The Nether World in The Obscure Reading Group

Jan 19, 2023 Laysee rated it really liked it

I cannot explain why I have so much trouble trying to recall the author’s name. I kept thinking ‘Henry Hissing’ and knew it was wrong. Silly me. I also wondered why I have never heard of him until the Obscure Reading Group picked his notable 1889 work for a group read.

George Gissing (1857 – 1903) was an English novelist, a realist writer of the late Victorian era, who had published 23 novels. His writing reminded me very much of Charles Dickens, an author I revere.

The Nether World painted a ve I cannot explain why I have so much trouble trying to recall the author’s name. I kept thinking ‘Henry Hissing’ and knew it was wrong. Silly me. I also wondered why I have never heard of him until the Obscure Reading Group picked his notable 1889 work for a group read.

George Gissing (1857 – 1903) was an English novelist, a realist writer of the late Victorian era, who had published 23 novels. His writing reminded me very much of Charles Dickens, an author I revere.

The Nether World painted a very bleak and brutal picture of life in Victorian London amongst the working poor. Gissing’s evocative prose allowed me to visualize the gloomy streets, the tiny rooms inhabited by bone-weary parents and hungry or sickly children, feel the harshness of winter when threadbare clothing was no protection, share the anxiety and desperation of folks who struggle to make ends meet. I believe Gissing wrote this novel from first-hand experience of poverty.

Here is a description of life in Clerkenwell:

”Go where you may in Clerkenwell, on every hand are multiform evidences of toil, intolerable as a nightmare…Here every alley is thronged with small industries; all but every door and window exhibits the advertisement of a craft that is carried on within, Here you may see how men have multiplied toil for toil’s sake, have wrought to devise work superfluous, have worn their lives away in imagining new forms of weariness… But that those who sit here through the livelong day, through every season, through all the years of the life that is granted them, who strain their eyesight, who overtax their muscles, who nurse disease in their frames, who put resolutely from them the thought of what existence might be – that these do it all without prospect or hope for reward save the permission to eat and sleep and bring into the world other creatures to strive with them for bread, surely that thought is yet more marvellous.”

Hard work alone does not make life in Clerkenwell the nether world. Gissing presented a world in which coming into unexpected wealth ironically precipitated great evil and suffering. Avaricious and self-serving individuals went all out to take what was not theirs when elderly Michael Snowdon came into a handsome inheritance This story illustrates the Biblical truth that the love of money is the root of all evil. One of the key characters, Kirkwood reflected, “There shall be no possibility of perfect faith between men until there is no such thing as money!”.

Gissing filled the nether world with detestable and cruel characters. Top of this vicious clan were Clem Peckover and her landlord mother who derived pleasure from starving their housemaid, Jane Snowdon. The latter was forced to sleep next to a coffin. The Peckover pests schemed and plotted to rob the rightful Snowdon heirs of their inherited wealth.

On top of poverty, there was domestic violence which simply made life hell. Consider Bob Hewett, a good-for-nothing loafer and odd-job laborer who battered his wife, Pennyloaf, and was glad when their baby died at birth. Nether world indeed.

One would hope that at least romance or love will save the day and make life more bearable for the protagonists, Cinderella-like Jane and Sidney Kirkwood, the first man who showed her kindness. However, the nether world extended into the romance department, too, with contenders (Clara Hewett and Clem Peckover) seeking Kirkwood’s attention and affection. You have to read the plotting, scheming, and emotional blackmail that made it all but impossible for true love to bring deliverance.

Like Dickens, Gissing was a master storyteller. He kept me turning pages even though round about chapter 24, I was worn out by all the venom amongst fighting and clawing females. That episode with the two aspiring actresses (Clara Hewett and Grace Rudd) vying for stardom was shocking. Gissing deserved credit for excellent characterization. His characters were so fully developed we know them well enough to predict decisions they would undertake, behaviors that were consistent with who Gissing made them out to be. Sometimes I wish they would act out of character (think Kirkwood). But in the nether world, this too was impossible.

Read The Nether World. It is a supremely well-written classic. Thank you, Obscure Group, for putting this book on my radar. Great pick for group read and discussion. ...more

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Feb 03, 2023 Ken added it

Shelves: finished-in-2023

A pleasant surprise and nice how-do-you-do to a previously unknown Victorian author.

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Feb 06, 2023 Kathleen rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, setting-england

“To stab the root of a young tree, to hang crushing burdens upon it, to rend off its early branches—that is not the treatment likely to result in growth such as nature purposed. There will come of it a vicious formation, and the principle applies also to the youth of men.”

It’s the 1870’s, in the London slum of Clerkenwell. An old man has just arrived from Australia, and he’s looking for his son. We meet characters of a variety of ages, occupations and family situations, but with one thing in com “To stab the root of a young tree, to hang crushing burdens upon it, to rend off its early branches—that is not the treatment likely to result in growth such as nature purposed. There will come of it a vicious formation, and the principle applies also to the youth of men.”

It’s the 1870’s, in the London slum of Clerkenwell. An old man has just arrived from Australia, and he’s looking for his son. We meet characters of a variety of ages, occupations and family situations, but with one thing in common: they are all struggling to survive or have intimately known that struggle. This isn’t a story of clashing classes. We’re deep inside the nether world where there is only one class--the poor, and we go down their streets, into their homes, and into their lives.

George Gissing uses a sort of smorgasbord of Victorian literary styles: settings written with the intensity I loved in Wuthering Heights; authorial intrusions of compassionate social commentary similar to George Eliot; Dickensian names, like Clem Peckover and Pennyloaf Candy. He adds to this mix his own flair for characterization and plot, giving his people detailed, diverse and realistic longings and showing how their fates ebb and flow with the twists and turns of his story.

It’s a strongly plot-driven novel, but one that revolves around a social condition: poverty. Gissing apparently had some experience of his own with this condition, and he has some opinions about what keeps people in this wretched state. Yes, he gives his own opinions to the reader at times, but they’re also effectively shown through the high-stakes lives of his characters.

I haven’t read Gissing before, and I’m very impressed with his gritty, unsentimental prose, something that feels modern and refreshing in a Victorian novel. I look forward to exploring more of his work.

“If only we had pity on one another, all the worst things we suffer from in this world would be at an end. It’s because men’s hearts are hard that life is so full of misery.” ...more

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Jan 24, 2023 Matthew Ted rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2023, 19th-century, lit-british

14th book of 2023.

3.5. This is what I wanted from Dickens's Hard Times, funnily enough. In fact, this novel could easily be called Hard Times and not The Nether World. Gissing's chosen title sits more in line with some Dantean vision of those who struggled in late Victorian England to work and support their families. The novel surrounds a number of characters all entwined with one another, all of them trying to make their way in life. I found numerous plot points modern almost and ahead of their ...more

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Feb 08, 2023 Sue rated it really liked it

Shelves: 19th-century, classics, britain, kindle, read-2023, historical-fiction

Read this with The Obscure Reading Group and it has turned out to be a surprisingly good experience. Very Victorian in its portrait of the lower class of workers, of people, in England, more specifically London, in the late 19th century. This is the “nether world” of which Gissing writes, a world of no promise, with no upward mobility possible.

As the novel begins, the narrator outlines the world he sees and the varied futures awaiting each person depending on where, what street, and to which par ...more

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Feb 10, 2023 Plateresca added it

Shelves: fiction, not-for-me, victorian

In the introduction to the Oxford World's Classics edition, Stephen Gill says,
"Gissing's 'testimony against the accursed social order' is eloquent, unflinching, and without hope."
I think that one couldn't describe this book better, so, basically, you don't have to read my review below :)

This book was definitely not for me, so I don't think I should be rating it. If I was, I'd have to give it one star because I did not enjoy it at all, but let me explain: I did not want to read this particular b ...more

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Apr 06, 2023 Cherisa B rated it liked it · review of another edition

Negative and depressing, author extremely biased against the poor being lesser people of their just desserts. In the fashion of Dickens without the hopefulness or chance of betterment.

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Mar 18, 2023 Cindy Newton rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classic-lit-english, owned-books, kindle, sad, read-with-a-group

I read this with the Obscure Group and enjoyed it (although I was REALLY behind and didn't participate in the group chat until everyone else had finished). The book is a glimpse into the desperate struggle for survival that defined the lives of those living in extreme poverty in 19th-century England. It doesn't focus on the criminal element, although some of the characters do eventually cross that line.

The story follows the fortunes of a young girl, Jane Snowdon and her family, the struggling H ...more

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Jan 27, 2023 BarbaraW rated it it was amazing

Nice to read about the Have Nots in the Victorian era. Very sad and thought provoking. Book got richer as I kept reading. Excellent character development. Lots of group stories all woven together and ending had some surprises. Glad my Obscure Reading Group picked this one.

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Feb 18, 2023 Dawn Tessman rated it really liked it

A story depicting the London slums in the 1800s. Filled with realism, this novel is far from cheery, but is an incredibly detailed and authentic view into the working class way of life, the landscape, and culture of the times. As a matter of fact, while most readers of Classics have a good grasp of the London poor as portrayed by authors like Dickens, Gissing opened my eyes to aspects of history of which I was not yet aware (e.g., “housing farmers,” “bank holiday” celebrations, etc.) and/or made A story depicting the London slums in the 1800s. Filled with realism, this novel is far from cheery, but is an incredibly detailed and authentic view into the working class way of life, the landscape, and culture of the times. As a matter of fact, while most readers of Classics have a good grasp of the London poor as portrayed by authors like Dickens, Gissing opened my eyes to aspects of history of which I was not yet aware (e.g., “housing farmers,” “bank holiday” celebrations, etc.) and/or made things that were obvious more tangible (e.g., industry’s negative impact on the skilled craftsman through Bob Hewett’s story). With respect to writing style, I feel Gissing closely resembles Thomas Hardy, who would have been his contemporary. The manner in which the story opens and the painstaking illustration of the old man in the first couple paragraphs were especially reminiscent to me of the opening scene in The Mayor of Casterbridge, which drew me in immediately. That said, while I appreciate the level of detail that went into establishing the setting, I feel the author did not apply this same level of skill in the development of his characters. All in all, a convincing story and lesson in philanthropy told exceptionally well which will give readers pause, but not the escape from reality that some may be seeking.

Thanks to the Obscure Reading Group for introducing me to an unknown author!

(Incidentally, Gissing wrote from personal experience. Not only having lived in Clerkenwell, but also having been jailed for stealing money to rescue a young prostitute named Nell from the streets whom he later married and then divorced, he had a firsthand account of the typical life of the London poor. Writing in his diary about his estranged wife’s death after viewing the body, which was presumably the catalyst to writing The Nether World, Gissing shares…

“Linen she had none; the very covering of the bed had gone save one sheet and one blanket. I found a number of pawn tickets, showing that she had pledged these things during last summer, - when it was warm, poor creature! All the money she received went in drink …
She lay on the bed covered with a sheet. I looked long, long at her face, but could not recognize it. It is more than three years, I think, since I saw her. And she had changed horribly. …
Came home to a bad, wretched night. In nothing am I to blame; I did my utmost; again and again I had her back to me. Fate was too strong. But as I stood beside that bed, I felt that my life henceforth had a firmer purpose. Henceforth I never cease to bear testimony against the accursed social order that brings about things of this kind. I feel that she will help me more in her death than she balked me during her life. Poor, poor thing!”)

A quick comment on the edition - I read the Public Domain Kindle version, which was horrible in that it was reproduced unfaithfully and, therefore, filled with errors in the text making it a frustrating read. I would recommend picking up a physical copy, instead. ...more

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