Century. The landscape on that side of the Ionian had enough in common with the side I was on for me to be able to look up from my Kindle every so often, peer over my beer towards the mountains and ponder. Which sometimes is all you want to manage on holiday.

[Sharen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pleasant reading - like the idea that it was written so long ago yet we can still ramble along together.

[Madeline]

This was my first time to read a book by George Missing and I quite enjoyed his description of his travels in southern Italy. He took a romantic view of a region he had read about from the writing of classical authors but found the country through which he journeyed much more gritty than he had envisioned. The accommodation as he described it was absolutely horrible. And many of the natives of the town's and villages were illiterate peasants like characters out of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It was an entertaining read and I look forward to reading more by George Gissing.