5 stars-

This is a masterpiece. One of the best books I’ve read this year, and one of the best Victorian novels that I’ve ever read.

Extremely complicated characterization, tight writing, gripping plot, and melancholy atmosphere. Explicitly feminist- one of the most directly feminist novels I’ve ever read, and this was written in 1893 by a man. Completely massacres the stereotypical Victorian ending.

A tragic but relevant story about the lives of a few “odd women,” unmarried women in Victorian society as a result of there being a massive (to the tune of around a million) disparity of female population vs male population. How did these women, who didn’t have a lot of money or great education, make lives for themselves? Do they marry anyone they can, even if they don’t love them? Do they learn skills like typewriting so they can obtain office work? Do they take it upon themselves to help other women be successful? Or do they drink all of their problems away?

Absolute destruction of the Victorian marriage ideal, women’s traditional roles in society, and romance. Gissing is sympathetic, sensitive, and very in tune with the lives of his characters, and writes an extremely realistic novel which was heart-wrenching, shocking, and thought-provoking.

What a tragedy that this author is almost forgotten! Out of 23 novels, MAYBE 2-3 of them are read. And even those couple of novels are pretty obscure to the general reading public.

Classics can be intimidating, but the writing here is super accessible. If any of this would appeal to you in a modern novel, definitely pick this one up. It completely swept me off my feet.

I wish I'd read this book when I was still teaching. It would have made a great addition to my Victorian Lit. or Nineteenth-Century novel classes. Gissing's book explores the position of women in late nineteenth-century England, when social and legal strictures prevented them from attaining education and career opportunities enabling them to be self-sufficient. Custom and law restricted women to the domestic sphere whenever possible, leaving women unable to marry or trapped in bad marriages to suffer. The book follows the lives of several connected women through spinsterhood, oppressive marriage, or unmarried and working to win women the right to financial, intellectual, and emotional independence - as well as the men connected to them. Gissing also looks at how men become limited by the social system, financially and socially powerful, but often frustrated when married to women who are helpless or have become selfish and sneaky to beat the system. With well developed characters, Gissing explores the thoughts and feelings of men and women trapped by this system and creates emotional and suspenseful situations naturally derived from their conditions that will keep you in suspense as well as give you something to think about.

I realize that the point is lost on me. So sue me for liking love stories. I should have quit after Chapter 29. I loved it until the end of 29. Grrrr.

At no point was I floored by Gissing as a writer. He is one of those where you can see snatches of talent shining through in particularly poignant phrases, but it’s only here and there. For example the book opened with:

“"Mrs. Madden- having given birth to six daughters, had fulfilled her function in this wonderful world”

There is such gravitas in that sentence, especially in the contact of the rest of the scene where the audience is introduced immediately to a doubtful figure of a father who continues to put off action that would provide for his children. And he dies, leaving few savings to his untrained girls. It sentences like that, and a few excellent quips in arguments, that lets you know Gissing could be powerful, but more often than not I feel that the characters are one dimensional, we never see or understand their retinence to make a decision, or sometimes their actions seem flamboyant with little to know description of why things suddenly became so heated. In the end the narrative falls a little flat.

We then skip a head a number of years. Half of the sisters are dead from sickness, overwork, and suicide (all really results of the aforementioned overwork). There were several complains in our book club that skipping straight to their destitution made it hard to relate to the characters. People wanted to know more about their suffering. I think it’s important to realize that their suffering is not what this book is really about, at least not in my opinion.

It was not difficult in this time to see the suffering of the underprivileged. It wasn’t required for Gissing to reintroduce you to it, it was common knowledge, what he wants to talk about is the venues open to women to improve their station, and what they can expect from that. That is why the book follows in equal parts Monica, who decides to wed, and Rhoda who is a fanatical feminist trying to carve a new path for women. You continue to see the sisters and others working in the background as a reminder of what WAS happening in Britain.

Gissing spend a lot of time developing rhetoric around the different “feminist questions” that were being put to the task in Victorian England, questions such as is it better for a woman to wed or is marriage a naturally degrading conformity required by society. Such questions are still asked today, so its an interesting look back. Still most of his female characters are frustrating and often petty or jealous, so I feel like he backslid in the argument he was trying to make.

In the end it was an interesting look back into early feminism. There were discussions on society and class structure that certainly made at least one chapter of the book deeper than the rest. However, in the end, it just didn’t stack up for me. I won’t be rushing off to read more Gissing.

”So many odd women—no making a pair with them.”

Before I read this book, I thought of only one meaning of the word “odd”: strange, unusual. The sentence above from Chapter IV brought to focus another meaning. If there are “half a million more women than men” in England and their main purpose is to be married off, what is there to do with the left-overs?—the so-called woman question.

Rhoda Dunn is determined to train the many women who are fit for it. She wishes the workforce of females, those barely surviving on low wages in menial jobs, would, instead of “creeping to their garrets and hospitals” to die were dying “of hunger in the streets” for the “crowd to stare at,” though she admits the crowd “might only congratulate each other that a few of the superfluous females had been struck off.”

With this novel’s irony and humor, I thought of [a:George Meredith|12222|George Meredith|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1228520584p2/12222.jpg]’s [b:The Ordeal of Richard Feverel|20708|The Ordeal of Richard Feverel|George Meredith|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386925723l/20708._SY75_.jpg|407516] (1859), a novel satirizing the ridiculousness of social mores. In the tense relationship between Rhoda and Everard, as well as with a young woman’s marriage to an older man, I was reminded of [a:Constance Fenimore Woolson|182611|Constance Fenimore Woolson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1383608610p2/182611.jpg]’s [b:East Angels|21079237|East Angels|Constance Fenimore Woolson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1394240132l/21079237._SY75_.jpg|13487769] (1886).

I’d read Gissing’s [b:New Grub Street|782519|New Grub Street|George Gissing|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1414700331l/782519._SY75_.jpg|768534] (1891) years ago and, though it is relentlessly depressing a la [a:Émile Zola|4750|Émile Zola|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1544927603p2/4750.jpg], I loved it. This Gissing of two years later is not depressing, though sad things do happen. The novel references the occupations deemed fit for a woman because they are the ones men hold in contempt. It mentions the use of religion by “most men” as an “instrument for directing the female conscience.” Much of it feels relevant still.

I read this because Gerald Murnane admired George Gissing and I was curious about what he saw in Gissing's novels. I'm not sure what exactly he saw but I liked this book enough to start another book by Gissing.

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This wasn't what I expected. As much as I enjoy escapism, I really dig these novels of realism. There is a connection with characters, love them or loath them, that reaches a whole different level.

I expected this to be a little dry, albeit interesting for it's ideas on emancipation. Instead, I became quite involved, if in a detached way, in the individual lives and stories, along with admiring the concepts and ideals behind it all.

The dramas that unfold are unromantic - offering neither the heart-flutterings of Austen nor the grit of Eliot. We're given real women, real possibilities, and, utterly believable endings. I found myself torn between heart and mind, but ultimately satisfied and proud to be classed amongst Woman.

Gissing writes well, if not as elegantly as some other writers of his era, but it suits his perspective.