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.

Bored of seeing the same novels listed on every "must-read Victorian novels" list, I searched for lists of lesser-known Victorian works and found The Odd Women by George Gissing. George Orwell called The Odd Women one of Gissing's "masterpieces." I'd honestly never heard of Gissing before. Though perhaps not as verbose or witty as other Victorian authors like Dickens or Wilde, Gissing was, as the kids say, woke. For one, this is the most feminist Victorian novel I've ever read (had to keep reminding myself this was written by a dude born in 1857). I think I'd be hard-pressed to find a Victorian novel more progressive on the subject of gender roles.

As to the title: it was purported that there were half a million more women than men in Britain at the time this was written (1893) and thus the women were unable to be paired off in marriage; many of these women were also, punnily enough, seen as strange because they were intelligent, independent, and had no choice but to be self-sustaining.

The plot follows a few characters--sisters who are left orphaned, two women fully entrenched in the "movement" (presumably that of the New Women) who run a vocational school for women, a conservative older man who believes women belong in the home, and a man who has reformed his initial narrow-minded view of women and now greatly admires/is fascinated by women with independent thought--and heavily focuses on the institution (and associated perils) of marriage and women's emancipation from it. I mean heavily. It's all anyone talks about for all ~430 pages of the novel. You'd think that'd be boring, but it was pretty interesting to read from all the different perspectives of the flawed, complex female characters (Rhoda Nunn is a standout here and I'm not sure why she isn't classed as one of the great female characters of the 19th century).

This is a novel that offers refreshingly wonderful female characters. It's also a great resource for anyone studying the first wave of feminism or interested in how Gissing's so-called "odd women" of the 1890s navigated and thrived in society.

3.75 ⭐️

The writing is not too bad, as it reads easily, but the story is pretty mundane and directionless, with women in various stages of late-nineteenth-century feminism circling in or around the institution of marriage, and then ending up exactly where they started. Some critics claim that THE ODD WOMEN is a naturalist novel, in which everything must and will revert back to its original state of entropy. But I never got emotionally invested even in the characters’ long circle back to their original states. Overall, a mindless, slightly pleasant but mostly forgettable read.