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nvdm's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
rosekk's review against another edition
4.0
I was hooked on this book and spent every spare minute reading it, and yet I found it quite depressing. As a Victorian realist novel it's clearly meant to reflect real life. A different generation of reader, I find myself hoping for some kind of justice or romanticism in the story, which of course there isn't.
kristinana's review against another edition
5.0
(Hint: if you read Victorian novels for the romance and happy endings, and don’t like it when they don’t have a traditional happy ending, you might want to avoid this novel.)
Let me see if I can describe this thing I like about both of the Gissing novels I’ve read (this one and The Odd Women). It starts with the fact that there are no real heroes or villains in the story, just real, complicated characters up against a set of obstacles and needing to make difficult decisions about their lives. (In fact, it’s hard to pinpoint a protagonist; both books are more ensemble pieces.) But what is really Gissing-ish is the way he sucks you into various stories about people who are in love, or who think they are in love, but never backs away from the seriousness of their situations or the idea that maybe they really shouldn’t be together. But here’s the thing: Gissing knows the marriage/love/romance plot inside and out, and he knows how to use the moves that get you (or, maybe I should only apply this to myself) to want something that you know – because he’s already showing you – will not work out. So the whole time I’m reading his books, I can’t help but kinda want characters to get together, even as I’m consciously thinking, “this will never work out.” So at the end, when things don’t go the expected marriage/romance plot direction, you are somehow both surprised and not at all surprised at the same time, as well as chuckling over the cynical marriages that actually do come to pass. This Gissing has some clever, clever moves.
Of course, this novel is not usually thought to be about love or romance; it’s about writing and publishing and trying to make a living as a writer. It’s an age-old but nevertheless deeply compelling question: do you take the chance of working full time on your writing, only to find yourself at the point of starvation as your talent goes unnoticed, try to piece together a living by working at some soul-sucking day job to pay the bills as you write at night, or “sell out” and write solely with a shrewd eye on the market? Gissing knew that only a select few will get rich from writing great novels (in fact, I found out in my Bedford edition that George Eliot was paid 10,000 pounds for Middlemarch! But even with that amazing amount, which was at the top of the pay scale—compare it to the fact that 10 years later, Gissing only received 150 pounds for New Grub Street—consider how much time Eliot must have spent writing her masterpiece!) and that it takes dedicated time and a freedom from the concerns of where the rent money was coming from to really throw yourself into a work of art. It’s a startlingly modern and stark look at the publishing industry and market. (When one character gets rich by re-designing a journal so that no story is longer than 2 inches, so that people can read it on buses and trains, I thought, we really are New Victorians.)
On a final, rather unrelated note, according to my Bedford edition, Gissing’s favorite novelist was Charlotte Bronte, and his favorite novel not Jane Eyre, but Villette. Also, he writes amazing female characters. How can I not like him?
Let me see if I can describe this thing I like about both of the Gissing novels I’ve read (this one and The Odd Women). It starts with the fact that there are no real heroes or villains in the story, just real, complicated characters up against a set of obstacles and needing to make difficult decisions about their lives. (In fact, it’s hard to pinpoint a protagonist; both books are more ensemble pieces.) But what is really Gissing-ish is the way he sucks you into various stories about people who are in love, or who think they are in love, but never backs away from the seriousness of their situations or the idea that maybe they really shouldn’t be together. But here’s the thing: Gissing knows the marriage/love/romance plot inside and out, and he knows how to use the moves that get you (or, maybe I should only apply this to myself) to want something that you know – because he’s already showing you – will not work out. So the whole time I’m reading his books, I can’t help but kinda want characters to get together, even as I’m consciously thinking, “this will never work out.” So at the end, when things don’t go the expected marriage/romance plot direction, you are somehow both surprised and not at all surprised at the same time, as well as chuckling over the cynical marriages that actually do come to pass. This Gissing has some clever, clever moves.
Of course, this novel is not usually thought to be about love or romance; it’s about writing and publishing and trying to make a living as a writer. It’s an age-old but nevertheless deeply compelling question: do you take the chance of working full time on your writing, only to find yourself at the point of starvation as your talent goes unnoticed, try to piece together a living by working at some soul-sucking day job to pay the bills as you write at night, or “sell out” and write solely with a shrewd eye on the market? Gissing knew that only a select few will get rich from writing great novels (in fact, I found out in my Bedford edition that George Eliot was paid 10,000 pounds for Middlemarch! But even with that amazing amount, which was at the top of the pay scale—compare it to the fact that 10 years later, Gissing only received 150 pounds for New Grub Street—consider how much time Eliot must have spent writing her masterpiece!) and that it takes dedicated time and a freedom from the concerns of where the rent money was coming from to really throw yourself into a work of art. It’s a startlingly modern and stark look at the publishing industry and market. (When one character gets rich by re-designing a journal so that no story is longer than 2 inches, so that people can read it on buses and trains, I thought, we really are New Victorians.)
On a final, rather unrelated note, according to my Bedford edition, Gissing’s favorite novelist was Charlotte Bronte, and his favorite novel not Jane Eyre, but Villette. Also, he writes amazing female characters. How can I not like him?
themodvictorian's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
lifesaverscandyofficial's review against another edition
5.0
I trucked along and I trucked along, reading this at the recommendation of my workshop prof last semester, being like, "haha, this is funny, this is about media twitter but in the 1880s," and then a character went on an extended monologue about moving to Chicago on a whim and having the most creatively prosperous time in his life and living in a boardinghouse with 12 actors and how his editor was the nicest man he knew and he saw Lake Michigan and I was like, oh wow, I've been thoroughly owned.
bookmarkhoarder's review against another edition
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
uriah's review against another edition
5.0
I have truly never read a classic where I've loved the characters so much! It's a wonder why this isn't as well known as Dickens and Austen.
jasonfurman's review against another edition
5.0
An excellent nineteenth century novel about writers and writing, feels more like [a:Honoré de Balzac|228089|Honoré de Balzac|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1206567834p2/228089.jpg] than any other English novels I can think of ([b:David Copperfield|58696|David Copperfield|Charles Dickens|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1461452762l/58696._SY75_.jpg|4711940] is also about a writer but he basically goes from success to success in his writing career, a little like Charles Dickens, so the writing industry aspect of it is not what is most interesting). It has a set of writers that range from cynical to literary to realistic to aloof to critics all jostling around, putting out three volume books, two volume books, articles, waging fights under their own names and anonymously, and mixing this all up with the support, love, rejection, and more of a cast of women that in many cases are forces in their own right. It has a little bit of the feeling of La Bohème except instead of the artistic production being in the background as a romantic source of poverty it is in the foreground as the point of the book.
New Grub Street reads a bit like it was written in a rush (and evidently it was), it has a certain amount of excess, characters come in and out (especially Howard Biffin coming in) in ways that do not make complete sense, the plot is a little baggy at times. I appreciated how I could never tell which author(s) George Gissing was identifying with, he did a decent job of sympathizing in various ways with almost but not quite all of them in a way that embraced complexity and nuance with no real heroes or villains.
I should say this has been on my TBR list ever since I read the [b:Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem|1067289|Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem|Peter Ackroyd|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1351574124l/1067289._SY75_.jpg|913787] by [a:Peter Ackroyd|16881|Peter Ackroyd|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1232835556p2/16881.jpg] a quarter century ago, Gissing is a character in that excellent novel.
New Grub Street reads a bit like it was written in a rush (and evidently it was), it has a certain amount of excess, characters come in and out (especially Howard Biffin coming in) in ways that do not make complete sense, the plot is a little baggy at times. I appreciated how I could never tell which author(s) George Gissing was identifying with, he did a decent job of sympathizing in various ways with almost but not quite all of them in a way that embraced complexity and nuance with no real heroes or villains.
I should say this has been on my TBR list ever since I read the [b:Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem|1067289|Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem|Peter Ackroyd|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1351574124l/1067289._SY75_.jpg|913787] by [a:Peter Ackroyd|16881|Peter Ackroyd|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1232835556p2/16881.jpg] a quarter century ago, Gissing is a character in that excellent novel.