Book Review: The Odd Women by George Gissing

The Odd Women is my third Gissing of the year, following earlier reviews of New Grub Street and The Emancipated. Chronologically, this one comes later and it draws on the themes of The Emancipated but in a much more coherent and pleasurable style. It tells the story of a group of 'odd women', that is women who have no hope of finding a husband because of the surplus and those who are actually 'strange'. It's a commentary on the marriage and employment markets for women and the rigid attitudes, both external and internal, which prevent women doing what they would like.

A number of women are introduced throughout the book. The main characters are Rhoda Nunn, Mary Barfoot and the three Madden sisters - Alice, Virginia and Monica. Rhoda and Mary run a secretarial school and the elder Madden sisters push Monica into bettering her prospects by learning these skills instead of working in a shop. However, Monica has been accosted by a strange, and fairly well-off, man, and chooses to marry him instead. Much of the novel documents her irritation with her husband's desperation for their isolation and her temptation by another man.

The other main strand of the novel is Rhoda's relationship with Mary's cousin Everard. This is the more fascinating strand, though the two do collide at different points. After first meeting Rhoda, Everard wants to see if he can make her fall in love with him and therefore test her opposition to love and marriage. He eventually falls for her but the struggle between them occupies a central part of the book. Misunderstandings and personality differences combine to impede any chance of a marriage between them.

With Gissing, I'm learning that not only will I be disconcerted throughout the reading of a book but I will also be a little miffed by the ending. The Odd Women is on a par with New Grub Street in this respect, leaving the reader pondering the other permutations the book could've left them with. In this sense, it was certainly a book that lingered with me for a few days.

Rhoda is an excellent character, full of contradictions that she's aware of and tries to reconcile with each other. The last picture of her in the narrative is a powerful one. On the other side of the coin, Monica is irritating, though she does mature a little as the book goes on. The contrast between the woman who doesn't need a husband and the one who wants the security of one could be heavy-handed but Gissing portrays Rhoda's struggles and Monica's realisations effectively. For me, one of the best scenes of the novel is the final encounter between Rhoda and Monica.

There are many incidental characters who tended to get confused in my head. Of the other more prominent characters, though, it's Virginia with her concealed alcoholism who stands out. It's half-funny, half-tragic and I do like the fact that both she and Alice get a reasonable due at the end of the novel.

Overall, I enjoyed The Odd Women. It didn't take as long to get going as The Emancipated and had a similar, strong female character at the heart of it who captured my attention. Definitely a book I'd like to re-read in the future.

Book Review: The Emancipated by George Gissing

First published in 1890, The Emancipated tells the story of a group of English people who encounter each other in Naples. Miriam Baske, a young and recent widow, has travelled abroad with the Spences to regain her health. Also in the area is artist Ross Mallard, an under-appreciated landscape painter. During his stay, his ward and Miriam's cousin Cecily Doran arrives with her chaperone, Mrs Lessingham. It soon becomes clear that Mallard has feelings for his ward but tries to battle them by remaining aloof from her. Also arriving in Naples, though, is Miriam's brother Reuben who immediately takes a shine to the new and improved Cecily. He is a useless young man who hopes to make a career in literature but has no definite plans. Mallard tries to steer him away from Cecily but this proves hopeless and matters are taken out of his hands.

There are a few things I found difficult with this novel. Firstly, the scope is off-putting. As well as the characters mentioned there are various others we are introduced to, and share the lives and thoughts of, including the Denyers - a mother and her three daughters who she has made as pretentious as possible. They are searching for husbands. Madeline has a potential suitor in another artist, Clifford Marsh, while Barbara is cultivating a friendship with the older Mr Musslewhite. Gissing diverges far too much from his main plot to deal with these situations, and to little effect. The novel would have been better if it had been more compact and focused solely on the thoughts and feelings of the main players. The Denyers do create a neat contrast to Cecily, though, and what happens to Madeline in the second half of the book makes her marginally more interesting.

However, all that said, Cecily is a rather boring character with little personality, especially in the first half of the book. She's a typical nineteenth-century woman, attractive to three of the men in the novel in an almost tiresome way. Far more interesting is Miriam, a Puritan who battles with her religious devotion and struggles at first to immerse herself in the beauty of Italy in case she is betraying her values. Her alteration throughout the novel is measured well by Gissing and she is by far his most successful character in The Emancipated. Ross Mallard is a reasonable creation and it's his growing relationship with Miriam that fascinated me most.

Another issue I had with the book was the fact that the first quarter seems to be a travel guide to Italy. After saying that the beauty of Naples is so well-known that it needn't be described, Gissing spends a lot of time describing it. This means that the story doesn't feel like it gets going until later on. Actually I pinpointed this on the Kindle copy I was reading from as 44% of the way through - at that point I began to want to know what would happen next. This desire didn't kick in properly, however, until three-quarters of the way through the book. I was glad I persevered with it but I know many people probably wouldn't bother.

Book Review: New Grub Street by George Gissing

New Grub Street is a biting analysis of literary London in the late nineteenth century. First published in 1891, it tells the story of a group of writers and their dependants. Jasper Milvain fashions himself as a 'modern' literary man, someone who will turn his hand to anything and fully expects it to be forgotten as soon as it has been read. He aims for financial success, not literary merit. In sharp opposition to him is his face, Edwin Reardon, a man of considerable talent who has faded under the grip of poverty. He cannot write well and so does not want to write at all. His wife, Amy, despairs of what she sees as his inability to try and a break emerges between them. In addition to this trio, other important characters in the novel include Milvain's sisters, Maud and Dora, who move to London when their mother dies and try to support themselves writing fiction, Harold Biffen, another impoverished writer, and the Yule family. Amy's cousin, Marian, catches Jasper's eye early in the novel but her poverty repels him. Marian has been helping her father, Alfred, research and write for years and dislikes her life. Both Amy and Marian live in the hope of a small legacy from their paternal uncle which would alleviate their stresses.

The main characters in this novel are easily distinguishable, though occasionally the supporting cast of names can get a little confusing. But, for the most part, this novel is about Milvain and Reardon and their differing fortunes. The depiction of Milvain towards the end of the book is very clever: although his star has risen, there's the sense that something is missing from his life. This provides an ambiguous conclusion to a life where everything has been decided on businesslike terms.

For Reardon, life is completely different. Once he and Amy part, there is the sense of inevitability about his fate and perhaps Gissing dwells too much on his poverty. However, as a character, he serves to demonstrate that non-commercial writing, however brilliant, can lead to destitution. It's a stinging indictment of not only the literary world at the time but the public which gobbled up three volume novels of no substance and failed to appreciate the talent of 'real' storytellers. Harold Biffen is another casualty of such a system, putting much effort into a realist novel about a grocer with the full knowledge that the public will not read such a story. The dual fates of Reardon and Biffen are a sad by-product of the 'trade' of literature.

New Grub Street is an excellent, if ultimately depressing book. There are some scenes of humour - including a daring rescue from a burning building which perhaps should not be as amusing as it is - but, for the most part, it is bleak and unrelenting. No character is wholly good, in the same way that no character in wholly bad. Reardon's pride adds to the wounds inflicted by his literary failures and Biffen's sudden affection for a woman assists in his downfall. As I said above, Milvain may prosper but it may not bring him complete happiness. This is a book about fortune and about the 'trade' of literature, something as hotly debated now as it was a century ago.