Started: March 11, 2024 | Finished: March 15. 2024
The Odd Women
Feminism and the plight of women is the grand theme of this well-written and engrossing book.
After a satisfying experience reading “New Grub Street” I immediately took up another Gissing novel, this time “The Odd Women” - and I found it just as good.
In Victorian England - according to Gissing - there are half a million more women than men. Therefore a lot of women find themselves without a marriage match. Add to this, the limited work options for women and the male chauvinistic attitude of that time and what we have is a group of women - the odd women - facing particular struggles just to survive, let alone thrive.
In “The Odd Women” we follow the fate of three sisters as they make their way through this system. Beyond the travails of being an “odd woman” Gissing also takes us into what a marriage is like between a man who believes in the traditional role of women in a marriage and woman who has become aware of the burgeoning “feminist” movement of the time.
More than that, Gissing also takes us into the mind and attitude of a woman feminist and a man who is a non-traditionalist.
The writing is top tier. Gissing’s prose flows and he frequently dives into the psychological aspect of the story giving his tales depth. He writes with a somber palette here as in “New Grub Street” but “New Grub Street” is a darker story though not by much.
Once again I have to wonder why Gissing is not better known. Maybe he appeals only to a particular kind of reader; I’m certainly one of them.
In the end “The Odd Women” not only kept me riveted but it gave me a lot for food for thought on the situation of being a woman and how women have been treated by society. This well-crafted book is not only relevant to the Victorian era but also for our own time.